The Supreme Court heard two hours of oral argument Monday in a case that could decide whether police may cast a digital dragnet over an entire neighborhood, compelling Google to hand over cellphone location data on every device near a crime scene, without running afoul of the Constitution. The case, Chatrie v. United States, began with a brazen 2019 armed bank robbery in Midlothian, Virginia, and now forces the justices to draw a line between effective policing and the Fourth Amendment's ban on unreasonable searches.
At stake is a surveillance technique known as a "geofence warrant." Unlike a traditional warrant that names a suspect, a geofence warrant works in reverse. Police define a geographic area and a window of time, then order a tech company to identify every device that was present. As the Associated Press reported, "police do not have a suspect, only a location where a crime took place. They work in reverse to identify people who were in the area."
For conservatives who take the text of the Fourth Amendment seriously, the question is not whether the robber deserved to be caught. He did. The question is whether the government may compel a private company to search the records of dozens, or thousands, of innocent Americans on the chance that one of them is the bad guy. That distinction matters. And the justices' comments Monday suggest they know it.
At 4:50 p.m. on May 20, 2019, an armed man walked into the Call Federal Credit Union branch in Midlothian, Virginia, holding a cellphone. He handed a note to a teller demanding cash, ordered the manager to open the safe, and walked out with $195,000. NBC News reported that police were initially stumped. Surveillance footage showed the suspect carried a phone, but officers had no name.
A detective turned to Google. A federal judge approved a geofence warrant directing the company to identify every cellphone user in the vicinity of the bank during the robbery. Google returned data on 19 users. Investigators narrowed the list and identified Okello Chatrie as their prime suspect. The data showed Chatrie was in or near the bank roughly ten minutes before the robbery.
Chatrie eventually pleaded guilty to federal charges of armed robbery and brandishing a firearm. He was sentenced to almost 12 years in prison. But he reserved the right to appeal on a constitutional question: Did the broad request to Google violate his Fourth Amendment rights?
That appeal has now reached the highest court in the land, a court that continues to shape major national policy across a range of legal battlegrounds.
Monday's argument revealed a bench that is genuinely divided, not along the usual ideological fault lines, but on how far the government's digital reach should extend. Several conservative justices indicated they believe a search occurred. The harder question was whether the warrant that authorized it was reasonable.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh appeared sympathetic to law enforcement. "I'm trying to figure out why this is bad police work," he said. Chief Justice John Roberts pressed Chatrie's lawyer, Adam Unikowsky, on why the defendant hadn't simply turned off his phone's location-history feature. Roberts suggested users who leave location tracking on have effectively made that information public.
"The only reason the government has access to this information is because you have decided to make it public. If you don't want them to peer in your window, you can close your window, or the shades."
Roberts told Chatrie's lawyer he could have chosen to "flick it off." The analogy is tidy, but it sidesteps a harder reality: most Americans have little idea how much location data their phones collect, or who can access it.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett captured that tension with a quip that drew attention in the courtroom. "I need to check my location service settings," she said, before adding: "Not that I'm going to commit crimes." Barrett expressed concern about a ruling drawn too broadly, a signal that she may be looking for a narrower path.
The sharpest privacy concerns came from opposite ends of the Court's ideological spectrum. Justice Sonia Sotomayor warned that "data will follow you to just about anywhere." Justice Neil Gorsuch went further, arguing that if the government's position were accepted, no warrant would be needed to surveil who attends a church service, a political rally, or any other gathering, whether or not a crime had taken place.
That observation from Gorsuch should give every conservative pause. The same tool that caught a bank robber in Midlothian could, without clear constitutional guardrails, be aimed at a Second Amendment rally, a pro-life march, or a Sunday congregation. The principle does not change because the target does.
Solicitor General D. John Sauer, writing in court papers, argued that law enforcement had "probable cause to believe that Google had information that would help identify the cellphone-using robber." The Justice Department's primary position was that no warrant was required at all, even though detectives had obtained one in Chatrie's case. In the alternative, the department argued the warrant that was issued was lawful.
