In the 1980s, law enforcement officers in Minnesota used a beeper radio transmitter to track a man suspected of purchasing chloroform to make illegal drugs. The police tracked the suspect to his cabin in Wisconsin, where he was arrested.
The man was arrested and eventually found guilty but challenged his conviction on the grounds that evidence was obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution.
To put it simply, the Fourth Amendment dictates that law enforcement must obtain a search warrant before searching your home or belongings. The beeper used to track the suspect and subsequently obtain evidence necessary to arrest him was not approved by a search warrant.
The Supreme Court, in the 1983 case United States v. Knotts, ruled that a warrant did not need to be obtained in order to track those suspected of crimes. The majority opined that people have no reasonable expectation of privacy when they travel on public thoroughfares.
They also ruled that nothing in the Fourth Amendment prohibited police from "augmenting the sensory faculties ... with such enhancement as science and technology afforded them."
Fast forward to today, the Supreme Court is considering a similar case involving the FBI placing a GPS tracking device on drug conspiracy suspect Antoine Jones' car.
The Knotts case sets a precedent that could lead the court to rule in favor of the Obama administration because it could be argued that a GPS device is simply an upgraded beeper.
However, the court should reconsider this precedent and re-examine Fourth Amendment privacy rights. While the ruling would be narrowly tailored to the case at hand, one has to wonder what implications this would have for the tracking of other technologies by law enforcement.
For instance, if technological "enhancements" exist, should police be allowed to hack into your personal GPS or the GPS on your phone without a search warrant?
The argument that no one should expect privacy on "public" roads falls through considering that the court has also ruled that people have a right to travel (Saenz v. Roe; Dunn v. Blumstein).
The TSA and Department of Homeland Security violate our privacy when we travel by airplane or train. We have no choice but to drive on "public" roads. Will the court honestly rule that the only time we can expect a reasonable right to privacy is when we are traveling by foot or in our homes?
If the court rules in favor of the government in this case, it will be another big blow to our Fourth Amendment rights. Requiring a warrant to track a suspect's every move is in no way an extreme measure; failing again to uphold our Fourth Amendment protections would be.
