SCOTUS in Chatrie v. United States Holds Location Data Fourth-Amendment Protected, Geofence Warrants Need Judicial Approval

On June 29, 2026, the Supreme Court ruled in Chatrie v. United States that individuals have a Fourth Amendment expectation of privacy in location data revealing their physical movements, and that even short-term surveillance of those movements is a search requiring a warrant. The ruling — the Court’s first major digital-surveillance decision since Carpenter v. United States (2018) — directly constrains law-enforcement and immigration agencies that have used geofence warrants (sweeping demands to providers like Google for the location data of every device in an area) without individualized warrant requirements.

This is a rare check cutting against the surveillance-expansion trend the timeline tracks. It bears directly on the warrantless data-broker purchases FBI Director Patel confirmed in 2026-03-18–patel-fbi-confirms-warrantless-purchase-commercial-data and on the broker-deletion rights established in 2026-06-16–vermont-data-privacy-online-surveillance-act-broker-deletion-rights. It sits in the Fourth Amendment lineage from Keith (1972-06-19–keith-case-fourth-amendment-domestic-surveillance-warrant) and against the third-party doctrine of Miller (1976-06-23–united-states-v-miller-bank-records-third-party-doctrine). The open question — flagged as a lead — is whether DHS/ICE legal memos try to cabin Chatrie to Google-style geofence demands while preserving broker-purchased location data as a workaround.