Episode
The Privacy of Physical Movement: Chatrie v. United States
- Podcast
- Swear on the Stand
- Published
- Jun 29, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 1558
- Processing state
not_requested
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Summary
This episode presents the United States Supreme Court’s 2026 decision in Chatrie v. United States , a landmark case concerning the constitutionality of geofence warrants . The Court ruled that law enforcement conducts a Fourth Amendment search when it acquires a person's Location History data from private companies like Google, as individuals maintain a reasonable expectation of privacy regarding their physical movements. Justice Kagan's majority opinion argues that this digital tracking provides an intimate window into a person’s life , comparable to the cell-site data protected in the earlier Carpenter ruling. While the Court established that such data collection requires constitutional oversight, it remanded the case to determine if the specific multi-step warrant used to identify Chatrie for a bank robbery was sufficiently particular and supported by probable cause . Separate opinions reflect deep judicial divisions, with some justices advocating for a property-based approach to digital effects, while dissenters criticized the ruling as an advisory opinion regarding an obsolete technology.