No. 10-1259444444444444444444444444444444444444444444

IN THE

Supreme Court of the United States____________________

UNITED STATES, Petitioner,v.

ANTOINE JONES, Respondent.____________________On Writ of Certiorari

to the United States Court of Appealsfor the District of Columbia Circuit

____________________BRIEF AMICUS CURIAE OF GUN OWNERS OF AMERICA,

INC., GUN OWNERS FOUNDATION, U.S. JUSTICE

FOUNDATION, INSTITUTE ON THE CONSTITUTION,CENTER FOR MEDIA AND DEMOCRACY, FREE SPEECH

COALITION, INC., FREE SPEECH DEFENSE AND

EDUCATION FUND, INC., DOWNSIZEDC.ORG, DOWNSIZE

DC FOUNDATION, CONSERVATIVE LEGAL DEFENSE AND

EDUCATION FUND, DECLARATION ALLIANCE, RESTORING

LIBERTY ACTION COMMITTEE, THE LINCOLN INSTITUTE

FOR RESEARCH AND EDUCATION, POLICY ANALYSIS

CENTER, CONSTITUTION PARTY NATIONAL COMMITTEE,AND LIBERTARIAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE, INC. IN

SUPPORT OF RESPONDENT____________________

JOSEPH W. MILLER HERBERT W. TITUS*LAW OFFICES OF JOSEPH WILLIAM J. OLSON

MILLER, LLC. JOHN S. MILES

P.O. Box 83440 JEREMIAH L. MORGAN

Fairbanks, AK 99708 WILLIAM J. OLSON, P.C.(907) 451-8559 370 Maple Ave. W., # 4

Attorney for Amicus Restoring Vienna, VA 22180-5615Liberty Action Committee wjo@mindspring.com*Counsel of Record (703) 356-5070October 3, 2011 Attorneys for Amici Curiae

(Counsel continued on inside front cover.)444444444444444444444444444444444444444444

GARY G. KREEP MARK B. WEINBERG

U. S. JUSTICE FOUNDATION WEINBERG, JACOBS &

932 D Street TOLANI, LLPSuite 2 One Central PlazaRamona, CA 92065 Suite 1200(760) 788-6624 11300 Rockville Pike

Attorney for Amicus Rockville, MD 20852U.S. Justice Foundation (301) 468-5500

Attorney for Amici FreeSpeech Coalition and FreeSpeech Defense andEducation Fund

TABLE OF CONTENTSPage

Table of Authorities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iii

Interest of Amici Curiae . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Summary of Argument . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Argument

I. THE GOVERNMENT’S EXTREME POSITIONTHAT THE FOURTH AMENDMENT DOES NOTEVER APPLY TO GPS SURVEILLANCE ONPUBLIC ROADWAYS IS INSUPPORTABLE . . . . . . 4

II. THE “EXPECTATION OF PRIVACY” TEST FORSEARCHES AND SEIZURES AROSE WITHOUTSUPPORT IN THE TEXT OR HISTORICALCONTEXT OF THE FOURTH AMENDMENT, ANDHAS PROVEN WHOLLY INADEQUATE TOPROTECT THE AMERICAN PEOPLE FROMTHEIR GOVERNMENT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

III. THE FOURTH AMENDMENT SECURES TWORELATED, BUT DISTINCT, PROPERTY RIGHTS . 14

A. The Textual Development of the FourthAmendment Demonstrates that It ProtectsTwo Distinct Rights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

B. The Fourth Amendment’s First GuaranteeSecures the Unalienable Right of the People toPrivate Property Unless the GovernmentDemonstrates a Superior Property Right . . 18

ii

C. The Fourth Amendment’s ProhibitionAgainst General Warrants Protects Personsand Their Property from Indiscriminateand Surreptitious Searches . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

IV. THE ATTACHMENT AND USE OF THE GPSTRACKING DEVICE VIOLATED THE FOURTHAMENDMENT BAN ON UNREASONABLESEARCHES AND SEIZURES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

A. The Attachment of a GPS Tracking Deviceto Respondent’s Vehicle Constituted anUnreasonable Search and Seizure . . . . . . . . 29

B. The Use of the GPS Tracking DeviceViolated the Fourth Amendment . . . . . . . . . 32

C. Attachment and Use of a GPS TrackingDevice Is an Unlawful General Warrant . . . 33

CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

iii

TABLE OF AUTHORITIESPage

U.S. CONSTITUTIONFourth Amendment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2, passimFifth Amendment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10, 21

STATUTES18 U.S.C. § 2518 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

CASESBarnes v. Indiana, 946 N.E. 2d 572 (Ind. 2011) . . 27Berger v. New York, 388 U.S. 41 (1967) . . . . . 21, 24Boyd v. United States, 116 U.S. 746 (1886) 3, passimCalifornia v. Acevedo, 500 U.S. 565 (1991) . . . . . . 26Camara v. Municipal Court, 387 U.S. 523 (1967) . 14Colonnade Catering Corp.. v. United States, 397

U.S. 72 (1970) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13Donovan v. Dewey, 452 U.S. 594 (1981) . . . . . . . . . 13Entick v. Carrington 19 Howell’s State Trials

1029 (1765) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5, 20, 29Gouled v. United States, 255 U.S. 298

(1921) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21, 26, 32Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965) . . . . 13Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347 (1967) . 7, 13, 14Kyllo v. United States, 533 U.S. 27 (2001) . . . . . . . 32Loretto v. Teleprompter Manhattan Catv Corp.,

458 U.S. 419, (1982) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30New York v. Burger, 482 U.S. 691 (1987) . . . . . . . 13Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438

(1928) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23, 24Silverthorne Lumber Co., Inc. v. United States,

251 U.S. 385 (1920) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21Soldal v. Cook Cty., Ill., 506 U.S. 56 (1992) . . . . . . . 5

iv

United States v. Biswell, 406 U.S. 311 (1972) . . . . 13United States v. Knotts, 460 U.S. 276 (1983) . 13, 23Warden v. Hayden, 387 U.S. 294 (1967) . . 8, passimWeeks v. United States, 232 U.S.383 (1914) . . . . . 25

MISCELLANEOUSRadley Balko, Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary

Police Raids in America, CATO Inst. (2006) . . . 27T. Cooley, A Treatise on Constitutional Limitations

(5th Ed. 1883) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26, 27The Founders’ Constitution (P. Kurland & R. Lerner,

eds.: Univ. of Chicago Press: 1987) . . . . . . . . . . 15Gallup Poll, “Republicans, Democrats Shift on

Whether Gov’t is a Threat” (Oct. 19, 2010) . . . . 28Gibson Company Website, “Gibson Guitar Corp.

