GPS Surveillance of Tennessee Criminal Suspects is Legal Without a Warrant

Police in Tennessee are legally allowed to plant a GPS tracking device on your vehicle, and monitor your movements without any court-ordered warrant or judicial over site.

This raises clear legal questions about civil liberties, and is explicitly illegal in other states like Washington and Oregon. The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and local Tennessee criminal defense experts agree that it is a troubling development.

Increasing use of technology in passive surveillance is an area where the law has not caught up to the current tecnology. It is likely that courts in Tennessee as well as Federal courts will have to make decisions on what kinds of monitoring are constitutional.

Passive, unspecified monitoring is now commonplace, with technologies like EZpass toll transponders, and police using automatic license plate scanners to search from stolen cars, or drivers with suspended driver’s licenses or outstanding warrants. But these monitoring techniques aren’t targeted to a specific person.

Actually placing a piece of GPS hardware on a person’s car is a separate matter, where a person is specifically targeted. This kind of tactic will raise many other questions about other technology. Is it legal to monitor a person’s movements based on their own cell phone signal? The courts will have to determine whether these passive, yet specific, and invasive search methods exceed constitutional standards.

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If you have been charged with a crime in the state of Tennessee, please contact our attorneys for a free legal defense consultation.