Supreme Court Appears Divided Over Use of Area-Based Location Warrants

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday considered a challenge that could reshape Americans’ expectations of privacy in the digital age. At issue in Chatrie v. United States is whether prosecutors may compel technology firms to search their records for every device present in a specified place and time — a tool often called a “geofence” but increasingly described in court filings as a location-area warrant. The dispute stems from a 2019 bank robbery in Virginia that led to the conviction of Okello Chatrie, who received more than 11 years behind bars after investigators matched him to a device identified through such an order. The justices listened to arguments that could either curb the practice or allow it to continue under tighter rules; a ruling is expected later this year.

Investigators obtain these orders by drawing a map around a crime scene and setting a time window, then requiring a company to comb through stored location logs to find devices that were nearby. In practice, companies often first supply bulk, de‑identified records showing every account that appeared in the zone, and prosecutors then ask for account-holder identities tied to a smaller subset. Civil liberties groups say the method sweeps up large numbers of uninvolved people and amounts to a general search without individualized suspicion. Critics point to instances where the orders captured bystanders and attendees of lawful demonstrations, arguing they conflict with long-standing protections against unreasonable searches.

The Chatrie case highlights how that process played out in a single prosecution. After bank surveillance showed a person on a cellphone, local police served an order on Google seeking all devices within a short radius and roughly an hour surrounding the robbery. Google returned anonymized location records; investigators then sought additional information on certain accounts, and three names were disclosed — one of which led to Chatrie. Defense attorneys have argued the warrant lacked the particularized probable cause the Fourth Amendment requires, and a lower court judge agreed the original order was too broad, though the evidence was nevertheless admitted under a good-faith exception.

Lawyers for privacy advocates told the justices the warrant effectively permits the government to search millions of private location histories to find suspects, a practice they say the Constitution does not permit. A group of technologists filing in support of Chatrie warned that the order asked companies to sift through the private files of a vast user base — a task they described as inconsistent with judicial limits on searches. The government countered that users consented to the collection of location information and that the warrant merely requested that the company identify which stored records matched the time and place. The solicitor general urged the court to reject a rule that would bar all such orders.

Oral argument revealed a split among the nine justices. Several appeared sympathetic to allowing law enforcement to use location-area warrants in some form, provided courts impose sharper geographic or temporal limits and stronger protections to limit collateral collection. Others expressed concern about permitting broad sweeps of personal movement data and seemed inclined toward doctrinal constraints that would make it harder for investigators to obtain expansive datasets. Legal analysts said the court may opt for a middle path, restricting how these orders are drafted and executed rather than issuing an outright ban.

Whatever the outcome, the decision will have consequences beyond one defendant and one company. Google has shifted some location storage to users’ devices and, according to news reports, stopped complying with these bulk data orders last year; many other firms still retain server-side logs that remain reachable by investigators’ demands. Use of area-based location warrants has climbed since federal agencies began experimenting with them around 2016, and filings have numbered in the low thousands annually since about 2018. If the court narrows the practice, prosecutors will need to adjust investigative techniques; if it upholds the warrants, privacy advocates are likely to press Congress for statutory limits. The justices are expected to issue an opinion before the court’s term ends.