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Should police be able to install a GPS tracking device in your vehicle without a warrant, giving them the ability to view where you go and how long you spend in each location? The topic is currently being debated in the Supreme Court in a case brought to the court’s attention after the FBI allegedly installed a GPS device in a suspect’s vehicle while it was parked on private property.
Use of GPS technology in a suspect’s vehicle without the use of a warrant is currently allowed, a fact that many are disputing as a violation of privacy. Police forces using the technology to track suspects note that the GPS technology they typically use is different than the device you might use for directions in your vehicle. Instead of giving a detailed mapping of locations visited by a person, it works more like a transmitter with a receiver in the police surveillance vehicle. The purpose of the GPS, law enforcement says, is to assure that officers tailing a suspect will not lose track of the targeted vehicle. These types of positioning devices were deemed legal for law enforcement to utilize in the 1980s Supreme Court case United States vs. Knotts.
However, the current case, United States vs. Jones, involved a more technologically advanced tracking system that allowed the FBI to track the location of a vehicle owned by suspect Antoine Jones. For the length of a month, the location of the vehicle in question was monitored every ten seconds using the installed GPS.
The inventor of GPS technology, Roger Easton, spoke on behalf of those opposed to police using the technology in suspect’s vehicles without a warrant, noting that this type of tracking was not the intention of the technology. Easton said that this use of GPS is unusually invasive, and is a violation of the privacy rights that should be afforded to Americans.
Should law abiding citizens be worried that law enforcement will place tracking devices on their vehicles while parked on their private property? No matter what the outcome of United States vs. Jones, it’s worth noting that the FBI and local law enforcement agencies have no intentions of installing tracking devices in the vehicles of ordinary citizens.
