Supreme Court Rules Geofence Warrants Require Fourth Amendment Scrutiny

The U.S. Supreme Court issued a landmark decision in Chatrie v. United States, determining that accessing an individual's location data stored in the cloud constitutes a "search" under the Fourth Amendment. This ruling mandates that law enforcement must obtain a warrant satisfying probable cause and particularity requirements to access such data. While resolving the question of warrant necessity, the decision leaves open further issues regarding the constitutionality of specific warrants and how a deepening circuit split over geofence warrants will be settled.