Court Opinion

ID: 9721715
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 09:06:21.358175+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:26.326737
License: Public Domain

SHIRLEY S. ABRAHAMSON, C.J.
¶ 86. {dissenting). I assume, as does the majority opinion, that a search or seizure occurred in the present case that required authorization by a warrant.
¶ 87. The majority therefore must determine that the circuit court Order authorizing the installation of the GPS in the present case "constituted" a valid search warrant under Wisconsin law. Therein lies the problem. The Order does not meet the statutory requirements of a Warrant. So, the next question arises: Construing the Order as a warrant, are the statutory defects in the Order "technical irregularities," which are excused under Wis. Stat. § 968.22,1 or do the defects render the Order, construed as a warrant, void from the beginning, that is, does this case present a void ab initio warrant?
¶ 88. The legislature has given us a clear, unambiguous answer.
¶ 89. Wisconsin Stat. § 968.15 states that a search warrant must be executed and returned not more than five days after the date of issuance and that if it is not executed within this time frame, the warrant "shall be void and shall be returned to the judge issuing it." (Emphasis added.)
¶ 90. The Order, as executed, did not meet this clear statutory requirement. This Order/Warrant purported to authorize the removal of the GPS "as soon as *420practicable after the objectives of the surveillance are accomplished and not later than 60 days from the date the order is signed." Thus, the Order on its face (and as it was executed) violates the mandatory warrant requirements in Wis. Stat. § 968.15. The legislature declares such a warrant void.
¶ 91. The Order is therefore void as a warrant. The legislature expressly treats the failure to comply with the five-day execution period as a fatal flaw. In other words, the legislature has explicitly and preemptively instructed judges and courts not to treat the five-day execution period as a "technical irregularity" that can be forgiven under Wis. Stat. § 968.22. Section 968.15 provides as follows:
§ 968.15 Search Warrants; when executable. (1) A search warrant must be executed and returned not more than 5 days after the date of issuance.
(2) Any search warrant not executed within the time provided in sub. (1) shall be void and shall be returned to the judge issuing it. (Emphasis added.)2
¶ 92. The Order's 60-day authorization period is irreconcilable with the statutory five-day execution and return requirement. The Order was executed over the *421course of the 35 days that the GPS was maintained on the vehicle and no return was ever made to the judge who issued the Order.
¶ 93. The law enforcement officer seeking the Order knew that the Order did not have statutory support. In her affidavit and request for authorization to install the GPS, Detective Ricksecker averred that the State of Wisconsin "has no explicit statute under Chapter 968 that addresses the issue of installing tracking devices on private property." The circuit court signing the Order likewise knew that the Order did not satisfy the statutory requirements of a warrant. The circuit court judge characterized the Order as "most akin to a search warrant" (emphasis added), thus acknowledging that the judge knew the Order was not, in fact or law, a search warrant.3 The majority disregards not only the statutory warrant requirements but also the candor, legal reasoning, and common sense of the detective and circuit judge who crafted this Order.
¶ 94. The legislature has declared the Order/ Warrant in the present case void. What part of the word "void" doesn't the majority understand? Why doesn't the majority opinion follow the legislature's directive?
¶ 95. When a warrant is void ab initio, the evidence must be suppressed. "[Suppressing evidence obtained as a result of [an] unauthorized, defective warrant is necessary to preserve the integrity of the *422judicial process." State v. Hess, 2010 WI 82, ¶ 3, 327 Wis. 2d 524, 785 N.W.2d 568.
¶ 96. The majority's decision today may have far-reaching consequences extending well beyond GPS surveillance. If warrant requirements that are mandatory in the statutes are rendered optional in reality; if fatal flaws are treated as mere technical irregularities; if clear statutory language is ignored with regard to GPS tracking, what is to prevent the proliferation of similar court orders which, under the guise of a "warrant" but without statutory basis or limitation, authorize a sweeping search of a home or an office without affording the protections expressly laid out by the legislature? The majority's rationale offers no limitation on what searches may be authorized outside the statutory provisions. The majority offers no answer to how such authorizations might be checked.
