Supreme Court: GPS tracker violated privacy.

PositionPRIVACY

In a decision that may have future implications for new technologies, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that police violated the Fourth Amendment when they put a global positioning system (GPS) tracking device on a suspect's car and monitored its movements for 28 days.

Five justices said the main problem was that police placed the device on private property without obtaining a warrant. The majority also expressed their unease with the government's use of or access to various modern technologies, including video surveillance in public places, automatic toll collection systems on highways, devices that allow motorists to signal for roadside assistance, location data from cellphone towers, and records retained by online merchants, according to The New York Times.

The case concerned Antoine Jones, who owned a Washington nightclub and was suspected of being part of a cocaine-selling ring, The Times reported. Police placed a tracking device on his Jeep Grand Cherokee without a valid warrant, tracked his movements for a month, and used the evidence gathered to convict him of conspiring to sell cocaine. He was sentenced...

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