Responds to Federal Raid” (Aug. 25, 2011) . . . . 28Go Directly to Jail: The Criminalization of Almost

Everything, CATO Inst. (Gene Healy, ed., 2004)28In the Name of Justice, CATO Inst. (Timothy Lynch,

ed., 2009) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28A. Kuyper, “Lecture on Sphere Sovereignty” (Oct.

20, 1890) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25N.B. Lasson, The History and Development of the

Fourth Amendment to the United StatesConstitution (Johns Hopkins Press: 1937) . . . . 18

J. Locke, Two Treatises of Government (CambridgeUniv.: 2002) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

James Otis, “Against Writs of Assistance” (Feb.1761) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

W. Prosser, Law of Torts (4th ed. 1971) . . . . . . . . . 30

v

Paul Craig Roberts and Lawrence M. Stratton, TheTyranny of Good Intentions: How Prosecutorsand Law Enforcement Are Trampling theConstitution in the Name of Justice, ThreeRivers Press (2008) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Paul Rosenzweig and Brian W. Walsh, One NationUnder Arrest: How Crazy Laws, RogueProsecutors, and Activist Judges ThreatenYour Liberty, Heritage Foundation (2010) . . . . 28

Harvey A. Silverglate, Three Felonies a Day: Howthe Feds Target the Innocent, EncounterBooks (2009) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Sources of Our Liberties (R. Perry & J. Cooper, eds.,Rev. Ed., American Bar Foundation:1978) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15, passim

W. Strunk and E.B. White, The Elements of Style (3ded. 1979) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Warren, Samuel D. and Brandeis, Louis, “The Rightto Privacy,” 4 HARV. L. REV. 193 (1890) . . . . . . . 9

WCCO Television Report, “SWAT Team honored forraiding wrong house,” (Jul. 29, 2008) . . . . . . . . 27

J. B. White, “Judicial Criticism,” 20 GA. L. REV. 835(1986) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24, 34

C. Whitebread, Criminal Procedure (FoundationPress: 1980) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

INTEREST OF AMICI CURIAE1

Amici Gun Owners of America, Inc., Gun OwnersFoundation, U.S. Justice Foundation, Institute on theConstitution, Center for Media and Democracy, FreeSpeech Coalition, Inc., Free Speech Defense andEducation Fund, Inc., DownsizeDC.org, Downsize DCFoundation, Conservative Legal Defense andEducation Fund, Declaration Alliance, RestoringLiberty Action Committee, The Lincoln Institute forResearch and Education, and Policy Analysis Centerare an ideologically diverse group of educationalorganizations interested in the proper interpretation ofthe U.S. Constitution.

Amici Constitution Party National Committee andLibertarian National Committee, Inc. are nationalpolitical parties.

Most of these amici have filed numerous amicuscuriae briefs in prior litigation, including in casesbefore this Court.

Eleven of these sixteen amici filed the only amicuscuriae brief at the Petition stage in the instant case, atthat time filing in support of neither party. In thisbrief, amici file in support of Respondent AntoineJones.

1 It is hereby certified that the parties have consented to the filingof this brief and that no counsel for a party authored this brief inwhole or in part, and no person other than these amici curiae,their members, or their counsel made a monetary contribution toits preparation or submission.

2

SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT

The Government does not seek a resolution of thiscase tailored to its facts. Rather, it strives for totalvictory — a judicial declaration that the FourthAmendment does not ever apply to Global PositioningSystem (“GPS”) monitoring, without regard for thefacts that the Government committed an illegaltrespass to attach the GPS device onto privateproperty, and then indiscriminately monitored themovement of the Jones vehicle, no matter the identityof the driver, the destination of the vehicle, or thelength of time.

The Government’s extreme view that the FourthAmendment is completely irrelevant is made possibleonly by this Court’s mistaken jurisprudence that theFourth Amendment only applies to situations whereinpersons have a “reasonable expectation of privacy.” This 44-year old doctrine — grafted onto the FourthAmendment by a judicial rejection of a time-honoredrule that protected the people from a “mereevidentiary” search — has proved, as its critics on thecourt predicted, unfit to secure the liberties of thepeople.

As the Government has taken advantage of newtechnologies enabling its agents to penetrate ever moredeeply into the private lives of citizens, “society’s”expectations of privacy have correspondingly shrunk. Had previous Courts adhered to the original text of theFourth Amendment, rather than substituting theirown language, the right of the people to be “secure intheir persons, houses, papers, and effects” would have

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preserved their privacy by a permanent wall of theunalienable right of private property.

As this Court held in the seminal case of Boyd v.United States, 116 U.S. 746 (1886) the first freedom ofthe Fourth Amendment protects the people from anysearch for or seizure of any private property to whichGovernment could not affirmatively demonstrate thatit had a superior right. Thus, even if the Governmentcould meet the warrant, probable cause, andparticularity requirements of the Amendment, it couldnot search for, or seize, property, unless that propertywas shown to be the fruit of a crime, aninstrumentality of a crime, or contraband.

Had this ban on searching for and seizing “mereevidence” held, wiretapping and other forms ofsurreptitious eavesdropping by sophisticatedtechnological means would have been prohibited by theFourth Amendment, the foremost purpose of which isto protect the inherent property right that eachindividual human being has in his own person —including his communications and his movements.

As applied here, the property-based principles of theoriginal Fourth Amendment protects against both theinstallation and the use of the GPS tracking device. Byattaching the device to the Jones vehicle without theowner’s knowledge or consent, the Governmentunlawfully trespassed on Mr. Jones’ indefeasible rightof private property. And, by monitoring the movementof the Jones vehicle, the Government indiscriminatelyseized “mere evidence.” Not only did the Government’saction violate these inherent, God-given unalienable

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rights, but the indiscriminate search and seizure of themovement of the vehicle regardless of the identity ofthe driver or the destination of the vehicle violated theFourth Amendment ban on general warrants.

ARGUMENT

I. T H E G O V E R N M E N T ’ S E X T R E M EPOSITION THAT THE FOURTHAMENDMENT DOES NOT EVER APPLYTO GPS SURVEILLANCE ON PUBLICROADWAYS IS INSUPPORTABLE.

The Government’s petition for certiorari asked theCourt to resolve a single issue: “Whether thewarrantless use of a tracking device on [Respondent’s]vehicle to monitor its movement on public streetsviolated the Fourth Amendment.” (Emphasis added.) The Government declined to seek review of theinstallation of the device on Respondent’s car, whichhad been described by Judge Kavanaugh in his dissentfrom the denial of rehearing en banc as Respondent’s“property-based Fourth Amendment argumentconcerning the installation” of the GPS device. UnitedStates v. Jones, 625 F.3d 766, 770 (D.C. Cir. 2010)(italics original). In granting certiorari, however, thisCourt placed the property issue front and center bydirecting the parties also to brief and argue that veryissue: “Whether the government violated respondent’sFourth Amendment rights by installing the GPS

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tracking device on his vehicle without a valid warrent[sic] and without his consent.”2 (Emphasis added.)

