Can the police track you electronically while using your
vehicle without a warrant? Is this a valid mode of surveillance since roads are
public places? The U.S. Supreme Court ruled against this practice in the case
of United States
vs. Jones, January 23, 2012.
U.S.
jurisprudence has persuasive effect in our jurisdiction (PHILIPPINE HEALTH CARE
PROVIDERS, INC. vs. COMMISSIONER OF INTERNAL REVENUE, G.R. No. 167330,
September 18, 2009].
US
vs Jones is potentially important to us when our law enforcement authorities begin
to use electronic means for surveillance and information-gathering.
In this case, a search warrant was secured allowing the
installation of a Global-Positioning-System (GPS) tracking device on a Jeep
registered to the defendants’ wife. This
was supposed to be installed in a certain state and within 10 days. However, the GPS was installed 11 days later
and in another state. In effect, the
vehicle was tracked without a warrant for almost a month. Hence, by “means of signals from multiple
satellites, the device established the vehicle’s location within 50 to 100
feet, and communicated that location by cellular phone to a Government
computer. It relayed more than 2,000 pages of data over the 4-week period.”
The defendant was later convicted of drug
trafficking conspiracy charges but this was overturned on appeal because of the
“admission of the evidence obtained by warrantless use of the GPS device which,
it said, violated the Fourth Amendment.” The government raised the issue to the U.S.
Supreme Court.
As affirmed by the U.S.
Supreme Court, the Fourth Amendment deals with the “right of the people to be
secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable
searches and seizures.” The Court held that a vehicle falls under the term
“effects” and that the “Government’s installation of a GPS device on a target’s
vehicle, and its use of that device to monitor the
vehicle’s movements, constitutes a ‘search.’” Placing the GPS on the vehicle was a physical
occupation of private property for the purpose of obtaining information. And “such
a physical intrusion would have been considered a “search” within the meaning
of the Fourth Amendment xxx.”
The Government argued
that the defendant “had no “reasonable expectation of privacy” in the area of
the Jeep accessed by Government agents (its underbody) and in the locations of
the Jeep on the public roads, which were visible to all.” The Court stated that the Fourth Amendment
also relates to insuring “preservation of that degree of privacy against
government that existed when the Fourth Amendmentwas adopted.” It made a distinction with previous cases
where electronic tracking devices were also installed on containers with the
consent of a third party which somehow ended up with the defendant who accepted
it. The transfer of the container with
the unmonitored beeper inside did not convey any information and thus did not
invade xxx privacy.” In this case, the
defendant “who possessed the Jeep at the time the Government trespassorily
inserted the information-gathering device, is on much different footing.”
The Government also
points to a previous decision where “[t]he exterior of a car . . . is
thrust into the public eye, and thus to examine it does not constitute a
‘search.’ ” The Court was unconvinced, finding that “xxx By attaching the
device to the Jeep, officers encroached on a protected area.” In any event, the Court stated that it is not
deviating “from the understanding that mere visual observation does not
constitute a search” such that “[a] person traveling in an automobile on public
thoroughfares has no reasonable expectation of privacy in his movements from
one place to another.” This seems to raise
the question, what is the real difference between the police tailing a suspect
and placing a tracker on his car instead?
It seems the difference is that a device was placed on the car without a
warrant which appears to have been what the Court found objectionable. Law
enforcement authorities do not have an untrammeled discretion to effect
searches on citizens either through GPS or other physical means.
This can be a
philandering husband’s worse nightmare, a GPS tracker attached to his car by
his wife to trace his whereabouts.
Unfortunately for him, this decision only targets possible excesses by
law enforcement, not the possible actions of a suspicious spouse.
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