Several state supreme courts — including those in Massachusetts, New York, Oregon and Washington — have ruled that their state constitutions require police to obtain a warrant to use them.
A decade ago, the Supreme Court ruled that the police needed a warrant to use thermal imaging technology to measure heat emanating from a home.
While many departments require warrants to use phone tracking in nonemergencies, others claim broad discretion to get the records on their own, according to 5,500 pages of internal records obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union from 205 police departments nationwide.
Despite the fact that the devices are also capable of listening to phone calls, in many cases they still do not require a warrant to use, instead requiring a much lower-level authorisation known as a "trap-and-trace", a court order designed in the era of the rotary phone.
Today's changes to Rule 41 would allow judges to "issue a warrant to use remote access to search electronic storage media and to seize or copy electronically stored information located within or outside that district".
Under the terms of the bill, law enforcement would need to get warrants to use drones.
The FBI claims that it doesn't need a warrant to use so-called Stingray cell-phone tracking technology in public spaces, according to two US Senators raising privacy concerns over use of the devices.
The measure Idaho Governor C.L. Butchh" Otter signed into law on Thursday requires police to obtain warrants to use drones to collect evidence about suspected criminal activity unless it involves illegal drugs or unless the unmanned aircraft is being used for public emergencies or search-and-rescue missions.
"If the new policy requires the FBI to get a warrant to use the device but has an exception for when the device is in public use, does that mean the feds were using IMSI catchers to capture signals emanating from the home, a place clearly protected by the Fourth Amendment?