In response to this invitation, Respondent Jonestraced the property roots of both the FourthAmendment’s search (Resp. Br. pp. 16-23) and seizuredoctrines (Resp. Br. pp. 46-52). Beginning with Entickv. Carrington (“The great end, for which men enteredinto society, was to secure their property”) andcontinuing through Soldal v. Cook Cty., Ill., 506 U.S.56, 62 (1992) (“[T]he Amendment protects property aswell as privacy”), Respondent explained the importanceof possessory, not just privacy, interests. See, e.g.,Resp. Br. pp. 46-47.

In contrast, the Government mentioned the propertyissue only briefly, asserting that there was nomeaningful interference with Respondent’s possessoryinterests in his car — that the attachment of a GPSdevice is, at most, a “technical trespass.” Pet. Br. pp.42-45. The Government devotes almost all of its briefto advancing its theory that the Fourth Amendmentdoes not apply at all (Pet. Br. pp. 17-46), and only inthe last few pages arguing, in the alternative, that theinstant search and/or seizure was “reasonable” (id., pp.47-51).

2 This is not the first time that a court has been required to raisean issue involving the legality of a search not raised by theparties. In Entick v. Carrington, 19 How. St. Tr. 1029, 95 Eng.Rep. 807 (KB 1765), the Lord Chief Justice addressed a matterinvolving the government’s authority for the search which hedescribed as having “slipped the sagacity of the counsel on bothsides, that it may be taken notice of upon the next argument.”

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Having brushed aside the property issue, theGovernment’s principal argument is that surreptitioususe of GPS tracking devices on private vehicles, whiletraveling on public roads,3 constitutes neither a searchnor a seizure, and, therefore, that law enforcement isnot constrained in any way by the Fourth Amendmentin either the installation or use of GPS trackingequipment on private automobiles. Pet Br. pp. 17-42. The Government’s brief contains no textual analysis ofthe Fourth Amendment or any discussion of itshistorical context. Instead, the Amendment’s textappears only as a ritual recitation of the“Constitutional Provision Involved.” Pet. Br. p. 2.

Indeed, the Government impliedly disavows that itstheory is either historically or textually based, arguingsolely that: “[u]nder current constitutionalprinciples, the government’s investigation in this casedid not amount to a search.” Id., p. 35 (emphasisadded). Under this reading of Fourth Amendmentjurisprudence, there would be no need for lawenforcement to establish probable cause, or obtain ajudicially issued warrant, or even have reasonablesuspicion prior to installing a GPS tracking device onany person’s automobile — or his clothes, notebookcomputer, iPad, telephone, or briefcase. Further, if theFourth Amendment were deemed wholly inapplicable,

3 The Government appears not to contest the district court’sexclusion of GPS data relating to the Jones vehicle while garagedat his residence, apparently conceding that to be a FourthAmendment violation, but apparently not having any problemwith continuing such violations in the future. Pet. Br. p. 5. Seealso Resp. Br. pp. 4-5.

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then, logically, there could be no “unreasonable” use ofGPS tracking equipment, although the Governmentincludes a passing reference to the supposed lack ofdemonstrated “abuse” of this asserted power to trackAmericans round the clock. Pet. Br. pp. 14, 35. Insum, the Government swings for the fences, seekingthe broadest possible victory, disclaiming anyconstitutional constraint on its dream of establishinga surveillance society limited, if at all, only by “thelegislative process.” Pet. Br. p. 35.

In sum, the Government’s theory of FourthAmendment jurisprudence would drive the final nail inthe coffin of a once robust constitutional “right of thepeople to be secure in their persons, houses, papers,and effects.” If this theory were to prevail, it would bein no small part due to a switch from the original“property” principles embedded in the FourthAmendment’s protections to a judicially devised“privacy” rationale grafted into the Amendment.Taking full advantage of this Court’s FourthAmendment standard of a “reasonable expectation ofprivacy” (Katz v. U.S., 389 U.S. 347, 360 (1967)), theGovernment has shown that the bar on “unreasonablesearches and seizures” has already deteriorated into aweak and anemic parchment barrier, unfit to protectthe people against the demands of law enforcement forincreasingly intrusive forms of surveillance.

According to the historical and textual principles ofprivate property that undergird the FourthAmendment, however, Government installation of GPSdevices on private vehicles to track the movement ofsuch vehicles in any place, including a public roadway,

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is absolutely prohibited. Such monitoring of themovement of such vehicles is an “unreasonable search[]and seizure[]” because it “violates” the rights of thepeople to be secure in their “persons” and “effects.” Such installed GPS tracking devices are“unreasonable” per se, an impermissible means ofinvestigation or surveillance, unavailable to theGovernment even if the Government obtains a warrantupon probable cause supported by oath or affirmation,and describing with particularity the persons or thingsto be seized. While it may not be possible for any onejudicial decision to reconstruct completely the Court’sFourth Amendment jurisprudence, this case presentsthe opportunity for the Court to return to the text ofthe Amendment, to acknowledge its property basis,and to review the decision of the U.S. Court of Appealsfor the D.C. Circuit within that framework.

II. THE “EXPECTATION OF PRIVACY” TESTFOR SEARCHES AND SEIZURES AROSEWITHOUT SUPPORT IN THE TEXT ORHISTORICAL CONTEXT OF THE FOURTHAMENDMENT, AND HAS PROVENWHOLLY INADEQUATE TO PROTECTTHE AMERICAN PEOPLE FROM THEIRGOVERNMENT.

Only 44 years ago, in Warden v. Hayden, 387 U.S.294 (1967), this Court formally abandoned the “mereevidence rule,” together with its well-establishedFourth Amendment jurisprudence based upon“property rights,” in favor of one rooted in an emergingright of “privacy.” The Court’s motivation for the

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change was not some new insight or scholarship as tothe original meaning of the Fourth Amendment in1791. Indeed it could not have been, as the seed ofwhat has become the “right of privacy” was containedin a law review article by Samuel D. Warren and LouisD. Brandeis published nearly a century after itsratification. In “The Right to Privacy,” 4 HARV. L. REV.193 (1890), Warren and Brandeis proposed the “nextstep” in the development of common law was to createa cause of action for violation of a person’s “right toprivacy.” The right of privacy was discussed not asbeing then in existence (in the common law or as aright contemplated by the authors of the Constitution)but as one that should be fashioned for the future.

