Supreme Court to determine legality of geofence warrants

The Supreme Court announced Friday it will hear a case challenging the constitutionality of geofence warrants, as their usage in criminal investigations continues to expand.

The high court granted review in Chatrie v. United States, limiting the scope of the arguments to whether the execution of a geofence warrant violates the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures. The case involves a man who was convicted of robbing a bank after a geofence warrant was conducted.

A geofence warrant is a request issued to a technology company, in this case Google, for information about devices within a certain geographic location during a certain time period. The type of warrant has been used thousands of times by law enforcement, but in this case, Okello Chatrie’s