While the court battle between Elon Musk and OpenAI may have drawn more eyes Monday, another case getting underway could carry far broader implications for personal freedom.
The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments in a case that will determine the legality of geofencing, a technique law enforcement uses to mine location history data to identify who was near the scene of a crime and may have been involved.
Geofencing, in essence, draws a virtual perimeter around a crime scene. The government then obtains a warrant requiring tech companies to search their location data for anyone within that area during the relevant time frame. In the current case, Google’s location history data was used to identify the person ultimately convicted.
Opponents argue the process violates the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable government searches and seizures. In an increasingly digital world, however, the amendment’s boundaries have become murkier.
“Geofence warrants are an unprecedented increase in the government’s ability to locate individuals without substantial investigation or investment of resources,” writes the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers in a statement. “[They] are general warrants—which are prohibited by the Fourth Amendment—because they are devoid of probable cause and particularity.”
Chatrie v. United States
The case at the center of the Supreme Court hearing is Chatrie v. United States. Okello Chatrie is currently serving a 12-year prison sentence for robbing a credit union near Richmond, Virginia. Police used a geofence warrant to identify him, which his legal team argues was unconstitutional.
The 4th Circuit U.S. District Court disagreed. Around the same time, however, a similar case before the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reached the opposite conclusion, finding that people have a reasonable expectation of privacy in location history data. Both cases centered on Google location history.