In Hayden, Justice William J. Brennan — writing fora bare majority of five justices — jettisoned the time-honored rule that a search for “mere evidence” was perse “unreasonable” because of supposed dissatisfactionwith the “fictional and procedural barriers rest[ing] onproperty concepts.” Hayden, 387 U.S. at 304. JusticeBrennan claimed that the distinction between (i) “mereevidence” and (ii) “instrumentalities [of crime], fruits[of crime] and contraband” was “based on premisesno longer accepted as rules governing theapplication of the Fourth Amendment.” Id. at 300-01(emphasis added). Discarding the notion that theFourth Amendment requires the Government todemonstrate that it has a “superior property interest”4

in the thing to be seized, Justice Brennan promisedthat his new privacy rationale would free the Fourth

4 Id. at 303-04.

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Amendment from “irrational,”5 “discredited,”6 and“confus[ing]”7 decisions of the past, and thereby wouldprovide for a more meaningful protection of “theprincipal object of the Fourth Amendment [—] theprotection of privacy rather than property.” Id. at 304.8

Concurring in the result, but not in the reasoning,Justice Fortas (joined by Chief Justice Earl Warren)stated that he “cannot join in the majority’s broad —and ... totally unnecessary — repudiation of the so-called ‘mere evidence’ rule.” Id. at 310 (Fortas, J.,concurring). Resting his concurrence on the time-honored “‘hot pursuit’ exception to the search-warrantrequirement,”9 Justice Fortas sought to avoid what hecalled “an enormous and dangerous hole in theFourth Amendment”10:

5 Id. at 302.

6 Id. at 306.

7 Id. at 309.

8 In abandoning the “mere evidence” rule, the Hayden Court alsodid away with the linkage between the Fourth Amendment andthe prohibition against compelled self-incrimination of the Fifth. In Boyd, the Court viewed the two amendments as linked: “Forthe ‘unreasonable searches and seizures’ condemned in the FourthAmendment are almost always made for the purpose ofcompelling a man to give evidence against himself....” Boyd,116 U.S. at 633 (emphasis added).

9 Id. at 312 (Fortas, J., concurring).

10 Id. (Fortas, J., concurring) (emphasis added).

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[O]pposition to general searches is a fundamentalof our heritage and of the history of Anglo-Saxonlegal principles. Such searches, pursuant to“writs of assistance,” were one of the mattersover which the American Revolution was fought. The very purpose of the Fourth Amendment wasto outlaw such searches, which the Court todaysanctions. I fear that in gratuitously strikingdown the “mere evidence” rule, whichdistinguished members of this Court haveacknowledged as essential to enforce the FourthAmendment’s prohibition against generalsearches, the Court today needlessly destroys,root and branch, a basic part of liberty’sheritage. [Id. at 312 (Fortas, J., concurring)(emphasis added).]

Justice Brennan frankly admitted that, by erasingthe property protection from the Fourth Amendment,his newly-minted privacy-based Hayden rule “doesenlarge the area of permissible searches.” Hayden, 387 U.S. at 309 (emphasis added). Heapparently assumed that the newly-permittedintrusions for “mere evidence” would be checked by thewarrant, probable cause, and magistrate requirementsof the Amendment’s second phrase. See id. However,as the instant case dramatically illustrates, JusticeBrennan’s Fourth Amendment revolution has actuallyundermined the warrant, probable cause, andmagistrate requirements of the Amendment.

Having abandoned the property-based “mereevidence” rule in favor of the “reasonable expectationof privacy” guideline, the Hayden Court opened the

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door not only to a search warrant authorizing theinstallation of a GPS device, but also to theGovernment’s theory in the instant case that such adevice may be implanted even without a searchwarrant on the theory that there is no FourthAmendment search or seizure because there isno expectation of privacy as to a person’smovements on a public highway. Moreover, theGovernment argues that there is no need for probablecause or even reasonable suspicion to place a trackingdevice on any automobile. See Pet. Br. pp. 15-16.

The expectation of privacy rationale is deeplyproblematic. If the Government were to announce andmake known that it was recording all cell phone calls,preserving copies of all e-mails, intercepting all faxes,using cell phones to monitor conversations in a roomeven when no call was in progress, and that it hadentered into an agreement with OnStar, TomTom, andGarmin to monitor in real time the position of all carsusing that GPS equipment, one could say that noAmerican would have any reasonable expectation ofprivacy. According to the Government’s theory then,no American would be able to claim that a FourthAmendment search or a seizure of thosecommunications or data transmissions had occurred.

Moreover, if the Government has the right to placea GPS device on a citizen's automobile to gathermovement data, because no citizen has any reasonableexpectation of privacy, why would that notautomatically grant to all citizens a reciprocal right toplace a GPS device on their neighbor’s car, or even ona government official’s car? Surely neither the

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neighbor nor the government official would have anydifferent expectation of privacy. No doubt, however, ifany citizen were to be so bold, the Government wouldbe quick to indict him, inter alia, for trespassing ongovernment property — a trespass that theGovernment would certainly not consider “technical.” In a country where the people are sovereign,government officials cannot be considered above thelaw.

Over the years, the Court has gradually relied moreand more upon the right to privacy as one of the“penumbras, formed by emanations from” the FourthAmendment. Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479,484 (1965). It eventually eliminated any reliance onproperty rights in Katz, relying only on the “reasonableexpectation of privacy” test. See U.S. v. Knotts, 460U.S. 276, 280 (1983). In Knotts, Chief JusticeRehnquist revealed unmistakably that Brandeis’privacy right had been grafted onto the FourthAmendment.

Under the reasonable expectation of privacy test thisCourt has overridden property rights by allowingwarrantless searches of commercial property,11 closelyregulated industries,12 and a private residence for

11 See Donovan v. Dewey, 452 U.S. 594 (1981).

12 See Colonnade Catering Corp. v. United States, 397 U.S. 72(1970) (liquor industry); United States v. Biswell, 406 U.S. 311(1972) (federal firearms dealers); New York v. Burger, 482 U.S.691 (1987) (junkyard).

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violations of a housing code,13 among others. ThisCourt’s “expectation of privacy” test has proven whollyinadequate to the task of protecting the Americanpeople against invasions of their privacy throughunreasonable searches and seizures. Paradoxically, areturn to the text and property basis of the FourthAmendment would provide much greater protection forwhat are thought of as privacy rights.

III. THE FOURTH AMENDMENT SECURESTWO RELATED, BUT DISTINCT,PROPERTY RIGHTS.

It has become commonplace in modern Americanlegal practice to address constitutional issues with onlypassing reference to the constitutional text and thehistorical and legal context. This tendency has beenespecially pronounced in Fourth Amendment litigationwhich, since Warden v. Hayden and Katz v. UnitedStates, has been dominated by the judge-createdstandard of a “reasonable expectation of privacy.” Theword, “privacy,” however, is not found anywhere in theFourth Amendment text. Yet, by habitual use,“privacy” terminology has overshadowed, indeed evenreplaced, the actual text to the point that the originalpurpose of the Fourth Amendment — the protection ofprivate property against “unreasonable searches andseizures” — has been lost.

