A U.S. Appeals Court upheld fourth amendment rights on Friday, deciding that police cannot use your vehicle or phone’s GPS to track you without a warrant.

The benefits to law-enforcement of being able to track suspects movements using their own GPS, are obvious.  Think of a cell phone as a Lo-Jack for drug dealers, sexual predators, and violent offenders.  Even if your GPS is turned off on your phone, cell phone companies can place you in vicinity of an event, as mandated by the Federal government for 911 emergencies.  Human surveillance is generally more reliable; however, the cost of surveilling a suspect for any lengthy period can cost huge taxpayer dollars in the form of police salaries.

So what is the downside?  Right now the argument to collect GPS data on suspects hinges on the notion that someone would have to be under some sort of suspicion to have their movements tracked, but there are instances where police interview many suspects in connection with a crime.  As technology improves, it will be possible to collect all of your movements using your GPS coordinates.  If a crime is committed, is it fair to poke into every suspect’s life, if the majority (if not all) of them are innocent?

People have often paraphrased or stated “innocent people should have nothing to hide.” 

I call B.S. 

Even law-abiding citizens want a certain degree of privacy; and even when we engage in activities which are legal, we don’t necessarily always want them to be public knowledge.  If you were to compile a person’s movements on their cell phone, you could paint quite a picture.

Here is a list of conclusions someone could draw about you if they had a couple months of data from your GPS:

•  Where you shop
•  Where you like to eat
•  Where you bank
•  Your religion
•  If you are an outpatient, or had a surgery
•  If you are seeing a psychiatric professional
•  Whether you are member of an activist group
•  If you gamble
•  Your sexual orientation
•  If you are promiscuous
•  If you are having an affair
•  If you have a friend or relative in jail
•  If you are an alcoholic
•  If you are employed

Some of these things you might not necessarily mind people knowing, and I’m positive that this information is useful in some circumstances to help law-enforcement.  But is it unreasonable to expect that the government should need probable cause and a legal warrant before snooping into your life?  I don’t think so, and neither does the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

What do you have to hide?