On The Front Lines
Decrying Threats to Privacy, The Rutherford Institute Asks U.S. Supreme Court to Declare Warrantless GPS Use by Police Unconstitutional
WASHINGTON, D.C.--Decrying the threat to individual privacy posed by advances in surveillance technology, The Rutherford Institute has filed an amicus curiae brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in United States v. Jones, a case that will decide the legality of warrantless use of Global Positioning System (GPS) devices by police to track the movements of individuals. At issue in the case is whether police violated the Fourth Amendment's prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures when they charged and convicted Antoine Jones with involvement in a drug conspiracy on the basis of evidence obtained by attaching a GPS device to his automobile that constantly monitored his movements for over a month.
Insisting that individuals have a reasonable expectation that they will not be subject to constant monitoring by the government, and that escalating secretive technological surveillance violates an individual's reasonable expectation of privacy, Rutherford Institute attorneys have asked the Supreme Court to uphold the decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to suppress the evidence obtained using GPS surveillance.
The Rutherford Institute's brief in United States v. Jones is available here.
"We have entered a new and frightening age when advancing technology is erasing the Fourth Amendment," said John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute. "Indeed, if the courts do not step in and protect against police searches and surveillance, privacy as we have known it will go the way of the graveyard."
In September 2005, without Antoine Jones's knowledge or consent, police placed a GPS device on the undercarriage of Jones' Jeep vehicle while it was parked in a public lot in Maryland. GPS devices use orbiting satellites to produce accurate and continuous records of their position and of any person or object carrying the devices. Consequently, over the course of four weeks, police were able to monitor Jones' movements and actions as he drove his vehicle. Based upon the detailed information obtained about Jones' movements, police arrested and charged Jones with conspiracy to distribute drugs.
Prior to trial, Jones moved to suppress the evidence obtained using the GPS monitoring, arguing that because the police had violated the terms of a court order allowing the placement of the GPS device on his vehicle, the evidence was obtained without a warrant in violation of the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable searches and seizures. The trial court rejected Jones' motion to suppress. However, on appeal, the D.C. Court of Appeals held that the use of the GPS device to track Jones and the evidence obtained constituted an illegal search in violation of the Fourth Amendment. Additionally, the Court of Appeals rejected the government's claim that no violation of Jones' privacy had taken place because the evidence pertained to Jones' movements while he was in public.
In asking the U.S. Supreme Court to affirm the Court of Appeals' ruling, Rutherford Institute attorneys point to numerous surveillance technologies available to the government, such as GPS, drones, and facial recognition, that threaten the right of citizens to be free from government monitoring. "While this technology can serve a useful purpose in apprehending criminals," the brief argues, "the essence of the Fourth Amendment dictates that law enforcement officials not be permitted free reign to conduct high-tech surveillance absent judicial oversight through the warranting process."