13 See Camara v. Municipal Court, 387 U.S. 523 (1967),

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It is, therefore, the purpose of this section first toreconstruct the text and its history and second toanalyze the private property right protected be each ofthe Fourth Amendment’s two distinct prohibitions —one against government seizures of private property towhich the government has no superior rights, and theother against “general warrants.”

A. The Textual Development of the FourthAmendment Demonstrates that It ProtectsTwo Distinct Rights.

On June 8, 1789, James Madison offered in Congress“his long-awaited amendments” to the United StatesConstitution, as they had been recommended byseveral state ratification conventions. See Sources ofOur Liberties, pp. 421-24 (R. Perry & J. Cooper, eds.,Rev. Ed., American Bar Foundation: 1978) (hereinafter“Sources”). Among those proposed amendments wasthe following text, the precursor to what would becomethe Fourth Amendment of the Constitution set forth inthe Bill of Rights:

The rights of the people to be secured in theirpersons, their houses, their papers, and theirother property, from all unreasonable searchesand seizures, shall not be violated by warrantsissued without probable cause, supported by oathor affirmation, or not particularly describing theplaces to be searched, and the persons or things tobe seized. [5 The Founders’ Constitution, p. 25 (P.Kurland & R. Lerner, eds.: Univ. of Chicago Press:1987) (hereinafter “Founder’s Constitution”)(emphasis added).]

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Madison’s text reflected Section 10 of the 1776 VirginiaDeclaration of Rights, which secured to the people onlythe right to be free from general warrants:

That general warrants, whereby an officer ... may... search suspected places without evidence of afact committed, or to seize any person or personsnot named, or whose offense is not particularlydescribed and supported by evidence, are grievousand oppressive, and ought not be granted.”[Sources, p. 312.]

Virginia’s Declaration did not stand alone. Similarprovisions appeared in the original Delaware, NorthCarolina, and Maryland Declarations of Rights. SeeSources, pp. 339 (Delaware), 348 (Maryland), and 355(North Carolina).

However, four other states adopted a different typeof declaration, indicating that the protection againstgeneral warrants was but a subset of an overarchingproperty right. The 1776 Pennsylvania Declarationtook the lead, stating:

That the people have a right to hold themselves,their houses, papers, and possessions free fromsearch and seizure, and therefore warrantswithout oaths or affirmations first made, affordinga sufficient foundation for them, and whereby anyofficer ... may be commanded ... to searchsuspected places, or to seize any person ..., hisproperty ..., not particularly described, arecontrary to that right, and ought not begranted.” [Sources, p. 330 (emphasis added).]

17

Similar direct protections of property rights appearedin the 1777 Vermont, the 1780 Massachusetts, and the1784 New Hampshire Declarations. See Sources, pp.366 (Vermont), 376 (Massachusetts) and 384 (NewHampshire). The latter two began with a singlesentence, remarkably similar to the first phrase of theratified Fourth Amendment: “Every subject has aright to be secure from all unreasonable searches andseizures, of his person, his houses, his papers, and allhis possessions.”

In contrast, Madison’s initial proposal would haveprotected the “rights of the people to be secured intheir persons, their houses, their papers, and theirother property” only from general warrants. Instead,Congress submitted to the States for ratification amuch more muscular Fourth Amendment, which reads:

The right of the People to be secure in theirpersons, houses, papers, and effects, againstunreasonable searches and seizures, shall not beviolated, and no warrants shall issue, but uponprobable cause supported by oath or affirmation,and particularly describing the place to besearched, and the persons or things to be seized.[Emphasis added.]

In striking “by” from Madison’s original draft, andsubstituting “and no” preceded by a comma, Congresschanged Madison’s single subject sentence into acompound one,14 setting forth two distinct, albeit

14 See W. Strunk and E.B. White, The Elements of Style, pp. 5-6(3d ed. 1979).

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related, rights. See N.B. Lasson, The History andDevelopment of the Fourth Amendment to the UnitedStates Constitution, p. 103 (Johns Hopkins Press:1937). The first phrase affirmatively secures thepeople’s unalienable right to private property, and theother protects the property rights of the people fromexecution of general warrants even where theGovernment has a superior property interest.

B. The Fourth Amendment’s First GuaranteeSecures the Unalienable Right of thePeople to Private Property unless theGovernment Demonstrates a SuperiorProperty Right.

By its grammatical change, Congress signified that,separate from the warrant requirement, “[t]he right ofthe people to be secure in their persons, houses,papers, and effects, against unreasonable searchesand seizures, shall not be violated....” (Emphasisadded.) While the Massachusetts and New HampshireDeclarations stated this right in principle, the FourthAmendment added teeth to the principle — statingthat those inherent property rights “shall not beviolated.”

Thus, in the seminal Fourth Amendment case ofBoyd v. United States, 116 U.S. 616 (1886), theSupreme Court considered the threshold question tobe:

Is a search and seizure ... of a man’s privatepapers, to be used in evidence against him in aproceeding to forfeit his property for alleged fraud

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against the revenue laws ... an ‘unreasonablesearch and seizure’ within the meaning of theFourth Amendment of the Constitution? [Id. at622 (emphasis added).]

In answer to that question, the Court did not explorewhether the subpoena in Boyd met the Amendment’ssecond phrase — the warrant requirement. Rather,the first guarantee stood on its own. Thus, the Courtasked whether the “papers”sought by the Governmentwere subject to seizure at all, no matter howspecifically identified, and no matter how supported byevidence of probable cause. After all, the right to“private property,” like the rights to “personal security”and “personal liberty,” was “indefeasible.” [Id. at 630.]

1. The Fourth Amendment Protects anIndefeasible Right of PrivateProperty.

As noted above, the Fourth Amendment’s prohibitionagainst “unreasonable searches and seizures” isderived from the similar language found in Article XIVof the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights and inArticle XIX of the 1784 New Hampshire Declaration ofRights. See Sources, pp. 376, 384. Both Declarationslay as their foundational principle that “all men areborn free and equal and have certain natural,essential, and unalienable rights; among which [are]the right of enjoying and defending their lives andliberties; that of acquiring, possessing, and protectingproperty....” Article I of the MassachusettsDeclaration, reprinted in Sources, p. 374. Accord,

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Article II of the New Hampshire Declaration, reprintedin Sources, p. 382.

Because the people’s right to private property wasinherent, God-given and unalienable, any search orseizure of any person’s property would be“unreasonable” unless it could be shown that theproperty searched for or seized either did not belong tothe person, or had been forfeited by some illegal act. Thus, the Boyd Court began its analysis with a quotefrom the 1765 English case of Entick v. Carrington15:

The great end for which men entered into societywas to secure their property. That right ispreserved sacred and incommunicable in allinstances where it has not been taken away orabridged by some public law for the good of thewhole. [Boyd, 116 U.S. at 627.]

