The Government Is Tracking You – The ACLJ Files at the U.S. Supreme Court To Fight Back

Your location data belongs to you. The Deep State disagrees, and we have filed an amicus brief to protect all Americans’ privacy.

Right now, before the Supreme Court of the United States, a critical battle is unfolding over whether the federal government can dragnet search the location records of hundreds of millions of Americans – without naming a single suspect. The case is Chatrie v. United States, and we make the constitutional case that this kind of sweeping digital surveillance, a practice termed “geofencing,” is exactly what the Founders feared most.

What Is a Geofence Warrant – and Why Should You Be Terrified?

Here’s how it works: Law enforcement draws a virtual fence around a geographic location and orders Google to search its entire location database – all 592 million user accounts – to identify who was there at a particular time. No suspect named. No probable cause tied to any individual. Just a massive, government-compelled trawl through the private movements of every American who carries a smartphone.

This isn’t theoretical. Under the Biden Administration, federal prosecutors deployed geofence warrants extensively against Americans who were present near the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. Rather than building individualized cases with real evidence, DOJ used these dragnet tools to scoop up the location data of anyone in the vicinity – protesters, journalists, tourists, and bystanders alike – and then worked backward to find someone to charge. That raises the threat of a general warrant. That is the tool of a surveillance state. And it is precisely what the Fourth Amendment was written to prohibit.

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The Fourth Amendment Was Built for This Moment

Our Founders didn’t just stumble onto the idea of particularity requirements in warrants. They bled for it. James Otis’ 1761 condemnation of British writs of assistance – general warrants that let Crown officers search any home they pleased – was, in John Adams’ own words, the moment“the Child Independence was born.”

The ACLJ’s brief to the Supreme Court argues that the government’s use of geofence warrants poses a risk, a digital resurrection of those same colonial-era abuses. When a warrant authorizes searching 592 million accounts on the hope that someone useful might turn up, it doesn’t describe “the persons or things to be seized” – it describes an exploratory fishing expedition. The Fifth Circuit has already said so plainly. Now the Supreme Court should act. Our brief is not filed in favor of the particular individual in the case, but the more fundamental principle that citizens’ right to privacy should be protected.

Your Data Is Your Property – Not Google’s To Hand Over

The ACLJ’s brief makes the foundational argument that your location history is your property – held by Google to store, not surrendered to them as an owner. Google’s own privacy policy calls it “your data.” You can delete it, export it, disable it. That’s not third-party ownership – that’s a bailment, the same as storing your papers in a safe deposit box.

The government’s counter-argument rests on Google’s “clickwrap” agreements – those terms-of-service screens you click through during phone setup. The ACLJ’s brief demolishes this: Burying surveillance-grade data collection inside fine print that no reasonable person reads or understands cannot – as a matter of contract law or constitutional law – constitute the knowing and voluntary disclosure required to forfeit your Fourth Amendment rights.

The ACLJ Has Been Here Before

This fight is part of a much larger war. Through our ongoing Operation Arctic Frost initiative, the ACLJ has been directly challenging the expanding architecture of government surveillance that flourished under the Deep State apparatus of the Biden years – from warrantless data collection to politically motivated targeting of ordinary Americans. Arctic Frost represents our sustained legal campaign to draw firm constitutional lines around digital privacy before the surveillance infrastructure becomes permanent and unchallenged.

The Supreme Court must decide: Does the government need real, individualized probable cause before it can search your location records? Or can it simply wave a geofence warrant and sift through the movements of hundreds of millions of Americans on a hunch?

The Fourth Amendment protects your papers and effects – wherever they are held, and whoever holds them. No Deep State surveillance program, no Biden-era DOJ dragnet, and no buried terms-of-service clickwrap changes that fundamental truth.