A U.S. appeals court has ruled that police must obtain a warrant prior to using a GPS device to track a vehicle, deciding on an unaddressed issue in an earlier Supreme Court order.
The decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit on Tuesday is considered a victory by privacy groups as a number of courts in the country grapple with the legal and privacy implications of using mobile phone location information and GPS in investigations by law enforcement.
In the case, United States v. Katzin, the government used a GPS device attached to the exterior of the van of Harry Katzin, one of the suspects in the burglaries of several pharmacies, to track his movements and those of his two brothers as they drove from one pharmacy to another. Police eventually arrested them.
A District Court upheld the claim of the Katzin brothers that the government had violated their Fourth Amendment rights by attaching the GPS tracking device without a warrant. The government, which had contended that a warrant was not required for use of the GPS device, appealed the ruling.
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