From this constitutional premise, the Boyd Courtfound that a

[S]earch for and seizure of stolen or forfeitedgoods, or goods liable to duties and concealed toavoid the payment thereof [were] totally differentthings from a search and seizure of a man’s privatebooks and papers for the purpose of obtaininginformation therein contained, or of using them asevidence against him. The two things are totocoelo. In the one case, the Government is entitled

15 19 Howell’s State Trials 1029 (1765).

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to possession of the property; in the other it isnot. [Id., 116 U.S. at 623 (emphasis added).]

From this principled distinction, it follows that anyGovernment search for, or seizure of, any person,house, paper or effect for the purpose of obtainingeither information or evidence, without any claimof a superior property interest is unreasonable per seand a violation of the Fourth Amendment — with orwithout a properly issued and verified warrant. SeeBerger v. New York, 388 U.S. 41, 67 (1967) (Douglas,J., concurring). As a unanimous Supreme Court ruledin Gouled v. United States, 255 U.S. 298 (1921):

[S]earch warrants ... may not be used as ameans of gaining access to a man’s house or officeand papers solely for the purpose of makingsearch to secure evidence to be used againsthim.... [Id., 255 U.S. at 309 (emphasis added).]

And, as this Court also ruled in Silverthorne LumberCo., Inc. v. United States, 251 U.S. 385 (1920), theFourth Amendment condemns any Government searchor seizure of a man’s property solely “to avail itself ofthe knowledge obtained by that means whichotherwise it would not have had.” Id., 251 U.S. at 391.

Applied thusly, the Fourth Amendment serves as arobust means to ensure protection of a propertyowner’s Fifth Amendment’s privilege against self-incrimination. See n.8, infra. To the Boyd Court, thiswas both obvious, and intentional. Id., 116 U.S. at 633. And it reinforced the “mere evidence” rule, as statedin Gouled, that “warrants that authorized seizures of

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items other than fruits of a crime, instrumentalities ofa crime, or contraband were invalid.” See C.Whitebread, Criminal Procedure, § 5.04(a), p. 119(Foundation Press: 1980).

2. The Fourth Amendment Secures anIndefeasible Property Right to One’sPerson.

Unquestionably, the plain language of the FourthAmendment concerns the right to private property —both real and personal. In the parlance of thefounders, even the reference to “persons” connoted theproperty right that each individual human being has inhis own person. In his Second Treatise, John Lockebegins his chapter on property with the propositionthat “every Man has a Property in his own Person. This no Body has any Right to but himself.” J. Locke,Two Treatises of Government, II, § 27 (CambridgeUniv.: 2002) (italics original). Indeed, according toLocke, one’s person is “the Great Foundation ofProperty,” for by an individual’s “being master ofhimself and Proprietor of his own Person,” anindividual human being accumulates property by his“labour,” and thus, title to it. Id. at §§ 44 and 51(italics original). For Locke, the right to privateproperty was a gift of “God and Reason,” whichcommanded him “to subdue the earth” and by his laborto annex the property produced and accumulated towhich “another had no Title to, nor could withoutinjury take from him.” Id., § 32.

In a 5 to 4 decision, however, this Court refused toapply this founding property principle to a wiretap on

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a person’s telephone line on the sole ground that theFourth Amendment protected only “material things.” Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438 (1928). Whilethis Court has overruled Olmstead, it did so on theground that it was inconsistent with this Court’sFourth Amendment privacy doctrine.16 Instead, theOlmstead ruling was an egregious violation of theFourth Amendment’s property principles. Whensubjected to a historical and textual property analysis,Olmstead was surely wrong to have concluded that theFourth Amendment protects only “material things.”

Foremost, the Fourth Amendment protects“persons.” As Justice Butler pointed out in hisOlmstead dissent:

Telephones are used generally for transmission ofmessages concerning official, social, business, andpersonal affairs including communications thatare private and privileged — those betweenphysician and patient, lawyer and client, parentand child, husband and wife. The contractsbetween telephone companies and userscontemplate the private use of the facilitiesemployed in the service. The communicationsbelong to the parties between whom theypass. During their transmission the exclusiveuse of the wire belongs to the persons served byit. Wire tapping involves interference with thewire while being used. Tapping the wires andlistening in by the officers literally constituted a

16 See United States v. Knotts, 460 U.S. 276, 280 (1983).

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search for evidence. As the communicationspassed, they were heard and taken down. [Id.,277 U.S. at 487 (Butler, J., dissenting) (emphasisadded). See also Berger, 388 U.S. at 64 (Douglas,J., concurring) (“my overriding objection toelectronic surveillance [is] that it is a search for‘mere evidence’...”). ]

Indeed, as Professor James B. White has insightfullyobserved, there is nothing in the language of theFourth Amendment that dictates the Olmstead Court’sconclusion that words cannot be “seized,” especially inlight of “[a]nalogies from property law [whereby]words can be made the object of property [so that] theright to say or write them can be bought and sold.” J.B. White, “Judicial Criticism,” 20 GA. L. REV. 835, 851-52 (1986) (emphasis added).

C. The Fourth Amendment’s Prohibitionagainst General Warrants Protects Personsand Their Property from Indiscriminateand Surreptitious Searches.

In his 1761 attack on Writs of Assistance, JamesOtis asserted that “one of the most essential branchesof English liberty is the freedom of one’s house. Aman’s house is his castle; and whilst he is quiet, he isas well guarded as a prince in his castle.”17 Even tothis day, the symbolism of a castle is powerful —privately owned property possessed to the exclusion ofeveryone else, strong walls, perhaps even a moat,

17 James Otis, “Against Writs of Assistance” (Feb. 1761). http://www.nhinet.org/ccs/docs/writs.htm.

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evidencing the presence of another type of governmentbehind those walls — the government of the family.18 The civil government was not to trespass on theproperty of the family government except withinremarkably narrow confines.

At the heart of the warrant requirement is theFourth Amendment’s complete ban on generalwarrants. As the Supreme Court observed in Weeks v.United States, 232 U.S. 383 (1914):

Resistance to [general warrants and writs ofassistance] established the principle which wasenacted into the fundamental law in the FourthAmendment, that a man’s house was his castleand not to be invaded by any general authority tosearch and seize his goods and papers. [Id., 232U.S. at 390.]

As is true of the first guarantee of the FourthAmendment, so it is true of the second — the warrantrequirement was designed to protect the people’s rightsto private property. It does so in at least twosignificant ways.

First, the prohibition against general warrants isdesigned to particularize any government search andseizure to only such private property to which it may

18 The notion of the family as a type of government has deep roots. See, e.g., Abraham Kuyper, “Lecture on Sphere Sovereignty” (Oct.20 , 1890) . http : / /www.reformationalpubl ishingproject.com/pdf_books/Scanned_Books_PDF/SphereSovereignty_English.pdf.

