E.D.N.Y.: 791 days of GPS tracking of a parolee to catch others in a DTO was [somehow] not unreasonable

In a really strange case, a GPS monitor to track curfew violations of a parolee was left on for 791 days. The parole officers and then other officers watched where he was going to attempt to crack a drug trafficking organization, apparently letting him think they weren’t paying attention. The original parole order was for defendant to wear it for only six months, but it went on for two years and two months and they just watched to see where he was going. The opinion strongly states that this was highly invasive of defendant’s rights, tracking him for so long, but still, the court somehow denies the motion to suppress the tracking information. United States v. Lambus, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 177585 (E.D.N.Y. Dec. 22, 2016) (Weinstein, U.S.D.J.):

A state cannot use a parolee as a sort of fly paper, trailing him around the community for years, trolling for criminals. If the state wishes to search someone for the primary purpose of furthering a deliberate effort to gather evidence as part of a wide-ranging criminal prosecution, the “warrant and probable-cause requirement is not … ‘impracticable'” (Griffin, 483 U.S. at 873); the search cannot be justified as a “special need,” even if the searchee is a parolee. See Huntley, 371 N.E.2d at 797 (“In general the standard by which the reasonableness of a search or seizure with respect to a parolee by a police officer is to be measured would be the familiar requirement of a showing of probable cause.”).