Supreme Court to decide whether police can attach GPS device to a car without a warrant

The Supreme Court agreed to decide whether police investigators seeking to build a criminal case may put a tracking device on a car without first obtaining a search warrant.

The case, to be heard in the fall, figures to be a major test of the government's power to use electronic devices to secretly monitor individuals. At issue is whether tracking a motorist for several weeks through the use of a global positioning system that has been attached to his car qualifies as an "unreasonable search" under the 4th Amendment. Last year, a US appeals court in Washington overturned Antoine Jones' drug-trafficking conviction on the grounds that FBI agents had used a GPS device to track his Jeep for a month. The judges said this kind of close monitoring for weeks on end violates a person's "reasonable expectation of privacy."