Court Opinion

ID: 9462932
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:53:40.706118+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:37:51.221021
License: Public Domain

ROSS, Circuit Judge
(concurring).
I agree with the result reached by Judge Stephenson, and if the issue of whether the *1326installation of a “beeper” constitutes a search is not to be reached, I concur in what he has written. However the court, in my opinion, should squarely meet the issue: whether the installation of the tracking device was a “search” under the fourth amendment. This issue is an important and recurring one1 and this disposition would give needed direction to the district courts, prosecutors and law enforcement authorities within the Circuit. I would hold that the use of the “beeper” was not a “search” within the meaning of the fourth amendment.
The basic inquiry in this case concerns the effect of the intrusion on the defendant’s right of privacy. As Mr. Justice Blackmun has stated, “ * * * insofar as Fourth Amendment protection extends to a motor vehicle, it is the right to privacy that is the touchstone of our inquiry.” Cardwell v. Lewis, 417 U.S. 583, 591, 94 S.Ct. 2464, 2470, 41 L.Ed.2d 325 (1974) (plurality opinion).
The intrusion on defendant’s right of privacy in this case, if any can be said to exist, was decidedly abstract and theoretical. No invasion of the interior of the car occurred. The “beeper” did not permit the agents to “enter” the car’s interior and search or seize anything therein — either intangible or tangible. The sole purpose of the “beeper” was to permit the agents to surveil the location of the defendant’s automobile. The intrusion on defendant’s privacy was no greater here than an intrusion created by manual, visual surveillance of the car’s location, which is clearly permissible irrespective of fourth amendment considerations.
Two courts have held that the use of a tracking device is a “search” within the meaning of the fourth amendment. See United States v. Holmes, 521 F.2d 859 (5th Cir. 1975), rehearing en banc granted, 525 F.2d 1364 (January 5, 1976); United States v. Martyniuk, 395 F.Supp. 42 (D.Or.1975). Both cases rely heavily on Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 88 S.Ct. 507, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967). In Katz, government agents attached an electronic listening and recording device to the outside of a public telephone booth from which petitioner placed incriminating phone calls. The Court held that the eavesdropping was an invasion of the petitioner’s privacy upon which he justifiably relied and, notwithstanding the absence of physical penetration into the enclosed phone booth, constituted an unreasonable “search and seizure” within the meaning of the fourth amendment.
In my view, the Katz case is clearly distinguishable. There, the invasion of privacy was substantial because the government was surveilling private conversations. In this case, the government used the “beeper” to surveil only the location of the defendant’s automobile. Katz itself admonishes us that “[w]hat a person knowingly exposes to the public, even in his own home or office, is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection.” Katz v. United States, id., 389 U.S. at 351, 88 S.Ct. at 511.
In Cardwell v. Lewis, supra, 417 U.S. at 588-592, 94 S.Ct. 2464, a plurality of the Court concluded that the warrantless examination of the exterior of an automobile parked in a public parking lot invaded no privacy right. The examination revealed incriminating paint scrapings and tire treads. Mr. Justice Blackmun, writing for the plurality, noted that the evidence derived from the warrantless examination of the car’s exterior was “ * * * not the product of a ‘search’ that implicates traditional considerations of the owner’s privacy interest.” Id. at 588-589, 94 S.Ct. at 2468.
I comprehend no meaningful difference between the invasion of the defendant’s privacy in this case and the invasion in Cardwell. That the objective of surveilling the location of defendant’s automobile was accomplished by electronic means does not enlarge any expectation of privacy. The use of an electronic device is no talisman for invoking fourth amendment protections. United States v. Carpenter, 403 F.Supp. 361, 364 (D.Mass.1975).
*1327■ For the reasons enumerated above, I agree that the order suppressing the evidence obtained as a result of the use of the “beeper” must be reversed.

. The Fifth Circuit has recently heard arguments on this issue by the court en banc. United States v. Holmes, 525 F.2d 1364 (5th Cir. 1976).