About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

82 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. Online 1 (2024-2025)

handle is hein.journals/waleelro82 and id is 1 raw text is: Unfenced: The Fourth Circuit Gives Geofencing Its First Appellate Go-Ahead in United States v. Chatrie Jordan Wallace-Wolf' Abstract In United States v. Chatrie, the Fourth Circuit issued the first federal appellate opinion on the Fourth Amendment status of geofencing queries. The opinion is significant because geofences present a conceptual challenge to the framework of Carpenter v. United States, the reigning Supreme Court precedent on the Fourth Amendment status of digital searches. That opinion held that long-term tracking of a target individual was a search. However, geofencing reveals information about an indeterminate number of individuals for only a short time, in virtue of their being at a target location during a target span of time. Does the reasoning for the former holding in Carpenter entail that the latter is a search, too? I argue that the answer is no, unless Carpenter is given an ambitious interpretation. The court in Chatrie refused to go that far, and so held that the geofence at issue was not a search. I do not celebrate this result. Instead, I think it illustrates the limitations of Carpenter, doctrinally speaking, and the need to confront those limitations with eyes open. 1 * Assistant Professor, University of Arkansas, Little Rock. Thanks to Terrence Cain, participants in SEALS, Brian Owsley, and Nick Kahn-Fogel.

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most