7th Circuit rules police use of GPS device is constitutional

Police use of a global position system (GPS) device to track a suspect's vehicle doesn't violate the Fourth Amendment, the 7th Circuit has ruled.

The police received a tip that the defendant was preparing to manufacture methamphetamine, and a store's security video system recorded him buying ingredients to make the drug. The police found a car fitting the description of the vehicle the defendant was said to be driving, and attached a GPS "memory tracking unit" under the rear bumper.

When police later retrieved the device, they learned the car's travel history since it was attached, including the fact that the car had traveled to a large tract of land. The owner of the land gave the police permission to search, and they found equipment and materials used in the manufacture of meth.

The defendant argued that evidence obtained as the result of the GPS device should have been suppressed.

But the court disagreed, finding that the use of the device was not a "search."

"The device did not affect the car's driving qualities, did not draw power from the car's engine or battery, did not take up room that might otherwise have been occupied by passengers or packages, did not even alter the car's appearance, and in short did not 'seize' the car in any intelligible sense of the word," the court said.

"[I]f police follow a car around, or observe its route by means of cameras mounted on lampposts or of satellite imaging as in Google Earth, there is no search. GPS tracking is on the same side of the divide with the surveillance cameras and the satellite imaging, and if what they do is not a search in Fourth Amendment terms, neither is GPS tracking."

U.S. v. Garcia (Lawyers USA No. 9935103) U.S. Court of Appeals, 7th Circuit No. 06-2741. Feb. 2, 2007.