¶ 97. I could end this dissent right here. I address the remaining arguments to resolve lingering doubt, if any, about the validity of this Order if treated as a warrant, and because a contrast to the legal authorization for warrants and other surveillance orders highlights the lack of compliance with any authorizing law for the GPS tracking Order in the present case.
¶ 98. The Order at issue does not meet the constitutional or statutory requirements for a search warrant.
¶ 99. I agree with Sveum that "the Fourth Amendment makes clear that mere probable cause plus a judge's signature do not a warrant make."4 Although the affidavit demonstrated probable cause, the adequacy of the probable cause showing is not without doubts because of the nature of the GPS device.
*423¶ 100. The Order authorized the police to "place are electronic tracking device" onto Sveum's vehicle (located on the curtilage) and allowed the police to "enter and reenter the vehicle... to install, use, maintain and conduct surveillance and monitoring... of a mobile electronic tracking device." However, police did not install "a device"; they installed three GPS devices over the course of the surveillance. Rather than merely replacing the battery every 14 to 21 days, the police chose to remove and replace the whole device. Thus, the officers invaded Sveum's vehicle three distinct times, whereas the Order, pursuant to a single showing of probable cause, appears only to have authorized one such invasion.5
*424¶ 101. With regard to other statutory defects, I will examine various statutory provisions. I begin with Wisconsin Stat. § 968.10, which authorizes a search of a person, object or place and a seizure when the search is conducted as follows:
(1) Incident to a lawful arrest;
(2) With consent;
(3) Pursuant to a valid search warrant;
(4) With the authority and within the scope of a right of lawful inspection;
(5) Pursuant to a search during an authorized temporary questioning as provided in s. 968.25; or
(6) As otherwise authorized by law.
¶ 102. Subsections (1), (2), (4), and (5) are inapplicable here. The search in the present case is valid only if the Order is a "valid search warrant" (under sub. (3) above) or is "otherwise authorized by law" (under sub. (6) above). The Order in the present case does not fit within either sub. (3) or sub. (6).
¶ 103. First examining Wis. Stat. § 968.12(3), the Order is not a "valid search warrant" because it does not fit within the definition of "search warrant" found in Wis. Stat. § 968.12(1).
¶ 104. A search warrant is "an order signed by a judge directing a law enforcement officer to conduct a search of a designated person, a designated object or a designated place for the purpose of seizing designated property or kinds of property." As a threshold matter, the Order in the present case was signed by a judge; it did direct a law enforcement officer to act. But the act directed was not, in the words of the statute, "to conduct *425a search of a designated person, a designated object or a designated place for the purpose of seizing designated property or kinds of property." Installing the GPS does not fit within a search of a designated person, a designated object, or a designated place.6 Even if one construes the Order as targeting a search of a designated object or place, it was not "for the purposing of seizing designated property"7 unless the data information fits within Wis. Stat. § 968.13(l)(c).
*426¶ 105. Furthermore, the Order/Warrant did not comply with Wis. Stat. § 968.17(1), which provides that the "return of the search warrant shall be made within 48 hours after execution to the clerk designated in the warrant." Under State v. Meier, 60 Wis. 2d 452, 459, 210 N.W.2d 685 (1973), "failure of an officer to make return of a search warrant [within the statutory period of 48 hours] properly issued and served will not invalidate *427the search warrant, or a search and seizure made thereunder, even where the statute requires the return within a certain time ..." (emphasis added). However, a court order that does not make any provisions for such a return is not a "search warrant properly issued," as it fails to meet the statutory requirement. See Wis. Stat. § 968.23 for the illustrative form of a search warrant, including the command that the law enforcement officer return the warrant within 48 hours. The return must be "accompanied by a written inventory of any property taken," which in the present case would amount to the data collected by the GPS tracking device.
¶ 106. The Order does not satisfy these warrant requirements. No clerk was designated to whom the return was to be made 48 hours after execution. See Wis. Stat. §§ 968.17(2), .23. There is no record of a return to a clerk or to the court.
