Supreme Court Hears Geofence Warrant Case

The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments Monday in Chatrie v. United States, a case examining whether a geofence warrant used to obtain Google location data violated the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable searches. Most justices appeared skeptical of the challenge, pressing both sides on the implications for privacy and law enforcement investigations.

The dispute arose from a 2019 robbery at a credit union in Midlothian, Virginia, where Okello Chatrie stole approximately $195,000. After exhausting traditional leads, investigators obtained a court-approved geofence warrant directing Google to identify devices present in the area during a two-hour window around the crime. The data linked Chatrie to the scene, leading to his conditional guilty plea in 2022 and a 12-year prison sentence. He reserved the right to contest the evidence's admissibility.

Chatrie's attorney, Adam Unikowsky, argued that individuals maintain a reasonable expectation of privacy in location history stored on Google's servers, even if voluntarily shared with the company. He warned that upholding the warrant could expose cloud-stored data like emails, calendars, and photos to government...