FBI banned from using GPS to track suspects’ vehicles

The FBI has turned off and stopped using some 3,000 GPS devices that had been installed to track suspects. According to the Supreme Court ruling on Antoine Jones’ case in January, “the installation and use of the device constituted a search under the Fourth Amendment based on trespass grounds.” The decision impacted all of those devices that had been physically placed on vehicles. FBI general counsel Andrew Weissmann said that the agents had been told to switch off the devices and retrieve them “without violating the law.” According to Weissmann, the FBI is now working on two guides for the agents: one on how to actually use GPS tracking according to the law, and another on different methods of tracking suspects.