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lay a superior property or proprietary claim. See T.Cooley, A Treatise on Constitutional Limitations, pp.371-72 (5th Ed. 1883). Thus, this Court ruled in Gouledthat a warrant “may not be used [to justify a] search tosecure evidence to be used against him,” but onlywhen the Government or complainant has a “primaryright” in the property to be seized. Id., 255 U.S. at 309(emphasis added). By outlawing general warrants,government officials would be stopped from engagingin the practice of rummaging through one’s privateproperty looking for incriminating information orevidence. See Boyd, 116 U.S. at 625-26 (“It is not thebreaking of his doors, and the rummaging of hisdrawers, that constitutes the essence of the offense; butit is the invasion of his indefeasible right of personalsecurity, personal liberty and private property, wherethat right has never been forfeited by his conviction ofa public offense....”).

Second, even as to a Government’s particularizedclaim of “primary right,” absent special circumstances,the warrant requirement interposes a judicial officerbetween an executive officer and private propertyowner, commanding the executive officer prior to asearch to demonstrate, by oath or affirmation, to thesatisfaction of the judicial officer that the executiveofficer has “probable cause” to seize a particularlydescribed place to be searched, and a particularlydescribed person or thing to be seized. As JusticeStevens observed, “this restraint [is] a bulwark againstpolice practices that prevail in totalitarian regimes.” California v. Acevedo, 500 U.S. 565, 586 (1991)(Stevens, J., dissenting).

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It was, indeed, meant to be so. In his Treatise onConstitutional Limitations, Thomas Cooleysummarized the primacy of a person’s property rightsover lawless entries upon those rights:

[T]he law favors the complete and undisturbeddominion of every man over his own premises,and protects him therein with such jealousy thathe may defend his possession againstintruders.... [Id. at 374 (emphasis added).]

Yet, even a“heightened expectation of privacy inone’s home,” has proved to be a weak substitute,unable to protect the common law right of a propertyowner to “resist an unlawful police entry into a home”— a right which the Indiana Supreme Court recentlyruled to be “against public policy and ... incompatiblewith modern Fourth Amendment jurisprudence.” SeeBarnes v. Indiana, 946 N.E. 2d 572 (Ind. 2011), aff’d onreh’g, 2011 Ind. LEXIS 815 (Ind. Sept. 20, 2011).

Such erosion of the protections of the FourthAmendment contributes in no small part to thegrowing loss of confidence in government by theAmerican People.19 Rather than seeing government as

19 In addition to innumerable news articles and web stories, aseries of studies and popular books have focused renewedattention on the militarization of police, the increasing use of“dynamic entry” by SWAT teams into homes and businesses bylaw enforcement at all levels of government — estimated to be ashigh as 40,000 per year. See Radley Balko, Overkill: The Rise ofParamilitary Police Raids in America, CATO Inst. (2006), p. 11. Videos detailing abusive STAT Team Raids into homes andbusinesses circulate widely on the Internet. See, e.g., WCCO

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the protector of its rights, an astonishing 46 percent ofAmericans (and 66 percent of Republicans) now believe“the federal government poses an immediate threat tothe rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens....”20

Television Report, “SWAT Team honored for raiding wronghouse,” (July 29, 2008) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFnmZKl5WEA&feature=related; “Gibson Guitar Corp. Respondsto Federal Raid” (Aug. 25, 2011). http://www.gibson.com/en-us/Lifestyle/News/gibson-0825-2011/. See generally Paul CraigRoberts and Lawrence M. Stratton, The Tyranny of GoodIntentions: How Prosecutors and Law Enforcement are Tramplingthe Constitution in the Name of Justice, Three Rivers Press(2008); In the Name of Justice, CATO Inst. (Timothy Lynch, ed.,2009); Harvey A. Silverglate, Three Felonies a Day: How the FedsTarget the Innocent, Encounter Books (2009); Paul Rosenzweigand Brian W. Walsh, One Nation Under Arrest: How Crazy Laws,Rogue Prosecutors, and Activist Judges Threaten Your Liberty,Heritage Foundation (2010); and Go Directly to Jail: TheCriminalization of Almost Everything, CATO Inst. (Gene Healy,ed., 2004).

20 Gallup Poll, “Republicans, Democrats Shift on Whether Gov’tis a Threat,” (Oct. 19, 2010). http://www.gallup.com/poll/143717/Republicans-Democrats-Shift-Whether-Gov-Threat.aspx

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IV. THE ATTACHMENT AND USE OF THEGPS TRACKING DEVICE VIOLATED THEFOURTH AMENDMENT BAN ONUNREASONABLE SEARCHES ANDSEIZURES.

A. The Attachment of a GPS Tracking Deviceto Respondent’s Vehicle Constituted anUnreasonable Search and Seizure.

The Government has argued that the “attachment”of a GPS tracking device on the “exterior” of the Jones’Jeep was at most a “technical trespass,” and therefore,was neither a search nor a seizure within the meaningof the Fourth Amendment. See Pet. Br. pp. 39-46. TheGovernment offers two reasons for its position. First,it contends that there was no search or seizure becauseJones had “no reasonable expectation of privacy in theexterior of the vehicle.” Id., pp. 39-42. Second, itcontends that there was no search or seizure becausethe attachment did not “meaningfully interfere with[Jones’] possessory interest in the vehicle.” Id., pp. 42-46. The Government’s minimalist approach to searchand seizure utterly fails to take into account thesecurity afforded Jones’ private property by the FourthAmendment, as it was originally written and purposed.

The Government demonstrates its total disregard forthe historic common law foundation upon which theFourth Amendment ban on searches and seizures isbased. In Entick v. Carrington, Lord Camdenobserved:

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By the laws of England, every invasion of privateproperty, be it ever so minute, is a trespass. Noman can set his foot upon my ground without mylicence, but he is liable to an action, though thedamage be nothing....

At common law, a “technical trespass” would have beenakin to a person walking across the corner of hisneighbor’s lawn — an almost unthinking orunintentional intrusion, and something that theaverage property owner would not have considered tobe a “meaningful” interference with his right toexclusive possession. See W. Prosser, Law of Torts, 63-64 (4th ed. 1971). Attachment of the GPS device ishardly analogous to an unthinking “modest intrusion,”as the Government asserts. See Pet. Br. p. 16. Rather,it was a deliberate act that the Government madeevery effort to keep secret, and had Jones known aboutthe device, he would have removed it.

According to the Government’s line of reasoning,however, a trespass is a technical one when thetrespasser’s interest is of greater importance than theproperty owner’s. See Pet. Br. p. 16. Such a balancingact elevates the flagrant trespasser over the propertyowner. However, this Court has protected privateproperty rights “without regard to whether the actionachieves an important public benefit or has onlyminimal economic impact on the owner.” Loretto v.Teleprompter Manhattan Catv Corp., 458 U.S. 419,435 (1982).

