The “third party doctrine” provides that when a person gives information or property to a third party, he forfeits his right to protection from warrantless searches and seizures by the government. In the digital age, the continued application of the third party doctrine in modern society would render the federal Constitution’s Fourth Amendment and the state constitution’s Article First, Section Seven to be dead letters. In order to protect the rights of Connecticut residents, Connecticut courts should follow Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s concurrence in United States v. Jones and reconsider the third party doctrine, particularly under the more protective Connecticut state constitution.

Last term, the U.S. Supreme Court decided United States v. Jones — the highly anticipated global positioning satellite (GPS) case. The case involved a lengthy investigation of a suspected narcotics dealer. As part of that investigation, federal agents had placed a GPS tracker on the defendant’s vehicle. The tracker relayed information to the government about the car, reporting everywhere that it had been for a period of 28 days. The defendant challenged all of the evidence that was obtained against him from this GPS tracker on the basis that the agents first should have obtained a warrant before placing the tracker on the car. The issue before the Court was whether the monitoring of the defendant’s travels violated the defendant’s Fourth Amendment rights.

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