Supreme Court to hear GPS surveillance case
Privacy Rights Monday, November 7th, 2011
By: Emily Babay | WashingtonExaminer.com
It sounds a bit like Big Brother: Police can place a GPS device on your car to follow all of your movements, for any length of time.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday is scheduled to hear arguments about whether investigators need to get a warrant before doing so.
Legal experts say the case, which stems from a D.C. nightclub owner’s conviction on drug charges, is one of the most important Fourth Amendment cases in decades, and will determine how police conduct investigations and privacy in the high-tech age.
“No one believes that GPS surveillance by law enforcement is inappropriate,” said John Verdi, senior counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center. “The question is: What is the standard that law enforcement will be held to? Is law enforcement simply permitted to track anyone, at any time, for no reason?”
The nightclub owner, Antoine Jones, was arrested on Oct. 24, 2005 on cocaine-distribution charges after police used a GPS device to track his vehicle for a month. He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. D.C. police initially obtained a warrant for the GPS, but it expired. Now the government now argues it never needed one.
To read more, visit: http://washingtonexaminer.com/local/crime-punishment/2011/11/supreme-court-hear-gps-surveillance-case
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