¶ 107. These failures violate the terms of Wis. Stat. §§ 968.17(2) and 968.23 and undermine the statute's intended effect. Absent compliance with return provisions, the police were implicitly granted unchecked discretion in the use of the GPS data after it was obtained. This practice undermines the statutory provision for judicial supervision, which is the interest protected by the statutory return requirements and which guards against potential abuses of police authority.8 Violation of this provision runs afoul of clear statutory requirements and of legislative purpose.
¶ 108. Because the Order is not, in my opinion, a warrant, the statutory "receipt" requirement under *428Wis. Stat. § 968.18 was violated. That section provides that "[a]ny law enforcement officer seizing any items without a search warrant shall give a receipt as soon as practicable to the person from whose possession they are taken."9 No such receipt was given to Sveum.
¶ 109. These numerous failures to comply with statutory warrant requirements are fatal to the majority's contention that the Order "constituted" a warrant under the requirements of the law. Although Wis. Stat. § 968.22 provides that "[n]o evidence seized under a search warrant shall be suppressed because of technical irregularities not affecting the substantial rights of the defendant," the statutory violations that I have enumerated were not mere "technical irregularities." Rather, they were significant substantive departures from the statutory mandates that were designed to protect the privacy interests of the subject of a search warrant. Virtually all of the time limitations and provisions for judicial documentation and notice provided by the statute were brushed aside by the provisions of the Order here, which purported to give police unfettered discretionary surveillance authorization for up to 60 days. It cannot credibly be argued that Sveum's substantial rights were not affected as a result.
¶ 110. Finally, even if one could argue that each of these statutory defects is by itself a technicality, their cumulative effect affects the substantial rights of the defendant. The numerous violations of the statutes governing warrants demonstrate that this Order just *429doesn't fit the statutory mandates of a warrant.10 Because the Order violates the statutory requirements of a warrant and thus cannot constitute a warrant, any evidence obtained by the Order should be suppressed.
¶ 111. Suppression is necessary "to achieve the objectives of the statute ...." See State v. Popenhagen, 2008 WI 55, ¶ 62, 309 Wis. 2d 601, 749 N.W.2d 611.
¶ 112. Popenhagen involved a subpoena that directed the production of documents; the subpoena violated Wis. Stat. § 968.135. The court concluded that because the subpoena contravened the statute, the evidence would be suppressed. Popenhagen, 309 Wis. 2d 601, ¶ 62. Similarly, in the present case, the evidence obtained in violation of the warrant statutes should be suppressed in order to achieve the objectives of the statutes and to discourage courts and law enforcement from creatively evading the warrant requirements set forth by the legislature by justifying searches and surveillance activities under ad hoc judicially crafted rules and requirements.
¶ 113. Law enforcement did nothing malicious or unreasonable here. The investigating detective took a responsible, desirable course in the present case. Law enforcement went to a neutral magistrate for authority. A well-grounded supporting affidavit was submitted to the judge, admitting that there was no statutory authority for a GPS warrant.
*430¶ 114. Nowhere is there authority for the court to authorize the search conducted in the present case. The Order issued would not be a valid search warrant for a home or an office, and it is likewise insufficient for the search undertaken here. Courts and judges do not have free-floating authority to approve whatever searches, seizures, or novel surveillance techniques police may wish to pursue. The law provides specific authorizations for warrants, subject to specific limitations. The Order in this case falls outside any identified source of authorization.
¶ 115. Because the court Order authorizing the installation of the GPS failed to authorize "a search of a person, object or place" and a seizure "[pjursuant to a valid search warrant" as required by Wis. Stat. § 968.10(3), I conclude that the installation of the GPS on Sveum's vehicle was a warrantless search and thus was presumptively invalid.11 The State bears the burden of proving the search valid under some exception to the warrant requirement. It has failed to do so.
¶ 116. I turn now to Wis. Stat. § 968.10(6) authorizing a search "as otherwise authorized by law." The installation and use of a GPS tracking device are not authorized by any law.
