Court Shuts Down Feds' Attempt To Expand The 'Border Search' Exception To Cover Inland GPS Monitoring
At the heart of it is a GPS tracking device.
The government installed it on a truck driven by suspected drug smugglers when it crossed the Canadian border into the US.
It then used that device to track the truck as it traveled down to California.
The resulting bust only uncovered some bags of sugar, but a previous stop of the same truck had turned up 194 kilos of cocaine.
The government argued it didn't need a warrant because it placed the device on the truck at the Canadian border. This would be the "border exception" to the Fourth Amendment -- one carved out by the courts which allows all kinds of warrantless searches to be performed in the name of border security.
But the judge doesn't buy this attempt to salvage ill-gotten evidence. The government cites a number of cases involving searches of vehicles performed at the border -- some more invasive than others -- where warrants weren't needed. The court finds these citations unavailing because they don't actually address what happened here: the placement of a GPS device at the border which was subsequently used to track a vehicle as it traveled far beyond the Canadian border.
The Court doubts that an analysis dependent on the physical aspects of the search is appropriate here where the search extends beyond the initial installation of the device.
And, having taken the Jones decision into account, the court definitely isn't going to allow the government to effectively expand the border search exception to cover searches performed well within the nation's borders.
[T]his Court is hesitant to mechanically apply the border search doctrine where the search stretches far beyond the conduct at the border to create a "precise comprehensive record of a person's movements." [...] Ultimately, the Court concludes the placement of a GPS device on a vehicle at the border, combined with the subsequent tracking of data over a prolonged period away from it, cannot be justified by the border search exception.
Wait, says the government, what about the extended border search doctrine, where we can perform warrantless searches so long as someone or something came across the border recently and we think something criminal is going on?
The court says continuous monitoring isn't the same thing as a search dependent on two separate, but linked, predicates.
This was a search that began at the border and never stopped.
While the initial placement of the GPS devices on Defendants' truck occurred at the border, the subsequent monitoring of the data over the almost 48 hours cons utes a continuous search…
[I[t is this unceasing search over that period that precludes application of the extended border search doctrine.
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