Tuesday, May 12, 2009

NY court: Police need warrants for GPS trackers

From the Associated Press:
New York’s top court says police cannot place GPS trackers on suspects’ vehicles without first getting a court warrant showing probable cause the drivers are up to no good.

The Court of Appeals [held] the tracker state police planted on Scott Weaver’s van for 65 days in 2005 violated his constitutional protections against unreasonable searches.

Weaver was convicted of burglary based in part on GPS data that showed him in a suburban Albany department store parking lot before a break-in. He will get a new trial with that information excluded.

Read the whole decision here.