Supreme Court punts geofence case
The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that an individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy when it comes to their cellphone location data, tossing out a ruling against a man convicted in a Virginia bank robbery case.
The justices held 6-3 that law enforcement’s use of a geofence warrant to identify Okello Chatrie was a search under the Fourth Amendment and sent the case back to a lower court for review.
“Because this is a ‘court of review, not a first view,’ the Court leaves it up to the Court of Appeals to decide whether, at each step of the search process, the warrant satisfied the Fourth Amendment’s requirements of particularity and probable cause,” Justice Elena Kagan wrote for the majority.
Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Amy Coney Barrett dissented.
Chatrie is serving nearly 12 years in prison after pleading guilty to robbing a credit union in the Richmond, Va., suburbs in 2019.
He was identified through the use of a geofence warrant, a type of “reverse warrant” that compels technology companies to provide data from all devices at a specific place and time.
The tool is typically employed by investigators when they know specific details of a crime but don’t yet have a suspect.
Law enforcement sought that data after seeing security camera footage of the unknown robbery suspect using a cellphone.
Investigators pinpointed Chatrie’s identity after narrowing their lists of potential suspects using anonymized data from all devices in a 17.5-acre radius around the bank.
Chatrie moved to suppress the location data in court on the grounds that it violated his Fourth Amendment rights. A district court judge agreed but also found that the evidence was still admissible because police had acted under the good-faith exception.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit upheld the ruling in a divided decision. The case went to the Supreme Court, where the government argued that there was not a “reasonable expectation” that Chatrie’s data would be kept private when he voluntarily shared it with a third party.
Read more in a full report at TheHill.com
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Read the full story at The Hill ↗
The Supreme Court examined the use of geofence warrants—tools that require technology companies to provide location data from all devices within a defined area during a specific timeframe. The case involved Okello Chatrie, who was identified as a suspect in a 2019 Virginia credit union robbery after law enforcement obtained location data from all devices within a 17.5-acre radius around the bank. A six-justice majority determined that this practice constitutes a Fourth Amendment search and that individuals retain a reasonable expectation of privacy in their cellphone location data. The Court returned the case to a lower court to determine whether each step of the investigative process met Fourth Amendment standards for particularity and probable cause. Three justices dissented. Chatrie is currently serving nearly 12 years in prison after pleading guilty to the robbery.
Read the full story at The Hill ↗
The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that an individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy when it comes to their cellphone location data, tossing out a ruling against a man convicted in a Virginia bank robbery case.
The justices held 6-3 that law enforcement’s use of a geofence warrant to identify Okello Chatrie was a search under the Fourth Amendment and sent the case back to a lower court for review.
“Because this is a ‘court of review, not a first view,’ the Court leaves it up to the Court of Appeals to decide whether, at each step of the search process, the warrant satisfied the Fourth Amendment’s requirements of particularity and probable cause,” Justice Elena Kagan wrote for the majority.
Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Amy Coney Barrett dissented.
Chatrie is serving nearly 12 years in prison after pleading guilty to robbing a credit union in the Richmond, Va., suburbs in 2019.
He was identified through the use of a geofence warrant, a type of “reverse warrant” that compels technology companies to provide data from all devices at a specific place and time.
The tool is typically employed by investigators when they know specific details of a crime but don’t yet have a suspect.
Law enforcement sought that data after seeing security camera footage of the unknown robbery suspect using a cellphone.
Investigators pinpointed Chatrie’s identity after narrowing their lists of potential suspects using anonymized data from all devices in a 17.5-acre radius around the bank.
Chatrie moved to suppress the location data in court on the grounds that it violated his Fourth Amendment rights. A district court judge agreed but also found that the evidence was still admissible because police had acted under the good-faith exception.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit upheld the ruling in a divided decision. The case went to the Supreme Court, where the government argued that there was not a “reasonable expectation” that Chatrie’s data would be kept private when he voluntarily shared it with a third party.
Read more in a full report at TheHill.com
Welcome to The Hill’s Technology newsletter, we’re Julia Shapero and Miranda Nazzaro — tracking the latest moves from Capitol Hill to Silicon Valley.
In Washington, information is power
A new premium access digital subscription — into the rooms, conversations, and analysis that shape Washington’s most important moments. Launching July 2026. Join the waitlist today.
How policy will be impacting the tech sector now and in the future:
Democratic Project 2029 calls for child social media ban, strict kids safety rules on tech
Democrats working on a policy blueprint ahead of the 2028 presidential election released their kids online safety proposal Monday, calling for a ban on social media for kids under 16 and stronger privacy protections. The “Kids Over Clicks” proposal is the first to be released by the group, Project 2029, and zeroes in on the mental and physical health impacts of social media — and now artificial intelligence — on …
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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said that large technology companies want to have “totally unchecked power” and should be split up. “The problem that we have is that these big companies, they think they are governments, they want to be governments,” she said in an interview with Fox News posted Sunday, discussing tech companies and AI. “We need to break up a lot of these companies that are far, …
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You’re all caught up. See you tomorrow!
Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Read the full story at The Hill ↗
The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that law enforcement's use of a geofence warrant to identify Okello Chatrie was a Fourth Amendment search An individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy in their cellphone location data The case was sent back to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit to determine whether the warrant satisfied Fourth Amendment requirements of particularity and probable cause Justices Alito, Thomas, and Barrett dissented from the majority opinion Chatrie was identified through geofence warrant data collected from a 17.5-acre radius around a bank in Richmond, Virginia suburbs Chatrie is serving nearly 12 years in prison after pleading guilty to robbing a credit union in 2019 The government argued that there was no reasonable expectation of privacy when data was voluntarily shared with a third party
Read the full story at The Hill ↗
- The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that law enforcement's use of geofence warrants to identify suspects constitutes a Fourth Amendment search
- Okello Chatrie's conviction in a Virginia bank robbery case was sent back to a lower court after the Court found his location privacy was violated
- Geofence warrants compel tech companies to provide data from all devices in a specific geographic area and time window
- The majority held that individuals have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their cellphone location data
- Three justices dissented, with the government having argued that voluntarily sharing data with third parties eliminates privacy expectations
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