Supreme Court

In Big Win for Fourth Amendment Advocates, the Supreme Court Says 'Geofence Warrants' Count as a 'Search'

Understanding Chatrie v. United States.

Damon Root | 6.29.2026 12:50 PM

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(Illustration: Supreme Court of the United States/Ken Cole/Dreamstime/LightFieldStudios/Envato)

The U.S. Supreme Court has issued a far-reaching decision on the constitutionality of a law enforcement tool that allows police to access the location histories of millions of cell phone users. In a welcome result for civil libertarians, the Court ruled on Monday that "geofence warrants" count as a "search" under the Constitution and therefore trigger the Fourth Amendment's safeguards against unreasonable searches and seizures.

The geofence warrant at issue in this case, Chatrie v. United States, was issued to Google. It told the tech company to search the location histories of every one of its users in order to determine which ones were present in the vicinity of a bank robbery. That information ultimately led........

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