Thought this was bound to happen. Good news for privacy!
I haven't read the finding but based on your summary, it sounds like one could in theory limit the scope of a geofence warrant to physical areas where any device present would likely belong to a witness, suspect, or victim; Where identifying them would be relevant to the case and the search would not involve collecting data of "innocent" devices.
For example, I recall a case once where a remote energy infrastructure site was broken into and items stolen. It belonged to a private business, some sort of wind energy business IIRC. The only road leading into it was private property and no customers would have a reason to go out there. The crime was done in the middle of the evening too. So during the commission of the crime, anyone out there at the site could be assumed to be the suspect or at least a suspect of criminal trespass on private property. With a few cell sites covering the area and a WiFi router at the location, a geofence warrant of the area made sense.
But the conditions above are not the norm and a lot of geofence warrants would cover areas of populated cities or high trafficked roads.
Travis West
npub18h…75kus
2024-08-16 14:19:20
in reply to nevent1q…8pr9
Author Public Key
npub18hqtw4vjsg6s0a0kyhugn5mt5fs8fp64pd8nsv66vqld5qg090pqe75kusPublished at
2024-08-16 14:19:20Event JSON
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"content": "Thought this was bound to happen. Good news for privacy!\n\nI haven't read the finding but based on your summary, it sounds like one could in theory limit the scope of a geofence warrant to physical areas where any device present would likely belong to a witness, suspect, or victim; Where identifying them would be relevant to the case and the search would not involve collecting data of \"innocent\" devices.\n\nFor example, I recall a case once where a remote energy infrastructure site was broken into and items stolen. It belonged to a private business, some sort of wind energy business IIRC. The only road leading into it was private property and no customers would have a reason to go out there. The crime was done in the middle of the evening too. So during the commission of the crime, anyone out there at the site could be assumed to be the suspect or at least a suspect of criminal trespass on private property. With a few cell sites covering the area and a WiFi router at the location, a geofence warrant of the area made sense.\n\nBut the conditions above are not the norm and a lot of geofence warrants would cover areas of populated cities or high trafficked roads.",
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