{"id":4323,"date":"2026-06-29T20:37:36","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T20:37:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/relocationtimess.com\/?p=4323"},"modified":"2026-06-29T20:37:36","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T20:37:36","slug":"police-must-obtain-a-warrant-when-seeking-sweep-of-cellphone-location-data-supreme-court-rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/relocationtimess.com\/?p=4323","title":{"rendered":"Police must obtain a warrant when seeking sweep of cellphone location data, Supreme Court rules"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div>\n<p>\n            The Supreme Court on Monday ruled that the use of a \u201cgeofence warrant\u201d to capture location data from cell phones in search of a robbery suspect constituted a search for Fourth Amendment purposes, a decision that means officers will have to obtain a warrant to access such data in the future.\n    <\/p><p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/relocationtimess.com\/?p=4322\">Takeaways from the Supreme Court\u2019s decisions expanding Trump\u2019s firing power but preserving Fed for now<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\n            Justice  the opinion for a majority that included both conservative and liberal justices. The court divided 6-3, with three of the court\u2019s conservatives dissenting.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n            At a time when Americans store vast quantities of personal data in servers controlled by companies, the case raised thorny questions about the ability of police to access that information. In the end, the court steered out of the case with a relatively limited decision that will effectively require police to obtain a warrant when they\u2019re requesting location information from a geolocation database.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n            \u201cThe Fourth Amendment must, as ever, protect against unjustified governmental intrusion on the privacy of the individual,\u201d Kagan wrote.\n    <\/p>\n<div>\n<header>\n<span>\n      Related article\n    <\/span>\n<\/header>\n<section>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div>\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"President Donald Trump has been sued by writer E. Jean Carroll for sexually assaulting her in 1996 and for defamation. The Supreme Court has rescheduled one of the cases 15 times.\" class=\"wp-image-4318\" height=\"144\" src=\"https:\/\/relocationtimess.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/f2a73133fc22e87269f0589c9f7bf869.jpg\" width=\"256\"\/><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<span>President Donald Trump has been sued by writer E. Jean Carroll for sexually assaulting her in 1996 and for defamation. The Supreme Court has rescheduled one of the cases 15 times.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n<figcaption>Spencer Platt\/Pool\/Getty Images<\/figcaption>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>\n<span>Trump must pay E. Jean Carroll $5 million after Supreme Court denies his appeal of sexual abuse verdict<\/span>\n<\/p>\n<div>4  min read<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<p>\n            A Virginia man, Okello Chatrie, appealed to the Supreme Court after police used the procedure to identify him as a suspect in a 2019 bank robbery. After their investigation went cold, police served Google with a geofence warrant to find a handful of people whose cellphones pegged them within 300 meters of the bank at the time of the robbery. Chatrie entered a conditional guilty plea and reserved the right to appeal over the sweeping warrant.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n            The Supreme Court on Monday didn\u2019t resolve Chatrie\u2019s case. After all, the police in Chatrie\u2019s case did, in fact, obtain a warrant. Instead, the majority concluded only that a warrant was necessary and then charged the lower courts with assessing whether the search police conducted in his case was consistent with the Fourth Amendment.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n            Writing in dissent, Justice Samuel Alito described the court\u2019s opinion as an \u201cirresponsible escapade.\u201d\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n            \u201cAlthough today\u2019s decision will send seismic waves through our Fourth Amendment doctrine, not one iota of the majority opinion will affect the outcome of this case,\u201d Alito wrote. \u201cThe court knows this and does not claim otherwise. Indeed, by refusing to review the one question that could have at least theoretically given Chatrie some hope of relief, the court carefully set the stage for its planned performance: striking a pose as a great champion of privacy in the digital age.\u201d\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n            The Fourth Amendment not only requires police to obtain a warrant for searches but demands that the warrant be \u201cparticularized,\u201d that is, specific enough that it\u2019s not effectively a fishing expedition for police. Chatrie\u2019s attorneys argued that the warrant was not particularized in part because it required Google to parse through location data for millions of people to identify the small subset that were in the vicinity of the bank at the time of the crime.\n    <\/p><p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/relocationtimess.com\/?p=4312\">Speaker Johnson sends housing bill to White House after Trump refused to sign measure<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\n            \u201cThe potential for abuse is breathtaking,\u201d Chatrie\u2019s lawyers argued. \u201cThe government need only draw a geofence around a church, a political rally, or a gun shop, and it can compel a search of every user\u2019s records to learn who was there.\u201d\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n            Police said Chatrie passed a note urging a bank teller in 2019 to \u201chand over all the cash\u201d and demanded \u201cat least 100k and nobody will get hurt and your family will be set free.\u201d\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n            After police identified Chatrie, authorities executed federal search warrants and found \u201crobbery-style demand notes\u201d in his bedroom, nearly $100,000 in cash and a 9 mm pistol. Police say Chatrie confessed to the robbery and was ultimately sentenced to more than 11 years in prison.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n            The Richmond-based 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against him, holding that the warrant didn\u2019t constitute a \u201csearch\u201d for Fourth Amendment purposes. After all, the court reasoned, when people allow tech companies to collect data they generally do so voluntarily. It is an argument that the Justice Department, which is defending the warrants, relied on heavily.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n            Chatrie \u201ctook no steps to protect his location from disclosure, such as pausing the Location History feature he had enabled or adjusting, deactivating, or forgoing his cellphone during his crime,\u201d US Solicitor General D. John Sauer told the Supreme Court.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n            The location data at issue in Chatrie\u2019s case can identify a person\u2019s location within three meters every two minutes.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n            But Chatrie\u2019s attorneys argue that the logic doesn\u2019t apply to his case, in part because of a 2018 Supreme Court precedent. In that case, Carpenter v. US, a divided court ruled that law enforcement generally needs to establish probable cause before accessing cellphone tower data to identify the movements of suspects. If authorities need a warrant to get cellphone tower data, Chatrie\u2019s attorneys said, then surely they also must obtain one to get data that is far more reliable.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n            Google, which had received the majority of the warrants, changed its policy to shift how the data is stored.\n    <\/p><p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/relocationtimess.com\/?p=4310\">Conjoined Twins Fast Facts<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The high court on Monday ruled that the use of a \u201cgeofence warrant\u201d to capture location data from cell phones in search of a robbery suspect constituted a search for Fourth Amendment purposes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4029,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - 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