Furthermore, the Government has misstated thenature and extent of the intrusion upon Jones’ property

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rights by the attachment of the GPS device. TheGovernment maintains that the only intrusion made bythe attached device is to the “exterior” of Respondent’sJeep. See Pet. Br. pp. 39-41. The Government arguesthat there was neither a search nor a seizure because“temporarily attaching a nonintrusive GPS device tothe exterior of respondent’s vehicle and using thedevice did not penetrate or occupy any ‘constitutionallyprotected area’; it made only ephemeral contact withthe exterior of respondent’s vehicle.” See Pet. Br. p. 46n.6 (emphasis added).

Again, the Government downplays the severity of itsinterference with Jones’ dominion over his property. See Pet. Br. pp. 15-16. The Government insists thatthe attachment of a GPS tracking device provides noinformation about the movement of Jones’ vehicle thatcould not be provided by eye witnesses along the publicthoroughfares, and that the device only makes visualsurveillance by government agents more “efficient” andless costly. See Pet. Br. pp. 18-20. But GPS trackingis dramatically and fundamentally different fromconducting visual surveillance from outside a vehicle,such as the physical tailing of a suspect.

By attaching the GPS tracking device to the JonesJeep, the Government eliminated both the risk ofhuman error and the risk of external interferences thataccompany visual surveillance. It did so by virtuallyplacing a trespassing robotic passenger onto the JonesJeep without Jones’ knowledge or consent in violationof Jones’ right of exclusive possession of the vehicle. See Resp. Br. pp. 47-48. By obtaining information thatit “could not otherwise have ... obtained without

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physical ‘intrusion into a constitutionally protectedarea,’” the attachment of the device itself violated theFourth Amendment ban on unreasonable searches andseizures. See Kyllo v. United States, 533 U.S. 27, 34(2001). And that attachment was hardly transient,remaining on the Jones vehicle continuously for fourfull weeks.

B. The Use of the GPS Tracking DeviceViolated the Fourth Amendment.

There is no dispute in this case that theGovernment, by using the GPS tracking device, seeksand obtains data on the movement of the Jones Jeep. While utilization of the data may lead the Governmentto the fruits of a crime, contraband, or aninstrumentality of a crime, the Government makes nopretense that it has any proprietary interest in theinformation generated by the GPS device. Rather, itsinterest then, and its interest now, is to use the GPS-generated data as evidence to secure Jones’ conviction. As discussed above in Part III.B., supra, the FourthAmendment, as written, protects against any coerciveeffort by the Government to search for, or to seize,“mere evidence.” And for that reason, alone, theGovernment’s use of the GPS data violates the FourthAmendment. See Gouled, 755 U.S. at 309.

To be sure, this Court rejected the “mere evidence”rule in Warden v. Hayden, 387 U.S. 294 (1967). Forthe reasons stated in Part III, supra, amici urge theCourt to overrule that determination in Hayden andreinstate the “mere evidence” rule embraced by this

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Court for 81 years before being unwisely anderroneously discarded.

C. Attachment and Use of a GPS TrackingDevice Is an Unlawful General Warrant.

The attachment and use of a GPS tracking device isakin to a general warrant, allowing federal agents togather information without the Government having tomeet the particularity requirements of the FourthAmendment. As Respondent points out, “thegovernment made no effort to stop or minimize theGPS device’s indiscriminate tracking of the jeep in theevent that Mrs. Jones, the Joneses’ college-age son, orsomeone other than Jones were to use the vehicle.” Resp. Br. p. 4.

When federal agents obtain wiretapping warrants tointercept a suspect’s communications, they statutorilyhave been subject to strict minimization requirements. 18 U.S.C. Section 2518(5) requires that wiretapping“shall be conducted in such a way as to minimize theinterception of communications not otherwise subjectto interception under this chapter....” Thus, if theparticipants in the conversation are not the suspect, orthe topic of the conversation does not involve thesuspected illegal activity, agents must take steps tominimize their monitoring of such communications.

GPS tracking devices cannot similarly discriminate. As the Government points out, such devices do notdetermine who is driving the vehicle at any particulartime, and do not stop tracking when the car is beingdriven by persons who are not suspected of any

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wrongdoing. See Pet. Br. p. 4. Nor are the devicescapable of distinguishing between the type of journeythat is being surveyed — they are not able todifferentiate between a trip to a stash house, and afamily vacation to the beach. Rather, theyindiscriminately target all movements by all personswho happen to be driving or riding in the targetedvehicle. Even in this case, the district courtsuppressed data tracking the movement of the Jones’Jeep on private property. Even if not in this case, suchbroad surveillance is sure to gather highly personalinformation that is unrelated to any investigation —such as the dates, times, and locations of anindividual’s social dates, a client’s meetings with hislawyer, a patient’s meetings with his doctor, and apolitician meetings with his allies.

Thus, by the very nature of GPS tracking devices,there are no steps that the Government may take toparticularize the “movements” of the vehicle — namelythose of Mr. Jones — as required by the FourthAmendment requirement that the “things to be seized”must be specifically identified by the warrant. Indeed,the movements of the Jeep are immune from seizurewhenever there is an ancillary trespass because “nowarrant could properly issue for them (since it wouldnever be possible to meet the particularityrequirements of the warrant clause).” Cf. J. B. White,“Judicial Criticism,” 20 GA. L. REV. 835, 851 (1986).

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CONCLUSION

Although crafted by the Court in Katz to strengthenthe Fourth Amendment to protect legitimate privacyinterests increasingly threatened by the technologicalrevolution, the Court’s insistence that one’s privacyexpectation be “reasonable” has undermined thatprotection. As this brief demonstrates, a return to theAmendment’s original property principles promisesgreater protection to privacy interests.

For the reasons set out above, the judgment of theU.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbiashould be affirmed.

Respectfully submitted,

JOSEPH W. MILLER HERBERT W. TITUS*LAW OFFICES OF JOSEPH WILLIAM J. OLSON

MILLER, LLC. JOHN S. MILES

P.O. Box 83440 JEREMIAH L. MORGAN

Fairbanks, AK 99708 WILLIAM J. OLSON, P.C.(907) 451-8559 370 Maple Avenue West

Attorney for Amicus Restoring Suite 4Liberty Action Committee Vienna, VA 22180-5615

wjo@mindspring.com (703) 356-5070 Attorneys for Amici Curiae

GARY G. KREEP MARK B. WEINBERG

U. S. JUSTICE FOUNDATION WEINBERG, JACOBS &

932 D Street TOLANI, LLPSuite 2 One Central PlazaRamona, CA 92065 Suite 1200(760) 788-6624 11300 Rockville Pike

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Attorney for Amicus Rockville, MD 20852U.S. Justice Foundation (301) 468-5500

Attorney for Amici FreeSpeech Coalition and FreeS p e e c h D e f e n s e a n dEducation Fund

*Counsel of RecordOctober 3, 2011