A federal appeals court has determined that geofence warrants, which obtain data for all devices within a specific geographic area, violate the Fourth Amendment’s protections against unreasonable searches. The ruling handed down by the US Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, traditionally considered a conservative body, diverges sharply from a recent 4th Circuit decision on the same issue.
“This court ‘cannot forgive the requirements of the Fourth Amendment in the name of law enforcement.’ Accordingly, we hold that geofence warrants are general warrants categorically prohibited by the Fourth Amendment,” the decision noted.
While the 5th Circuit ruling stems from the case United States v. Smith, involving the 2018 robbery of a mail truck in Mississippi, it notably declined to exclude the geofence warrant evidence. The court cited law enforcement’s good-faith belief in the legality of such warrants at the time.
Despite the allowance of the evidence, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) celebrated the ruling as a significant victory for digital privacy. The EFF, a long-time opponent of geofence warrants, emphasized that such broad searches were exactly what the Fourth Amendment aimed to prevent, as noted in a statement.
The ruling has caught the attention of legal scholars and professionals. Berkeley Law Professor Orin Kerr expressed surprise in a post, noting the decision not only conflicts with a previous 4th Circuit stance but also with a ruling from the Colorado Supreme Court.
Requests for geofence warrants have increased substantially since Google received its first in 2016. By 2021, such warrants represented more than a quarter of all warrant requests Google received in the United States.
The implications of this ruling are wide-ranging and could affect how digital evidence is collected in the future, potentially restricting the use of broad and invasive search methods by law enforcement.
For more details, see the original article on Ars Technica.