{"id":64881,"date":"2026-09-26T10:13:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-26T15:13:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=64881"},"modified":"2026-09-26T11:16:52","modified_gmt":"2026-09-26T16:16:52","slug":"ca4-use-of-a-cell-site-simulator-to-locate-def-was-a-search-under-the-4a","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=64881","title":{"rendered":"CA4: Use of a cell-site simulator to locate def was a search under the 4A"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cWe hold that the use of the cell-site simulator constituted a search within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. We conclude, however, that the detectives are entitled to qualified immunity and state law public official immunity, and that the Baltimore City Police Department cannot be held liable for the violation of Andrews’s Fourth Amendment rights.\u201d Andrews v. Balt. City Police Dep’t<\/a>, 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 29401 (4th Cir. Sep. 24, 2026):<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

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We must assess two questions. First, whether an individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy in the real-time location of his cellphone, which generally corresponds with his location. Second, whether law enforcement conducts a search by using technology that briefly seizes the cellphone’s signals\u2014unbeknownst to the owner\u2014to track that location. Despite the ubiquity of cell-site simulators, no federal court of appeals has squarely addressed whether law enforcement’s use of this technology for realtime tracking of a cellphone constitutes a search for purposes of the Fourth Amendment. Today, we hold that it does.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Supreme Court’s most recent decisions on the constitutional boundaries of cellphone location surveillance, United States v. Carpenter, 585 U.S. 296 (2018), and Chatrie v. United States, 609 U.S. ___, 146 S. Ct. 2193 (2026), are instructive. Both cases were decided after the BPD used Hailstorm to locate Andrews.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cWe hold that the use of the cell-site simulator constituted a search within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. We conclude, however, that the detectives are entitled to qualified immunity and state law public official immunity, and that the Baltimore … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[82],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cs-sim"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=64881"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64881\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64885,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64881\/revisions\/64885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=64881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=64881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=64881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}