Supreme Court to Weigh Fourth Amendment Challenge to Geofence Warrants

Police investigating a 2019 robbery of a Virginia bank used a “geofence warrant” to compel Google to supply location data for millions of devices that were within 300 meters of the bank at the time of the crime. The data identified Okello Chatrie, who later pleaded guilty, was sentenced to more than 11 years, and entered a conditional guilty plea that reserves the right to appeal the warrant. The case now before the Supreme Court will determine whether such warrants—targeting technology companies rather than individual suspects—violate the Fourth Amendment’s ban on unreasonable searches.

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The Court’s Fourth Amendment analysis has shifted from physical intrusions to digital surveillance. In 1967 the Court required a warrant to tap a payphone, establishing protection against non-physical searches. A 1979 decision held that pen-register data—records of dialed numbers—were “business records” lacking a reasonable expectation of privacy. In 2012 the Court ruled that attaching a GPS tracker to a vehicle without a warrant was unconstitutional, reviving property-based privacy protections. The 2018 Carpenter v. United States decision required probable cause before law enforcement could obtain cellphone-tower data, underscoring heightened privacy expectations for location information.

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• Okello Chatrie – Suspect in the Virginia bank robbery.

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• Google – Provider of the location data; changed its storage policy after the case.

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• U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer – Defended the warrant before the Court.

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• Adam Unikowsky – Attorney for Chatrie, arguing the warrant is a modern general warrant.

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• William McGeveran – Dean of the University of Minnesota Law School, expert on data privacy.

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• 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals – Previously ruled the warrant did not constitute a search.

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• Supreme Court Justices – Including Chief Justice John Roberts (majority in Carpenter), dissenters Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and newer members Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett, Ketanji Brown Jackson.

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Google’s geofence data can pinpoint a device within three meters every two minutes. The warrant required the company to sift through location histories of “millions” of users to isolate a handful of devices near the bank at the robbery time. The technology’s precision far exceeds that of traditional pen-register or tower-based data.

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The Solicitor General argued that Chatrie “took no steps to protect his location from disclosure,” emphasizing that the suspect voluntarily enabled location history. The 4th Circuit affirmed that individuals who share location data with service providers lack a reasonable expectation of privacy, framing the warrant as a permissible investigative tool. Google, after revising its data-storage policy, maintains that it complied with the court order while seeking to limit future exposure of user data.

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Chatrie’s counsel contended that the Fourth Amendment was designed to prevent “general warrants and writs of assistance,” and that geofence warrants revive that prohibited practice. Citing Carpenter, the defense argued that probable cause should be required before accessing data that is more precise than tower records. Legal scholars note that lower courts are split on whether geofence warrants constitute a search, reflecting uncertainty about privacy expectations in the age of ubiquitous GPS tracking.

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The Supreme Court faces divergent precedents: the 1979 pen-register ruling suggests no privacy interest, while Carpenter and the 2012 GPS case imply heightened protection. The Court has not yet clarified whether location data stored by a third-party service is “property” subject to Fourth Amendment safeguards. No empirical data on how often geofence warrants are used nationally has been disclosed.

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A ruling that upholds geofence warrants could expand law-enforcement access to detailed movement histories, affecting financial transactions, photos, emails, and other digital records. Conversely, a decision that deems them unconstitutional would constrain investigative techniques that rely on big-data analytics, reshaping privacy standards for billions of Americans.

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• “It’s huge,” — William McGeveran, dean, University of Minnesota Law School.

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• “The technology may be novel, but the constitutional problem it presents is not,” — Adam Unikowsky, attorney for Okello Chatrie.

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• “The Fourth Amendment was born of the Founders’ revulsion for general warrants and writs of assistance — instruments that allowed the government to search first and develop suspicions later.” — Adam Unikowsky.

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• “took no steps to protect his location from disclosure, such as pausing the Location History feature he had enabled or adjusting, deactivating, or forgoing his cellphone during his crime,” — D. John Sauer, U.S. Solicitor General.

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• “It might not be the same kind of one-stop shopping for law enforcement,” he said, “but it’s still a technology that they’re very likely to use.” — William McGeveran.

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The Court will issue its opinion later this term. The decision will set precedent for future geofence warrants and may prompt legislative or policy revisions by technology firms regarding location-data retention and disclosure.

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