The U.S. Supreme Court is hearing arguments in the case of Okello Chatrie regarding the lawfulness of police warrants that obtain broad cellphone location data. This case is the latest in a series of proceedings examining how cellphone technology interacts with the Constitution.
The justices are considering the use of geofence warrants, which allow law enforcement to find suspects and witnesses by sweeping up location data from all cellphone users who were in a certain place at a certain time. In one specific instance, police in Virginia used this technique to tap into Google's databases to find out who was near the scene of a bank robbery.
While geofence warrants can provide police with leads, the technique has also created false positives and spurred legal challenges. The Court must now determine whether these broad searches are constitutional.