WASHINGTON — A recent Supreme Court ruling is forcing the FBI to deactivate its GPS tracking devices in some investigations, agency director Robert Mueller said Wednesday.
Mueller told a congressional panel that the bureau has turned off a substantial number of GPS units and is using surveillance by agents instead.
“Putting a physical surveillance team out with six, eight, 12 persons is tremendously time-intensive,” Mueller told a House Appropriations subcommittee. The court ruling “will inhibit our ability to use this in a number of surveillances where it has been tremendously beneficial.”
In January, the Supreme Court unanimously agreed to bar police from installing GPS technology to track suspects without first getting a judge’s approval. Justice Samuel Alito wrote in a concurring opinion that “the use of longer-term GPS monitoring in investigations of most offenses impinges on expectations of privacy.”
