NCJ Number
98141
Journal
FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin Volume: 54 Issue: 2 Dated: (February 1985) Pages: 26-31
Date Published
1985
Length
6 pages
Annotation
This first part of a two-part article analyzes the application of the fourth amendment to the use of electronic tracking devices ('beepers'). Two recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions are reviewed.
Abstract
In the 1967 decision in Katz v. United States, the Court decided that the determination of whether a fourth amendment search or seizure has occurred hinges on privacy expectations rather than on property concepts. It required that the subject has shown an actual expectation of privacy and that the expectation be a reasonable one in the view of society. Two recent decisions have resolved some of the issues remaining after the Katz decision. In United States v. Knotts, narcotics agents placed a beeper inside a 5-gallon container of chloroform purchased by the defendants and taken to a location outside a cabin where manufacture of controlled substances was planned. The beeper was monitored during the transport of the container and its arrival at the cabin. The Supreme Court's unanimous decision was that neither the monitoring during transport nor the monitoring beeper in a location open to visual observation were in violation of the fourth amendment. The issue of installation or monitoring of a beeper inside a private dwelling was considered in United States v. Karo, in which the beeper on a can of ether was monitored in transit and in various residences. Monitoring a beeper inside private areas -- those not normally open to visual surveillance -- was found by the Court to be a search. Without an emergency, monitoring of a beeper inside private areas was determined to be a situation requiring a warrant. A total of 29 footnotes are supplied.