The effect of the Supreme Court's landmark Jones ruling outlawing warrantless GPS surveillance of motorists continues to affect the way drivers are treated at traffic stops. Last week, a judge with the US District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia applied the precedent to the common police practice of "permeation" where a police officer enters a suspect's vehicle without warrant or consent to facilitate a drug dog sniff of the car's exterior.
In January 2012, Justice Antonin Scalia penned the United States v. Jones decision that held attaching a GPS tracking device without a warrant was not permissible.
"The government physically occupied private property for the purpose of obtaining information," Justice Scalia wrote for the unanimous court. "We have no doubt that such a physical intrusion would have been considered a 'search' within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment when it was adopted."
In March, the Supreme Court reiterated this finding with a decision, again authored by Justice Scalia, that said a police officer could not use a drug dog on the porch of a home without a warrant.
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