Supreme Court Ruling Prompts FBI to Turn Off 3,000 Tracking Devices

A Supreme Court decision has caused a "sea change" in law enforcement, prompting the FBI to turn off nearly 3,000 Global Positioning System (GPS) devices used to track suspects, according to the agency's general counsel. When the decision-U.S. v. Jones-was released at the end of January, agents were ordered to stop using GPS devices immediately and told to await guidance on retrieving the devices, FBI general counsel Andrew Weissmann said in a recent talk at a University of San Francisco conference. Weissmann said the court's ruling lacked clarity and the agency needs new guidance or it risks having cases overturned. The Jones case stemmed from the conviction of night club owner Antoine Jones on drug charges. Law enforcement had used a variety of techniques to link him to co-conspirators in the case, including information gathered from a GPS device that was placed on a Jeep primarily used by Jones. Law enforcement had no valid warrant to place the device on the car. Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for a five-member majority, held that the installation and use of the device constituted a search under the Fourth Amendment based on trespass grounds. The ruling overturned Jones' conviction. "It is important to be clear about what occurred in this case," Scalia wrote. "The government physically occupied private property for the purpose of obtaining information. We have no doubt that such a physical intrusion would have been considered a 'search' within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment." It was a narrow ruling only directly impacting those devices that were physically placed on vehicles. Weissmann said it wasn't Scalia's majority opinion that caused such turmoil in the bureau, but a concurring opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito. Alito, whose opinion was joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan, agreed with the Court's conclusion in the case but wrote separately because his legal reasoning differed from the majority. Alito focused not on the attachment of the device, but the fact that law enforcement monitored Jones for about a month. Alito said "the use of longer-term GPS monitoring in investigations of most offenses impinges on expectations of privacy." He also suggested that Scalia's reliance on laws of trespass, will "provide no protection" for surveillance accomplished without committing a trespass...more