¶ 117. No statute authorizes the issuance of the Order in the present case. It is not authorized under *431Wis. Stat. §§ 968.27-.32, governing the procedure for obtaining an order to intercept wire, electronic, or oral communications, because § 968.27(4)(d) defines electronic communications to exclude any communication from a tracking device. Even if the GPS tracking in the present case were analyzed as "interception of wire, electronic or oral communications," the Order contravenes other statutory requirements. Under § 968.30, no order may authorize interception of such communications "for any period longer than is necessary to achieve the objective of the authorization, nor in any event longer than 30 days." Wis. Stat. § 968.30(5). The Order in the present case impermissibly authorized surveillance for up to 60 days.
¶ 118. Wisconsin Stat. §§ 968.34-.37 regulating the use of pen registers and trap-and-trace devices are likewise not applicable here. The existence of these provisions authorizing, subject to certain limits, other kinds of electronic surveillance and investigation simply highlights exactly what is missing in the present case: any source of legal authority underlying the Order purporting to authorize GPS tracking.12
¶ 119. No claim is made in the majority opinion or by the parties that the circuit courts have inherent power to issue search warrants.
¶ 120. In several states the notion that the power to issue search warrants may be inherent in the courts or stem from the common law has been rejected; *432judicial authority to issue search warrants is viewed as having a statutory source, subject to statutory limitations.13
*433¶ 121. Electronic surveillance is upon us, raising significant and rapidly emerging privacy issues. A device in common usage, such as your cell phone, might be used to track your whereabouts. The law will have to tackle each new challenge as it arises. Courts may provide answers to some problems; others will require legislative solutions.
¶ 122. In the present case, we address GPS tracking of a personal vehicle. Searches and expectations of privacy in a personal motor vehicle are an area where the case law provides at least a sound point of departure. The lesson is that courts should not freely permit searches that infringe on recognized privacy interests in this arena.
¶ 123. "An individual operating or traveling in an automobile does not lose all reasonable expectation of privacy simply because the automobile and its use are subject to government regulation."14 In Arizona v. Gant, 129 S. Ct. 1710, 1720 (2009), the United States Supreme Court recently reaffirmed that "the [motorist's privacy interest in his vehicle is] important and deserving of constitutional protection."
¶ 124. Here, law enforcement tracked the motion and movements of Sveum's car with a GPS device, enabling increased police surveillance that in earlier times would have been physically, logistically, and financially impossible.
¶ 125. GPS locational tracking does not simply replace visual surveillance. Law enforcement officers could not, as a practical matter, track the vehicle *434through visual surveillance alone.15 As the New York Court of Appeals explained:
GPS is not a mere enhancement of human sensory-capacity, it facilitates a new technological perception of the world' in which the situation of any object may be followed and exhaustively recorded over, in most cases, a practically unlimited period.... *435Disclosed in the data retrieved... will be trips, the indisputably private nature of which takes little imagination to conjure: trips to the psychiatrist, the plastic surgeon, the abortion clinic, the AIDS treatment center, the strip club, the criminal defense attorney, the by-the-hour-motel, the union meeting, the mosque, synagogue or church, the gay bar and on and on. What the technology yields and records is a highly detailed profile ... .16
¶ 126. I recognize that the problems presented by technologically assisted physical surveillance are complex and that the interests of privacy and crime detection are substantial. The warrant statutes are carefully crafted to protect privacy and law enforcement interests. These statutes have long and effectively governed searches and seizures in Wisconsin. The courts, and especially this court, should not do violence to these "bread and butter" law enforcement statutes in an ill-advised attempt to bend clear and well-established law to fit novel and fast-changing technology. The myriad of technical, legal and policy issues involved in electronic surveillance lend themselves to legislative resolution, not ad hoc judicial authorizations or a bewilderingly complex judicial attempt to shoehorn the possibilities of new surveillance technologies into the parameters of statutes that were never meant to accommodate them.
¶ 127. For the reasons set forth, I conclude that there was no warrant. The constitution and statutes have been violated. The evidence should be suppressed.
¶ 128. I am authorized to state that Justice ANN WALSH BRADLEY joins this opinion.

