Huge Privacy WIN! 5th Circuit Court Rules Geofence Warrants are Unconstitutional

Our Take

Creator Jon Padfield at Business Reform breaks down a real milestone: the 5th Circuit joining other courts in saying geofence warrants — the "give us everyone near this location" requests to Google — are the kind of general, suspicionless dragnet the Fourth Amendment was written to stop. Courts are finally catching up to a surveillance tool that's been quietly normalized for years, and that matters for anyone who thinks the government shouldn't get to search a whole neighborhood's location history just because a crime happened nearby.

But don't mistake this for the end of dragnet surveillance. Geofence warrants target phone location data; ALPR networks like Flock Safety do the same thing to your car, logging plate, time, and location every time you drive past a camera, no warrant required at all. If bulk location requests to Google are unconstitutional without specific suspicion, the same logic should apply to license plate dragnets that retain months of driving history on everyone, not just suspects.

Courts chipping away at geofence warrants is a good sign the tide is turning against mass, suspicionless tracking. Keep that momentum going — check our camera map to see what's logging your plates, and hit take action to push back at the local level.