Court tosses case over GPS tracking
ALBANY — A Watervliet man will get a new trial on burglary charges after the state’s top court ruled Tuesday it was wrong for a police investigator to slap a GPS device on the defendant’s van to track his movements without a search warrant.
A divided Court of Appeals, in a 4-3 decision, reversed the conviction of 41-year-old Scott Weaver, finding that his protection against unlawful search and seizure under the state constitution was violated. The court suppressed information obtained from the device from being used as evidence at a new trial as it was at the first trial.
Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman, in the 20-page majority opinion, wrote: “What the technology yields and records with breathtaking quality and quantity is a highly detailed profile, not simply of where we go, but by easy inference, of our associations — political, religious, amicable and amorous, to name only a few — and of the pattern of our professional and avocational pursuits.”
He also wrote that “the great popularity of