 Wisconsin Stat. § 968.22 provides:
No evidence seized under a search warrant shall be suppressed because of technical irregularities not affecting the substantial rights of the defendant.

 The Judicial Council's 1969 note to this provision appears in 1969 Wis. Laws ch. 255. It states as follows:
It is believed that there should be some reasonable period in which a warrant should be executed and returned. Experience teaches that normally search warrants have little effect if they are not promptly served. They should not be held by an officer and served at his whim. Various states have adopted times different from the federal requirement in ER. Cr. E 41 (d) which has a 10-day limitation. The Council, after consultation with law enforcement authorities, felt 5 days was a reasonable period.

 At the circuit court, the State also argued that the Order did not meet the statutory requirements of a warrant.
These facts undermine any "good faith" argument because both the police and the issuing judge recognized they were operating outside the statutory warrant authorization. Contra majority op., ¶ 58 n.13.

 Reply Brief of Defendant-Appellant-Petitioner at 10.

 In invalidating a New York eavesdropping statute under the Fourth Amendment, the United States Supreme Court stated that statutory "authorization of eavesdropping for a two-month period is the equivalent of a series of intrusions, searches, and seizures pursuant to a single showing of probable cause." Berger v. New York, 388 U.S. 41, 59 (1967). The authorization of GPS tracking for 60 days on a single showing of probable cause suffers the same infirmity.
The GPS device was initially installed on April 23, 2003; the device was replaced approximately two weeks later. The collected GPS data revealed incriminating evidence from April 25, 2003 and April 26, 2003, dates before the device was first replaced. That evidence should have established that "the objectives of the surveillance [were] accomplished." By the Order's own terms, police were then obligated to remove the device "as soon as practicable." In fact, police replaced the device another time after this showing. The repeat installations continuing to collect data well beyond that time appear to have been unreasonable continuations of the original search under the terms of the Order itself. Incriminating evidence sufficient to demonstrate Sveum's stalking had already been obtained and the objectives of the surveillance accomplished.

 The majority unnecessarily complicates the issue by declining to consider the Order in its entirety and striking those portions that authorize law enforcement officers to, among other things, "surreptitiously enter and reenter' the vehicle and any buildings and structures containing the vehicle or any premises on which the vehicle is located ...." See majority op., ¶ 50. The majority so concludes because "there is no evidence that these areas were ever searched, and it does not appear that any evidence was found in them." Majority op., ¶ 51. The majority does not pause to consider whether the stricken portions were supported by probable cause. Id.
This reasoning also ignores the fact that for police to attach the GPS device to Sveum's vehicle, they entered the premises on which the vehicle was located. The majority treats as severed the only language of the order that appears to have authorized the officers to "surreptitiously enter and reenter... [the] premises" at 2426 Valley Road, Cross Plains, where Sveum's vehicle was located, to install the GPS devices. It follows that when police did so, they were acting outside the authorization of the Order as the majority opinion now reads the Order.
By striking this portion of the Order, the majority renders the Order effectively useless. Yet, it somehow still maintains that the portion of the Order that authorized law enforcement officers to install, use, and maintain a GPS tracking device remains valid, and that the evidence obtained under this order need not be suppressed. See majority op., ¶ 49. The majority's reasoning seems internally inconsistent.

 The relevant "property subject to seizure" is set forth in
*426Wis. Stat. § 968.13. GPS tracking would have to be fit into § 968.13(l)(c):
968.13 Search warrant; property subject to seizure.
(1) A search warrant may authorize the seizure of the following:
(a) Contraband, which includes without limitation because of enumeration lottery tickets, gambling machines or other gambling devices, lewd, obscene or indecent written matter, pictures, sound recordings or motion picture films, forged money or written instruments and the tools, dies, machines or materials for making them, and controlled substances, as defined in s. 961.01(4), and controlled substance analogs, as defined in s. 961.01(4m), and the implements for smoking or injecting them. Gambling machines or other gambling devices possessed by a shipbuilding business that complies with s. 945.095 are not subject to this section.
(b) Anything which is the fruit of or has been used in the commission of any crime.
(c) Anything other than documents which may constitute evidence of any crime.
(d) Documents which may constitute evidence of any crime, if probable cause is shown that the documents are under the control of a person who is reasonably suspected to be concerned in the commission of that crime under s. 939.05(2).
(2) In this section, "documents" includes, but is not limited to, books, papers, records, recordings, tapes, photographs, films or computer or electronic data.

 The legislative history reveals that the return provision is "for the protection of both the party whose property was seized and the officer making the seizure." Judicial Council Note to Wis. Laws of 1969, ch. 255. See also State v. Meier, 60 Wis. 2d 452, 459, 210 N.W.2d 685 (1973).

 Sveum argues, and I agree, that this requirement was not met here. However,"[failure to give such receipt shall not render the evidence seized inadmissible upon a trial." Wis. Stat. § 968.18.

 It is permissible to aggregate errors to determine their overall impact. Several individually harmless errors may cumulatively affect the defendant's substantial rights. State v. Harris, 2008 WI 15, ¶ 110, 307 Wis. 2d 555, 745 N.W.2d 397; State v. Thiel, 2003 WI 111, ¶ 59, 264 Wis. 2d 571, 665 N.W.2d 305; Alvarez v. Boyd, 225 F.3d 820, 824 (7th Cir. 2000); United States v. Rivera, 900 F.2d 1462, 1469 (10th Cir. 1990); United States v. Wallace, 848 F.2d 1464, 1472 (9th Cir. 1988).

