Supreme Court hears oral arguments on geofence warrants that sweep in everyone near a crime

The Supreme Court hears oral arguments in Chatrie v. United States, a case challenging the constitutionality of "geofence warrants" — court orders that compel Google and other technology companies to identify every device present in a geographic area during a specified time window. The case arose from a 2019 bank robbery in Virginia for which law enforcement obtained a geofence warrant covering a church parking lot and nearby roads, pulling location data on 19 people, 9 of whom were innocent bystanders. Geofence warrants have become a common law enforcement tool, with Google reporting it received roughly 60,000 in the United States between 2018 and 2020. The key Fourth Amendment question is whether the warrants constitute an unreasonable search when they gather data on individuals who have no connection to a crime. The government argues the warrants are narrowly tailored and subject to judicial oversight. Privacy advocates argue they amount to a general warrant — explicitly prohibited by the Fourth Amendment — that creates a digital dragnet. The justices question both the scope of the warrants and the legal framework for assessing them. The case will define the rules for how law enforcement can use location data held by private technology companies, with implications for millions of Americans who carry smartphones.