That first argument is the more aggressive one, and it deserves scrutiny. The government is essentially saying it can compel a private company to search the location records of every phone user in a defined area without a warrant. If that position prevails, the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement becomes a suggestion rather than a safeguard.
Civil liberties advocates have warned that geofence warrants sweep up the data of many innocent people. The Washington Examiner reported that the case could reshape how law enforcement obtains cellphone location data from companies like Google. Chatrie's own brief laid out the stakes in stark terms:
"The potential for abuse is breathtaking: the government need only draw a geofence around a church, a political rally, or a gun shop, and it can compel a search of every user's records to learn who was there."
That is not hypothetical. NBC News noted that geofence warrants were used to identify supporters of President Donald Trump who entered the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Whatever one thinks of that day, the tool's application to political activity should concentrate the mind. A precedent that blesses suspicionless digital searches of everyone near a location is a precedent that can be turned on anyone, including people exercising their constitutional rights.
The Court has navigated similar terrain before. In 2017, the justices ruled that warrants are required to obtain location information derived from cellphone tower data. Chief Justice Roberts himself wrote at the time about "seismic shifts in digital technology" and "the exhaustive chronicle of location information casually collected by wireless carriers today," as the Washington Times noted. Geofence warrants go a step further, they don't target a known suspect's records but instead vacuum up data on everyone in an area.
In a twist that complicates the case's practical impact, Google has already changed its storage policies. Google's lawyers said in a brief that the company "can no longer respond to geofence warrants based on Location History data." Location history is now stored on individual users' devices rather than on Google's servers.
That corporate policy shift does not moot the constitutional question. Other companies may still store location data centrally. Technology changes. And the principle the Court establishes will govern law enforcement conduct for decades. A ruling that geofence warrants require no warrant at all, or that the Fourth Amendment imposes no meaningful limits on their scope, would hand the government a blank check to demand bulk location data from any company that holds it.
The justices who sit on this bench have not shied from consequential rulings that reshape the boundaries of federal power. A decision in Chatrie v. United States is expected by the end of June.
This case puts two deeply held conservative values in direct conflict. On one side: law and order. Geofence warrants helped catch an armed robber who stole $195,000. Breitbart, citing the Associated Press, noted the technique has also been used in violent-crime investigations and cold cases nationwide. Police need effective tools, and criminals who carry smartphones should not be surprised when their phones give them away.
On the other side: the Constitution's guarantee against unreasonable searches. The Fourth Amendment was written by men who knew what it meant for the government to rummage through private papers on a general warrant. A geofence warrant is the digital equivalent, a blanket order that sweeps up the innocent alongside the guilty, based on nothing more than proximity.
The current Supreme Court term has already generated its share of friction among the justices. But on this question, the ideological lines blurred. Gorsuch and Sotomayor, who agree on almost nothing, both flagged the danger of allowing the government to identify everyone at a constitutionally protected gathering without individualized suspicion.
Kavanaugh's instinct to back the police is understandable. Roberts's window-shade analogy has a surface logic. But the analogy breaks down the moment you consider that most Americans did not knowingly consent to having their movements tracked, stored, and made available to law enforcement on demand. Leaving a default setting toggled on is not the same as posting your itinerary on a billboard.
The right answer here is not to strip police of every digital tool. It is to require that when the government conducts a search, and compelling Google to identify 19 phone users near a bank is plainly a search, it must meet the Fourth Amendment's standard. That means probable cause, particularity, and judicial oversight. Not a fishing expedition dressed up as a warrant.
Chatrie's lawyer faced skeptical questioning Monday. The Justice Department made its case. Now the nine justices must decide whether the Constitution's oldest privacy protection applies in the digital age, or whether it quietly expires every time you forget to check your phone settings.
The Founders didn't write the Fourth Amendment to protect only people who outsmart their smartphones. They wrote it to restrain the government. The Court should remember that.
