Court Says Long Term GPS Surveillance Requires Warrant

This decision was released back in August, but I didn't get around to reading the decision until this week.  Basically, this case involved the use of a GPS tracking device on a vehicle without a warrant for a month.  The court's decision distinguished between United States v. Knotts, 460 U.S. 276 (1983), in which the Supreme Court held the use of a beeper device to aid in tracking a suspect to his drug lab was not a search, and this circumstance where the search was prolonged.  The court found that Maynard had a reasonable expectation of privacy over the course of the month, and therefore a warrant should have been required for such a prolonged search.


United States of America v. Lawrence Maynard