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Bringing a smartphone to a bank robbery? 4th Amendment issue hits Supreme Court
Google says the warrant could have swept in data from thousands of people, raising Fourth Amendment concerns over broad location tracking.
- Okello Chatrie is appealing his bank robbery conviction to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, challenging the use of a 'geofence' warrant for Google location data.
- On May 20, 2019, Chatrie robbed Call Federal Credit Union in Midlothian, Virginia, prompting authorities to seek location data to identify suspects near the crime scene.
- Police obtained a 'geofence' warrant to search Google location data, capturing information from 1,500 users who were not involved in the crime.
- Splitting 6-6, the 4th Circuit upheld Chatrie's conviction, illustrating deep judicial disagreement over Fourth Amendment protections in digital surveillance cases.
- Legal experts suggest this case may eventually reach the Supreme Court as courts nationwide grapple with balancing law enforcement needs against digital privacy rights.
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32 Articles
32 Articles
Montana Standard+30 Reposted by 30 other sources
Bringing a smartphone to a bank robbery? 4th Amendment issue hits Supreme Court
If the court upholds such digital searches without an identified suspect, legal experts say the strategy could expand to pry through search engines, cloud storage and artificial-intelligence chats.
Associated Press: A bank robber’s cellphone gave him away. Now the Supreme Court is hearing his case
Associated Press: A bank robber’s cellphone gave him away. Now the Supreme Court is hearing his case . “The geofence warrant police served on Google found that [Okello] Chatrie’s cellphone was among a handful of devices in the vicinity of the bank around the time it was robbed. Now the Supreme Court will decide whether geofence warrants violate the Fourth Amendment’s ban on unreasonable searches.”
Coverage Details
Total News Sources32
Leaning Left4Leaning Right1Center26Last UpdatedBias Distribution84% Center
Bias Distribution
- 84% of the sources are Center
84% Center
13%
C 84%
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