When the FBI and the Metropolitan Police Force in Washington DC found out that nightclub owner Antoine Jones had links to a drug trafficking ring they set out to get him behind bars.
They installed a camera to monitor the entrance to the club. They requested and received information from his cell phone through a trap and trace warrant. But what did him in was the installation of a GPS on his wife’s Jeep Grand Cherokee. The device collected more than 2000 pages of data over 4 weeks. This data connected Jones to a house containing $850,000 in cash and 97 kilograms of cocaine.
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In 2008, Jones was convicted for possessing 5 kilograms of cocaine with intent to distribute and was sentenced to life in prison, Much of his case was based on evidence collected through the GPS tracker. Only thing is: the police didn’t have a valid warrant to track his car with the device.
The Supreme Court recently ruled that the police violated the 4th Amendment of the Constitution when it placed a GPS tracker onto Jones’ car. According to the 4th Amendment, people have the right to be “secure against unreasonable searches and seizures” without a warrant.
Watch the rest at Motherboard.
