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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Police Need Warrant for GPS Tracking, Court Says

(CN) - Police cannot a track a suspect's vehicle with a global positioning system (GPS) device without obtaining a warrant, the New York Court of Appeals ruled.

Latham police were investigating a series of burglaries when they attached a GPS device to the bumper of a suspect's van.

The police used the information from the van to charge the Scott Weaver with burglaries at a K-Mart and a local meat market.

In order to obtain this information, the police attached the device at night, and they returned on a different night to change the batteries.

Weaver was acquitted of the meat market burglary but convicted of the K-Mart crime.

Weaver appealed his conviction, claiming that his Fourth Amendment rights were violated by the placement of the GPS.

The appellate division had rejected Weaver's appeal, claiming that a GPS is akin to a police officer tailing a vehicle.

Judge Lippman overturned the decision, noting that a GPS offers police the equivalent of "a million police officers with cameras on every street lamp."

"The great popularity of GPS technology," Lippman added, "may not be taken simply as a massive, undifferentiated concession of personal privacy to agents of the state."

Lippman stated that the decision applied to the New York Constitution, as the U.S. Supreme Court as not made a similar ruling regarding federal law.

Lippman ordered a new trial with the GPS evidence suppressed.

The New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) praised the court's decision.

"Placing a GPS device on a car is like allowing an invisible police officer to ride in the back seat," said Donna Lieberman, the executive director of the NYCLU.

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