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1 1 (February 27, 2025)

handle is hein.crs/govespk0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Geofence Warrants: A Circuit Split on Application of the Fourth Amendment February 27, 2025 Introduction From thermal imaging and wiretaps to GPS tracking and various forms of electronic eavesdropping, the emergence of new technologies and their investigative use have sometimes created legal tension with constitutional privacy protections. Over the last century, federal courts have considered the extent to which the Fourth Amendment's prohibition of unreasonable searches and seizures limits law enforcement's use of such technologies. In 2024, two federal appellate courts issued diverging opinions on the constitutionality of a relatively new technology-assisted law enforcement tool-geofence warrants. Geofences have been described as electronic systems that help establish a virtual perimeter around a specific geographic location. Private companies use geofencing for business purposes such as targeted advertising. Geofence warrants are an investigative tool typically employed when law enforcement knows the approximate time and location of a crime but not the identities of suspects. In executing a geofence warrant, law enforcement compels a company to provide certain information indicating which particular smartphones were present within a geographic area during a specified timeframe. Law enforcement can then use the information to potentially identify the owner of a smartphone found in the area of interest during the timeframe. Because geofence warrants do not begin with an identifiable suspect, they have been said to 'work in reverse' from traditional search warrants. Law enforcement has used geofence warrants to investigate criminal matters ranging from homicides to stolen pickup trucks and smashed car windows. The scope of geofence warrants has varied as well- from geographical areas measured in feet or meters to areas larger than an acre. Temporally, some warrants have been limited to minutes or hours; others have covered a period of days. The use of geofence warrants has garnered media attention and legislative interest at the state and federal level. In 2023, Google announced that it would reduce the default length for which it stores the location information typically sought in geofence warrants. The move drew interest from some observers who believe it could significantly curtail the use of geofence warrants. Still, as one federal appellate court pointed out, the relevance of geofences may continue given that the government is still seeking Google geofences, and because the government may potentially seek geofence warrants from sources other than Congressional Research Service https://crsreports.congress.gov LSB11274 CRS Legal Sidebar Prepared for Members and Committees of Congress

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