Chatrie v. United States · ¶52

And contra the Government, Knotts does not support the view that accessing two hours of Location History is not a search. There, police officers put a beeper in a car to help them follow it from Minnesota to Wisconsin. The Court decided that the beeper did not turn the tail into a search, but was explicit in keeping its holding cabined to that rudimentary technology. The defendant had argued that a ruling against him would enable officials to conduct “surveillance of any citizen of this country” free from the strictures of the Fourth Amendment. 460 U. S., at 283. The Court took the concern seriously, stating that if technology progressed so as to allow more sophisticated surveillance, “different constitutional principles” could well apply. Id., at 284. And three decades later, five Justices in two opinions found that they did. When faced in Jones with a GPS device—which unlike the…

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