Supreme Court Holds that Installing GPS Tracker on Vehicle Is a Search

[Update: I've revised the text here to show that the Court did not actually say a warrant is always required in such cases] What a day.  Now we have a Supreme Court decision (United States v. Jones) holding that when the government installs a GPS tracker on a car, it is a search within the meaning of the Constitution (on the theory that the Fourth Amendment requires a warrant not only in scenarios involving a reasonable expectation of privacy, but also where a search involves a "trespass upon the areas ('persons, houses, papers, and effects')" that the Fourth Amendment enumerates--and that this was in substance a search of an effect).  That ended the matter in this instance, since the government had waived the argument that in this context the search was a reasonable one even absent a warrant. Note that the case involved a criminal narcotics investigation.