EFF Says Wisconsin Law Imposing Lifetime GPS Monitoring Violates Fourth Amendment
The Electronic Frontier Foundation filed an amicus brief, asking the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to uphold a district court ruling and strike down a 2006 Wisconsin statute requiring individuals who have completed their criminal sentences to wear GPS…
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ankle bracelets for the rest of their lives. While the law was aimed at individuals who committed certain sexual violence offenses, it "applied to any person released from jail, prison, treatment, or involuntary civil commitment after January 1, 2008 -- regardless of the date of their offense, without any determination of their risk of recidivism, and even to those fully discharged from their criminal sentences," wrote EFF Legal Fellow Jamie Williams in a Monday blog post. She wrote EFF filed its brief last week in a case involving Michael Belleau, who sued the state, saying the law violated the Fourth Amendment and the U.S. Constitution's ex post facto clause, "which prohibits states from passing laws that retroactively change the legal consequences of a crime or action." In September, the U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Wisconsin sided with Belleau. The ruling said Belleau served his sentences and the state "is not entitled to add to his punishment because it now believes the sentences imposed were too lenient or provided insufficient protection to the public. Nor may the State force Belleau to wear a GPS tracking device around his ankle so that it can record his movement minute-by-minute for the rest of his life because it believes he might commit another crime in the future." Wisconsin appealed the ruling. EFF's Williams wrote that GPS tracking helps law enforcement not only know individuals' whereabouts but "also learn an extraordinary amount of highly sensitive information about who we are." Wisconsin's "GPS surveillance program severely and pervasively invades [their] privacy interests," she wrote, citing the EFF brief.