Supreme Court to Hear Arguments on Constitutionality of Geofence Warrants

By Jack Birle

*Published: 2026-04-27*

The Supreme Court is set to hear arguments on the constitutionality of geofence warrants, a type of court order that has increased in use with the proliferation of location-enabled devices.

The case, *Chatrie v. United States*, centers on Okello Chatrie’s challenge to the Justice Department’s use of a geofence warrant, which he argues violated his Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable searches and seizures. A decision could affect the application of these warrants, which have been used in criminal investigations nationwide.

A geofence warrant directs a technology company, such as Google in this instance, to provide data on devices present within specified geographic boundaries during a defined time period. In Chatrie’s case, data obtained through such a warrant linked his device to the scene of a credit union robbery, leading to his conviction. Google received more than 11,000 geofence warrants in 2020 alone, accounting for over 25% of all warrants it received that year, according to the company’s transparency reports and analysis by the Center for Strategic Research.

In its brief to the Supreme Court, the Justice Department contended that obtaining two hours of location data on public movements does not violate constitutional rights, particularly since Chatrie had opted into Google’s Location History service, which shares such information. The department noted that the warrant followed a three-step approval process overseen by a magistrate judge.

“The Court has made clear that an individual lacks a reasonable expectation of privacy in information that he ‘assumed the risk’ of sharing with others, including about his short-term public movements,” the Justice Department brief stated. “The warrant here sought movement information visible to anyone near petitioner when he robbed the credit union, and the inquiry it specified was closely analogous to what Google itself regularly did with opting-in users’ recorded Location History.”

The Justice Department further argued that Chatrie’s position would effectively prohibit all geofence warrants. It described his arguments as relying on “a number of novel Fourth Amendment innovations” that would place the court ahead of ongoing legislative and common-law developments on issues such as data ownership, internet contract law, and online privacy boundaries.

Chatrie’s brief to the Supreme Court urged rejection of geofence warrants, describing them as enabling a “search first and develop suspicions later” approach contrary to Fourth Amendment protections.

“A geofence warrant operates on precisely that principle,” Chatrie’s brief stated. “To find the few people near a crime scene, the government compels a search of every account with Location History enabled — millions of people, all over the country, whose private digital papers must be searched so that the government can identify who was where and when.”

“The potential for abuse is breathtaking: the government need only draw a geofence around a church, a political rally, or a gun shop, and it can compel a search of every user’s records to learn who was there. The Fourth Amendment was adopted to ensure that the government could never wield such power,” the brief added.

Google, which supplied the data pursuant to the warrant, submitted an amicus brief without taking a position on the outcome of the case. The company argued that Google Location History and similar remotely stored digital records warrant Fourth Amendment protection.

Google advocated for requiring individualized warrants for location data rather than warrants covering broad sets of data in the company’s cloud storage.

“A contrary rule would leave the intimate details of millions of Americans’ daily lives—data that will exist in many forms as technology rapidly develops—exposed to warrantless surveillance,” Google’s brief stated.

This case represents the Supreme Court’s latest examination of law enforcement techniques involving advancing technology, including device location data. In its 2018 decision in *Carpenter v. United States*, the court held that law enforcement must demonstrate probable cause to access historical cell-site location information from wireless carriers.

Oral arguments in *Chatrie v. United States* are scheduled for 10 a.m. on Monday, marking the start of the Supreme Court’s final week of oral arguments for the term. A ruling is expected by the end of June.

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