Court Opinion

ID: 9467024
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 01:35:58.926677+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:40:06.614671
License: Public Domain

KEITH, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I concur in the result reached by Judge Phillips in the majority opinion, and the reasoning in Parts III, IV and V 1. However, because the beeper represents another step in the advance toward an Orwellian future, I write separately to emphasize the parameters of the privacy interests protected by the Fourth Amendment.2 In my
*948view, the determination of whether this governmental intrusion — use of the beeper — unreasonably invades one’s privacy turns on the degree of privacy not only recognized by, but necessary to, members of contemporary society. From this perspective it is apparent that the majority’s holding that Fourth Amendment protection arose only when the non-contraband properties came to rest in an apartment complex is too narrow a reading of the degree of privacy the law should be prepared to accept. Implicitly, the majority accepts the proposition that our idea of freedom is offended and necessarily shrinks at the continual monitoring of personal movement. Other circuits have accepted this same proposition.
In the Fifth Circuit’s opinion in United States v. Holmes3 the installation of the beeper was held to constitute a search.4 While not explicitly stated, the underlying rationale for the Fifth Circuit’s holding in Holmes is an acceptance of the idea that privacy of movement is worthy of constitutional protection. Holmes states:
No rational basis occurs to us for distinguishing the violation of the expectancy of privacy involved in the installation of a “beeper” on a car, in order to trace its movement, from the placing of a tap on the outside of a telephone booth in order to overhear and record conversations . . . . (emphasis added)
. A person has a right to. expect that when he drives his car into the street, the police will not attach an electronic surveillance device to his car in order to track him. Although he can anticipate visual surveillance, he can rea-
sonably expect to be “alone” in his car when he enters it and drives away.5
Similarly, the First Circuit in United States v. Moore6 acknowledged that the defendants have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their movements. Moore concluded that the use of a beeper to maintain surveillance of a vehicle on public roads is less of an invasion than the monitoring of a beeper hidden within chemicals located in a residence. However the recognition of the defendant’s “privacy of movements” led the First Circuit to rule that law enforcement officials had to show probable cause before the beeper could be installed. Moore held:
“[Wjhile the lessened expectancy of privacy associated with motor vehicles justifies the use of beepers without a warrant to track vehicles, this can be done only if the officers have probable cause at the time.”7
The underpinning of this aspect of the Moore holding is that a [driver] “properly can expect not to be carrying around an uninvited device that would continuously signal his presence”.8 I agree with the First Circuit that the “intrusion cannot be written off as non-existent” merely because the electronic device is attached to a vehicle on public roads, which is ordinarily subject to public scrutiny.
In contrast, the majority in this case appears to limit application of the Fourth Amendment to those instances where the beeper has been attached to personal property a citizen has a right to possess. Today’s failure to recognize that modern society has evolved to the point that a person’s movements “belong” to her is the beginning *949of the encroachment warned against in Boyd v. United States, 116 U.S. 616, 635, 6 S.Ct. 524, 534, 29 L.Ed. 746 (1886).9
Given the vast array of electronic surveillance now available to law enforcement officials, it is necessary to clearly articulate the boundaries of privacy. Accordingly, I would hold that privacy of movement itself is deserving of Fourth Amendment protections.
A meaningful definition of privacy should include the control of the intimacies of personal identity. Obviously this control begins with one’s body and at the very least extends to those elements which constitute one’s existence as a sentient being. In this regard, I think an individual may legitimately expect to live in this society without fear that the government may be silently following his every movement. Sometimes we do not care if others know where we go or what we do. If someone follows us to work or to the grocery store, we may not be concerned. But each of us goes places and does things that we would prefer to keep private. Ordinarily we can protect our privacy by insuring that we are not being followed, and that others do not know where we are going. The beeper destroys our ability to protect the privacy of our movement.
In United States v. Finazzo10, Judge Merritt observed that “[p]rivacy is destroyed when monitored.”11 That is the heart of the matter. Privacy, whether it be of conversation or movement, is destroyed when monitored. The majority carefully framed the question as whether the law is “prepared to recognize as legitimate an individual’s expectation of privacy with respect to what he does in private with personal property he has a right to possess.” I do not disagree with its holding that the law does recognize the foregoing as being within the protection of the Fourth Amendment. However, as indicated above, I think the use of electronic surveillance by government officials necessitates an explicit holding that privacy of movement is itself protected by the Fourth Amendment.12

. I express no opinion on the extent to which exigent circumstances would eliminate the warrant requirements when electronic surveillance is involved.

. The Fourth Amendment provides that:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Although United States v. Katz, 389 U.S. 347, 88 S.Ct. 507', 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967) provided a new analytical framework within which governmental intrusions would be examined, Katz implied that property interests would no longer *948be the exclusive test of Fourth Amendment protection. If the language of the Fourth Amendment means anything, to be secure in one’s person” is different than to be secure in one’s personal “effects”. I perceive the use of the beeper as violating the person’s movements, the majority gives more emphasis to the fact that only personal property (an effect) was attached.

. 521 F.2d 859, 864 (5th Cir. 1975), vacated and district court decision aff'd by an equally divided court en banc, 537 F.2d 227 (1976).

. My agreement with the majority that the monitoring of the beeper triggers Fourth Amendment protection does not require that the analysis in Holmes need be summarily rejected. See n. 5 in the majority opinion.

. 521 F.2d at 865 and 866.

. 562 F.2d 106 (1st Cir. 1977), cert. denied, 435 U.S. 926 (1978) (van parked in public lot).

. Id. at 112-113.

. Id.

. It may be that it is the obnoxious thing in its mildest and least repulsive form, but illegitimate and unconstitutional practices get their first footing in that way, namely by silent approaches and slight deviations from legal modes of procedures. 116 U.S. at 635.

. 583 F.2d 837 (6th Cir. 1978), vacated and remanded, 441 U.S. 929, 99 S.Ct. 2047, 60 L.Ed.2d 657 (1979).

. Id. at 841.

. I stress that by recognizing a reasonable expectation of privacy in “beeper” cases, I would only impose reasonable burdens on the government. I would not prohibit all beeper searches, just as the Supreme Court did not bar all wiretapping in Berger v. New York, 388 U.S. 41, 87 S.Ct. 1873, 18 L.Ed.2d 1040 (1967) and United States v. Katz, supra, I would simply prefer that the government justify its conduct under the Fourth Amendment’s reasonableness requirements.
In this case the government sought unbridled authority to install “beepers” for the purpose of monitoring the movement of people and their possessions. I think it clear that this violates one’s reasonable expectation of privacy. Contrast Smith v. Maryland, 442 U.S. 735, 99 S.Ct. 2577, 61 L.Ed.2d 220, 99 S.Ct. 2577 (1979) (no reasonable expectation of privacy in the telephone numbers one dials; “pen register” surveillance not subject to the Fourth Amendment).