High court case on GPS surveillance could break new ground

WASHINGTON -- In a potentially ground-breaking case on high-tech tracking by police, the Supreme Court will decide whether such constant surveillance is such an intrusion on people's lives that police need a warrant before attaching a GPS device to a person's car.

The case, to be heard Nov. 8, tests law enforcement's use of the latest technology to fight crime as it raises the specter of a "Big Brother" government knowing one's every move. GPS tracking lets police engage in round-the-clock surveillance — without a person's knowledge — over a prolonged period that could seldom be matched by cops on a beat or other traditional observation.

Global Positioning System receivers, originally developed for military use, rely on a constellation of satellites in fixed orbits. Receivers on the ground use satellite transmissions to calculate the latitude and longitude of a location. Data can be transmitted remotely to police computers and stored.

"A person who knows all of another's travels" through GPS, U.S. Appeals Court Judge Douglas Ginsburg wrote in the ruling that the high court will take up, "can deduce whether he is a weekly church goer, a heavy drinker, a regular at the gym, an unfaithful husband, an outpatient receiving medical treatment, an associate of particular individuals or political groups — and not just one such fact about a person, but all such facts."

The Washington, D.C.-based appeals court ruled that the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and seizures require police get a warrant before affixing a GPS device to a car or truck.

The federal Justice Department, appealing the warrant requirement, argues that drivers do not expect their movements to be kept private. "Officers do not conduct a 'search' when they observe matters conducted in the open, which anyone could see," U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli tells the justices in his brief.

The dispute over the technology becoming ubiquitous on smartphones and vehicles could lead to a major decision regarding police tactics for decades to come.

The case, involving a Washington, D.C., nightclub operator who was investigated in a cocaine-trafficking case, has drawn a dozen "friend of the court" briefs from an array of outside groups all but one opposing the federal government.

Among those siding with the drug defendant, who was tracked for a month, is the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which says Muslim Americans have been increasingly subject to warrantless GPS surveillance, and Roger Easton, an inventor regarded by many as "the father of GPS."

Lawyers for Easton, 90, and other GPS developers, say the tracking is done in such continuous and large-scale fashion that it defies comparisons to beepers and other electronic surveillance tactics previously reviewed by the high court.

The one group siding with the federal government, the New York-based Center on the Administration of Criminal Law, points to the cost benefits of satellite surveillance in tough financial times. It says GPS surveillance requires fewer personnel hours and less cost than having agents physically follow someone.