The U.S. Supreme Court will address the ‘Reasonable Expectation of Privacy’ issue on Nov. 8th.

One of the most difficult, and potentially most important cases of the U.S. Supreme Court term will be argued on Nov. 8. United States v. Jones involves the question of whether it is a search or seizure within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment when the police plant a GPS device on a person’s vehicle and monitor it for 24 hours a day, for 28 days.

Since Katz v. United States, decided in 1967, the Supreme Court has defined the protections of the Fourth Amendment in terms of the “reasonable expectation of privacy.” But how does that apply in this situation?

People have the expectation that police are not planting a device on their car to monitor their every move. As technology develops, police are gaining more ability to follow anyone at any time. A great deal of personal information can be learned by following someone for weeks.

Yet, said Chief Judge Alex Kozinski of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, “There is something creepy and un-American about such clandestine and underhanded behavior.” Kozinski, dissenting from denial of en banc rehearing in the 2010 case, United States v. Pineda-Moreno, added, “To those of us who have lived under a totalitarian regime, there is an eerie feeling of déjà vu.”

This case involves Antoine Jones, whom the police suspected of cocaine trafficking. The investigation included visual surveillance of Jones and the area around his nightclub, the installation of a fixed camera near the nightclub, a pen register that showed phone numbers of people called or receiving calls from Jones’ phone, and a wiretap for Jones’ cellular phone.

Additionally, the police obtained a warrant authorizing them to install and monitor covertly a GPS tracking device on a Jeep Grand Cherokee registered to Jones’ wife, but used extensively by Jones. The warrant required that the device be installed within a 10-day period and only in the District of Columbia.

But police installed it on the 11th day while the car was in Maryland. Both sides agreed that this was a warrantless planting. This could turn out to be very relevant in the Supreme Court’s decision: it shows that the police can easily get warrants for the use of such tracking devices.
http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/keeping_up_with_the_joneses_how_far_does_the_reasonable_expectation_of_priv/