 In State v. Pallone, 2000 WI 77, ¶ 29, 236 Wis. 2d 162, 613 N.W.2d 568, the court stated that "[a] warrantless search is per se unreasonable unless one of the 'few specifically established and well-delineated exceptions' justifies the search. The State bears the burden of proving that a warrantless search falls under one of the established exceptions." Id. (internal citations omitted). In the present case, the state makes no effort to justify the search on the basis of any recognized exception to the need for a warrant.

 Justice Crooks and Justice Ziegler observe that federal courts have authorization to issue warrants for installation of tracking devides under 18 U.S.C. § 3117 and Fed. R. Crim. Proc. 41(b)(4), but acknowledge that Wisconsin has no analogous Rules or Statutes. See Justice Crooks' concurrence, ¶ 77; Justice Ziegler's concurrence, ¶¶ 81-82.

 See, e.g., City of Seattle v. McCready, 868 P.2d 134, 143 (1994) (declining to recognize the issuance of search warrants as an inherent constitutional authority and holding that search warrants are "a form of process which is to be governed by statute or court rule"); Meier v. Sulhoff 360 N.W.2d 722, 726 (Iowa 1985) ("Because there is no common-law right to issue a search warrant, we conclude that we lack the authority to expand by judicial fiat the purposes fixed by the legislature for which search warrants may lawfully issue.") (internal citations omitted); State v. Baker, 160 S.E.2d 556, 556-57 (1968) ("There is no common law right to issue search warrants. The issuing authority is subject to the constitutional prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures .. . and subject to statutory control.").
The United States Supreme Court, in a case challenging pen register surveillance, concluded that federal district courts had the power to authorize such surveillance under Fed. R. Crim. Proc. 41, which regulates searches and seizures. United States v. New York Tel. Co., 434 U.S. 159, 170 (1977). The court explained:
Our conclusion that Rule 41 authorizes the use of pen registers under appropriate circumstances is supported by Fed. Rule Crim. Proc. 57(b), which provides: "If no procedure is specifically prescribed by rule, the court may proceed in any lawful manner not inconsistent with these rules or with any applicable statute." Although we need not and do not decide whether Rule 57(b) by itself would authorize the issuance of pen register orders, it reinforces our conclusion that Rule 41 is sufficiently broad to include seizures of intangible items such as dial impulses recorded by pen registers as well as tangible items.
Wisconsin has not adopted an analogue of Rule 41.
Some states, including Colorado and Maine, have similarly broadened by court rule the grounds for issuance of search warrants. See, e.g., People v. Leahy, 484 P.2d 778 (1970); State v. Cadigan, 249 A.2d 750 (Me. 1969).

 Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648, 662-63 (1979) (referring to Adams v. Williams, 407 U.S. 143, 146 (1972)).

 In her concurrence, Justice Ziegler concludes that GPS surveillance of a private vehicle is not a constitutional search or seizure so long as the installation and monitoring are in public areas and therefore that a warrant or court authorization "may not be necessary." Justice Ziegler's characterization is that this surveillance constitutes "augmenting with appropriate technology their [law enforcement officers'] natural ability to conduct visual surveillance." The next questions become, "What is 'appropriate technology'?" and "What is meant by 'the natural ability to conduct visual surveillance'?" What are the "limits . .. upon this power of technology to shrink the realm of guaranteed privacy"? See Kyllo v. United States, 533 U.S. 27, 34 (2001).
Justice Ziegler's analysis relies on the radio "beeper" cases, Justice Ziegler's concurrence, ¶¶ 79-80 (citing United States v. Karo, 468 U.S. 705, 714-15 (1984); United States v. Knotts, 460 U.S. 276 (1983)). She also cites United States v. Garcia, 474 F.3d 994, 996-97 (7th Cir. 2007), and other cases that follow similar logic. Although the issue is not decided by the court today, it is worth noting that other courts have disagreed with this analysis, determining that GPS tracking is distinguishable from the form of tracking addressed in the "beeper" cases. See, e.g., People v. Weaver, 909 N.E.2d 1195 (2009); State v. Jackson, 76 P.3d 217, 223 (2003) ("We perceive a difference between the kind of uninterrupted, 24-hour a day surveillance possible through use of a GPS device, which does not depend upon whether an officer could in fact have maintained visual contact over the tracking period, and an officer's use of binoculars or a flashlight to augment his or her senses;" a GPS device "does not merely augment the officers' senses, but rather provides a technological substitute for traditional visual tracking.").

 People v. Weaver, 909 N.E.2d 1195, 1199 (N.Y. 2009).