The court will decide-this year I suspect-whether the government/police can attach a GPS tracking devise on a suspects car without a warrant. This is the U.S. v. Jones 2011 case. The court ruled in 1983 that the police did not need a warrant to "attach a 'bird dog' to a suspects vehicle" (I don't know what a "bird dog" is. More research will be needed). That case was U.S. v. Knotts. In 2001 the court ruled on the issue of the police use of "thermal imaging technology" in Kyllo v. U.S. I will need to do more research, but I believe the court ruled that search to be an unreasonable search, thus unconstitutional.
(Source: Internet search on FindLaw.com on this date)
Update. The SC will hear the GPS case this November; the Virginian Pilot newspaper from Virginia Beach, VA states their belief that the search in this case was illegal. In the Jones case the police believed Jones was a drug dealer, they sought and were issued a search warrant that allowed them to place the GPS on his private vehicle, but they failed to act on the warrant within the 10 days the warrant specified making the warrant "invalid". It appears from this source that the issue is the warrantless nature of the search and not the GPS device itself. The police may have been correct in their actions if they had gotten a valid warrant-at least according to this newspaper.
(Source: "GPS and the Constitution" editorial in The Virginian Pilot on 9/28/11).
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