Privacy: Cops who slap GPS's on cars slapped down by SCOTUS

A longer piece on this decision was broadcast on NPR by Nina Totenberg.

The court's unanimous opinon, written by Antonin Scalia, declared that because the tracking device was physically placed on Jones' property, "at a minimum" it was a search within the original meaning of the Constitution's ban on searches of property without a warrant.

Two concurring opinions were written by Samuel Alito and by Elena Kagan, who wrote: “it may be necessary to reconsider the premise that an individual has no reasonable expectation of privacy in information voluntarily disclosed to third parties…This approach is ill suited to the digital age, in which people reveal a great deal of information about themselves to third parties in the course of carrying out mundane tasks.”

Justice Alito observed that the Scalia opinion "ironically" decides a 21st century case based on 18th century tort law...the property rationale makes no sense and disregards a half-century of Supreme Court doctrine. To approach the issue as a question of trespass on private property, said Alito, is simply "unwise." What matters, he said, is the reasonable expectation of privacy in a modern world.

Omaha attorney James Martin Davis has several tracking devices found attached to his clients' cars which local law enforcement agencies have curiously failed to claim despite Davis' best efforts to return them.