{"id":1833582,"date":"2024-08-15T15:29:01","date_gmt":"2024-08-15T19:29:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/?p=1833582"},"modified":"2024-08-15T15:29:02","modified_gmt":"2024-08-15T19:29:02","slug":"geofence-warrants-found-unconstitutional-by-one-u-s-federal-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2024\/08\/geofence-warrants-found-unconstitutional-by-one-u-s-federal-court\/","title":{"rendered":"Geofence Warrants Found Unconstitutional by One U.S. Federal Court"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A U.S. federal court has held that geofence warrants are unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment, finding that they fit the definition of general warrants that are \u201ccategorically prohibited\u201d by that Amendment. EFF<\/abbr><\/a>, TechCrunch<\/em><\/a>. Geofence warrants, you may recall<\/a>, require a data provider (usually Google) to identify all users in a given area during a given time period. While ruling them unconstitutional, the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeal nonetheless allowed evidence collected under a geofence warrant in the case under consideration, citing the good-faith exception<\/a>, given the novelty of such warrants at the time and the lack of legal guidance available to law enforcement: see the court\u2019s decision<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Geofence warrants are now in something of a grey area: the Fourth Circuit upheld geofence warrants\u2019 legality, at least under certain circumstances, only last month<\/a>. The two cases may not be an apples-to-apples comparison, but even so the constitutionality of location data searches may take a while (and the Supreme Court, eventually) to sort out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A U.S. federal court has held that geofence warrants are unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment, finding that they fit the definition of general warrants that are \u201ccategorically prohibited\u201d by that Amendment. EFF, TechCrunch. Geofence warrants,… More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"link","meta":{"autoblue_enabled":true,"autoblue_custom_message":"","autoblue_shares":[],"autoblue_post_url":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[80],"tags":[1688,646],"class_list":["post-1833582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-link","hentry","category-mobile","tag-legal","tag-privacy","post_format-post-format-link"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1822485,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2023\/12\/google-maps-updates-will-make-it-impossible-for-google-to-respond-to-geofence-warrants\/","url_meta":{"origin":1833582,"position":0},"title":"Google Maps Updates Will Make It Impossible for Google to Respond to Geofence Warrants","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"18 December 2023","format":"link","excerpt":"Last week I mentioned forthcoming changes to how Google Maps stores users\u2019 location data. According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, those changes could spell the end of what are known as geofence warrants, which \u201crequire a provider\u2014almost always Google\u2014to search its entire reserve of user location data to identify all\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Mobile"","block_context":{"text":"Mobile","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/mobile\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1831786,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2024\/06\/google-timeline-location-history-moves-to-on-device-storage\/","url_meta":{"origin":1833582,"position":1},"title":"Google Timeline: Location History Moves to On-Device Storage","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"7 June 2024","format":"link","excerpt":"More details emerged this week on how Google Maps is changing how it stores users\u2019 location data\u2014which is that as of December 2024 it basically won\u2019t: Location History has been rebranded Google Timeline and will be stored on-device, where you can set it to auto-delete after a specified period of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Mobile"","block_context":{"text":"Mobile","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/mobile\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4141,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2017\/04\/the-isle-of-bait\/","url_meta":{"origin":1833582,"position":2},"title":"The Isle of Bait","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"1 April 2017","format":"link","excerpt":"The Future Mapping Company has announced the discovery of a new island 20 kilometres off the coast of Great Britain. They have naturally already produced a new map of this island. The Isle of Bait is a small, beautiful and untouched paradise, but there is a hitch\u2014it is only visible\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Imaginary Maps"","block_context":{"text":"Imaginary Maps","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/imaginary-maps\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/isle-of-bait-990x1024.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/isle-of-bait-990x1024.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/isle-of-bait-990x1024.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/isle-of-bait-990x1024.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1440399,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2018\/01\/north-carolinas-gerrymandered-congressional-district-map-ruled-unconstitutional\/","url_meta":{"origin":1833582,"position":3},"title":"North Carolina’s Gerrymandered Congressional District Map Ruled Unconstitutional","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"10 January 2018","format":"link","excerpt":"North Carolina's congressional district map has been ruled unconstitutional by a panel of federal judges, the\u00a0New York Times reports. Significantly, it's because the map represented a\u00a0partisan gerrymander, engineered to ensure a Republican stranglehold on North Carolina's congressional delegation, rather than a\u00a0racial gerrymander. Partisan gerrymanders have not previously been considered illegal;\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Politics"","block_context":{"text":"Politics","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/nc-gerrymander-2016-300x117.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1837083,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2025\/02\/gulf-of-america-update-ap-sues-white-house-officials\/","url_meta":{"origin":1833582,"position":4},"title":"‘Gulf of America’ Update: AP Sues White House Officials","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"23 February 2025","format":"link","excerpt":"On Friday the Associated Press sued three White House officials on First and Fifth Amendment grounds, calling the White House\u2019s barring of AP reporters from the Oval Office and Air Force One for refusing to adopt the \u201cGulf of America\u201d moniker for the Gulf of Mexico. The AP is calling\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Censorship"","block_context":{"text":"Censorship","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/censorship\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1785138,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2018\/03\/u-s-supreme-court-rejects-republican-appeal-of-new-pennsylvania-congressional-map\/","url_meta":{"origin":1833582,"position":5},"title":"U.S. Supreme Court Rejects Republican Appeal of New Pennsylvania Congressional Map","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"20 March 2018","format":"link","excerpt":"CNN: \"The Supreme Court has denied a request from Pennsylvania Republicans to block new congressional maps that could tilt several key races in Democrats' favor from being used in the midterm elections.\"\u00a0The new map was imposed by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court after the state's governor and legislature failed to come\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Politics"","block_context":{"text":"Politics","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/remedial-districts-pa-300x195.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1833582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1833582"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1833582\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1833585,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1833582\/revisions\/1833585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1833582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1833582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1833582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}