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The first article mentions a Supreme Court case in 2011 to "determine if authorities can track U.S. citizens with GPS vehicle trackers without a warrant" - anyone know what that case was or how it was decided?

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9-0 unanimous that the police must have a warrant prior to using a GPS vehicle tracker. The reasonings differ among the justices but the vote was unanimous.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Jones_%282012%...

Faith in humanity for today restored!

The split in reasons did lead to the fundamental question being sort of dodged. The majority opinion decided the case on quite narrow grounds: that the physical installation of the GPS device violated the 4th amendment, because installing it involved tampering with someone's personal property (the car) without a warrant. Four justices would have gone further and argued it would require a warrant to operate such a GPS tracker regardless of how it was installed, but the majority left that question unanswered.

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