State Supreme Court requires warrant to track cars with GPS

Police cannot put a GPS device onto a vehicle to track its movements without first getting a warrant, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled Wednesday.

In a precedent-setting decision, a majority of the justices said people in vehicles have a “reasonable expectation” of privacy. That includes being able to travel where they want without government monitoring.
And while people drive on public roads, Chief Justice Scott Bales said that is quite different than using technology to track someone, in this case for 31 hours.

But Wednesday’s ruling did not help Emilio Jean who was arrested and convicted on charges of money laundering and transporting marijuana in the truck. A majority of the justices — not including Bales — said that with the state of the law on GPS tracking and searches unsettled until this point, the officers who put the device on the truck without a warrant were acting in good faith and the conviction stands.

The ruling was not unanimous.

Read more: http://azcapitoltimes.com/news/2018/01/03/state-supreme-court-requires-warrant-to-track-cars-with-gps/