Why you should care what a geofence warrant is

Today the United States Supreme Court held that a geofence warrant is not a search that implicate an expectation of privacy. To understand why this matters to you we need look no further than the facts of the case. Mr Chatrie robbed a bank in Richmond, Virginia. Law enforcement did not know who committed the crime.

Prosecutors prepared a search warrant and served it on google to find out which cell phones were in close proximity to the bank at the time of the robbery. This is called a geofence warrant. Then they requested the subscriber information for certain of those phones. They went to Mr. Chatrie’s home and located $100,000 in cash, a gun, and demand notes. All of that is Mr. Chatrie’s problem – so why should you care?

If the government can get information about Mr. Chatrie’s cell phone location, we start sliding down a slippety slope that can culminate in them doing the same for you. Do you want the government to track you? Do you trust future iterations of our government with that power? Or would you rather that information be kept between you and your cell phone provider?

In the Chatrie case the Supreme Court only decided that the act of obtaining the subscriber information was a search. They did not determine whether that information would ultimately be admissible in the case. They left that decision to the Trial Court. Lower courts in the case had ruled that there was no search, and therefore no basis to suppress the evidence.

Do you agree that law enforcement conducts a search when they obtain your subscriber information based upon a geofence warrant? Do you expect that information to remain private – between you and your cell phone carrier – or do you believe that information should be freely available to law enforcement? We welcome all thoughts on the subject by leaving us a comment below.