Written by: Haim Ravia, and Dotan Hammer
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has ruled that geofence warrants are unconstitutional, holding that they violate the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits the U.S. government from conducting “unreasonable searches and seizures.” Geofence warrants allow law enforcement to request information about all subscribers located in a specific geographic area during a given timeframe, to identify potential suspects of a crime that took place in that area around that time.
In a case involving the armed robbery of a U.S. Postal Service worker in Mississippi, investigators used a geofence warrant to compel Google to provide records of Android devices present in the area during the robbery. The Fifth Circuit found that accessing Google’s extensive location database constitutes a search under the Fourth Amendment. The court ruled that the broad scope of geofence warrants, which requires searching a vast database, is legally unjustifiable as it fails to meet the Fourth Amendment’s requirement for specificity. This lack of specificity effectively turns geofence warrants into a “fishing expedition,” violating constitutional rights.
Despite the holding that geofence warrants are unconstitutional, the court upheld the district court’s decision not to suppress the evidence obtained in this case. The court concluded that law enforcement agents acted in good faith, relying on a warrant issued by a federal magistrate judge in an area of law that had not been settled. Consequently, the evidence was allowed under the good faith exception.
Click here to read the decision in United States of America V. Jamarr Smith Thomas Iroko Ayodele Gilbert Mcthunel II, No. 23-60321 (August 9, 2024).
