There's No Sense Waiting To See What The U.S. Supreme Court Has To Say About GPS Tracking

That appears to be the opinion of Magistrate Judge David Noce in United States v. Robinson, No. 4:11-cr-00361 (D. Mo. Dec. 27, 2011), who ruled that GPS tracking of a public official suspected of having a no-show municipal job did not require a warrant. This is, of course, the issue that is before the U.S. Supreme Court in United States v. Antoine Jones, No.10-1259 (U.S. cert. granted June 27, 2011), a fact that the magistrate judge recognized in his opinion.

Judge Noce noted precedent in the Eighth Circuit, as well as other circuits, for warrantless GPS tracking in similar situations. Relying on that precedent, he concluded that the tracking did not constitute either a search or a seizure, nor did it violate the defendant's First Amendment associational rights.

The GPS tracking of the defendant's automobile was conducted by the public corruption squad of the FBI, whose agents tracked the defendant using physical surveillance techniques for an unspecified period of time. This personnel-intensive technique was later replaced by a GPS tracking device that was magnetically attached to the defendant's automobile while it was parked on a public street near his residence. The result was 24-hour tracking of the defendant's automobile over a three-month period. The tracking revealed, according to the...