U.S. Supreme Court takes on Fourth Amendment today

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear Chatrie v. United States, a case that represents a fundamental clash between the Fourth Amendment and emerging technological investigative techniques, reports Lawfare. The Court will assess the constitutionality of geofence warrants, which allow law enforcement to obtain location data stored by a service provider such as Google or Apple within the bounds, or “fence,” of a specific time and area in order to identify a potential suspect. The case may present two principal questions: First, whether the geofence warrant issued to Google constituted a Fourth Amendment “search,” and second, if so, whether it was a permissible form of a search.

Chatrie’s brief advances several arguments for why the geofence warrant violated the Fourth Amendment. First, he argues that accessing Location History was a “search” under the Fourth Amendment because users have a property interest in the data and a reasonable expectation of privacy in it. Second, he contends that the geofence warrant operated as an unconstitutional general warrant and writ of assistance based on its breadth. Third, he claims that even if the warrant was not a general warrant, the Step One component of the search was unconstitutional. And fourth, he argues that Steps Two and Three of the geofence warrant were unconstitutional.

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