NY State Appeals Court Approves Warrantless Use of GPS to Track Driver

The New York State Appeals Court, 3rd Department, has ruled that police do not need to obtain a warrant to place a global positioning system (GPS) device on a driver's vehicle and track the movement of the vehicle on public roadways. Scott Weaver was a suspect in several burglaries. A police officer in Albany County, New York, put a battery-operated GPS device under the bumper of Weaver's van. He and a co-defendant were eventually arrested and convicted for robbing a K-mart store in suburban Albany. The arrest was based on information that the police retrieved from the GPS device they had placed on the van. Weaver brought a motion in Albany County Court to suppress the evidence obtained from the GPS. When the motion was denied, Weaver appealed the decision to the NY State Appeals Court. The Appeals Court found that a driver in a vehicle on a public roadway has a diminished expectation of privacy under both the US Constitution and the NY State Constitution. The Court held that the NY State Constitution does not preclude the police from placing a GPS device on a vehicle without obtaining a warrant, or retrieving information from that GPS in connection with an ongoing investigation. The Court also found that the warrantless use of GPS to track Mr. Weaver's van was not a violation of the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution (which guards against unreasonable searches and seizures). The Appeals Court determined that technology can be used to "... surveil that which is already public," because the information that the police obtained from the GPS was essentially the same as if police officers had used constant visual surveillance to follow and track the van. Since a warrant is not necessary to perform traditional surveillance methods on a vehicle, the Appeals Court found that the police did not need a warrant to track Weaver's van by GPS. The Court also noted that the GPS device was not wired into the electrical system of Mr. Weaver's van; it was not within the interior of the vehicle; and it did not record the movements of the vehicle on private property. All three of these factors have been cited by US Federal courts that have considered whether police require a warrant before using GPS devices to track vehicles. For more information, see: http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202422024633 Summary by: Andrei Edwards