Page 1 UNITED STATES, PETITIONER v. ANTOINE JONES 10-1259 SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES November 8, 2011, Argued January 23, 2012, Decided PRIOR HISTORY: United States v. Maynard, 615 F.3d 544, 392 U.S. App. D.C. 291, 2010 U.S. App. LEXIS 16417 (2010) DISPOSITION: [*1] Affirmed. OPINION JUSTICE SCALIA delivered the opinion of the Court. We decide whether the attachment of a Glob-al-Positioning-System (GPS) tracking device to an indi-vidual's vehicle, and subsequent use of that device to monitor the vehicle's movements on public streets, con-stitutes a search or seizure within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. I In 2004 respondent Antoine Jones, owner and oper-ator of a nightclub in the District of Columbia, came under suspicion of trafficking in narcotics and was made the target of an investigation by a joint FBI and Metro-politan Police Department task force. Officers employed various investigative techniques, including visual sur-veillance of the nightclub, installation of a camera fo-cused on the front door of the club, and a pen register and wiretap covering Jones's cellular phone. Based in part on information gathered from these sources, in 2005 the Government applied to the United States District Court for the District of Columbia for a warrant authorizing the use of an electronic tracking de-vice on the Jeep Grand Cherokee registered to Jones's wife. A warrant issued, authorizing installation of the device in the District of Columbia and within [*5] 10 days. On the 11th day, and not in the District of Columbia but in Maryland,1 agents installed a GPS tracking device on the undercarriage of the Jeep while it was parked in a public parking lot. Over the next 28 days, the Govern-ment used the device to track the vehicle's movements, and once had to replace the device's battery when the vehicle was parked in a different public lot in Maryland. By means of signals from multiple satellites, the device established the vehicle's location within 50 to 100 feet, and communicated that location by cellular phone to a Government computer. It relayed more than 2,000 pages of data over the 4-week period. 1 In this litigation, the Government has con-ceded noncompliance with the warrant and has argued only that a warrant was not required. United States v. Maynard, 615 F.3d 544, 566, n. (CADC, 392 U.S. App. D.C. 291 2010). The Government ultimately obtained a multi-ple-count indictment charging Jones and several alleged co-conspirators with, as relevant here, conspiracy to dis-tribute and possess with intent to distribute five kilo-grams or more of cocaine and 50 grams or more of co-caine base, in violation of 21 U. S. C. §§ 841 and 846. Before trial, Jones filed a motion to suppress evidence obtained through the GPS device. The District Court granted the motion only in part, suppressing the data obtained while the vehicle was parked in the garage adjoining Jones's residence. 451 F. Supp. 2d 71, 88 (2006). It held the remaining data admissible, because "'[a] person traveling in an automobile on public thoroughfares has no reasonable expectation of pri-vacy in his movements from one place to another.'" Ibid. (quoting United States v. Knotts, 460 U. S. 276, 281, 103 S. Ct. 1081, 75 L. Ed. 2d 55 (1983)). Jones's trial in October 2006 produced a hung jury on the con-spiracy count. In March 2007, a grand jury returned another in-dictment, charging Jones and others with the same con-spiracy. The Government introduced at trial the same GPS-derived locational data admitted in the first trial, which connected Jones to the alleged conspirators' stash house that contained $ 850,000 in cash, 97 kilograms of cocaine, and 1 kilogram of cocaine base. The jury re-turned a guilty verdict, and the District Court sentenced Jones to life imprisonment. The United States Court of Appeals for the Dis-trict of Columbia Circuit reversed the conviction be-cause of admission of the evidence obtained by war-rantless use of the GPS device which, it said, violated the Fourth Amendment. United States v. Maynard, 615 F.3d 544, 392 U.S. App. D.C. 291 (2010). The D. C. Circuit denied the Government's petition for rehearing en banc, with four judges dissenting. 625 F.3d 766, 393Page 2 U.S. App. D.C. 194 (2010). We granted certiorari, 564 U. S. ___, 131 S. Ct. 3064; 180 L. Ed. 2d 885 (2011). II A The Fourth Amendment provides in relevant part that "[t]he right of the people to be secure in their per-sons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated." It is beyond dispute that a vehicle is an "effect" as that term is used in the Amendment. United States v. Chadwick, 433 U. S. 1, 12, 97 S. Ct. 2476, 53 L. Ed. 2d 538 (1977). We hold that the Government's installation of a GPS device on a tar-get's vehicle,2 and its use of that device to monitor the vehicle's movements, constitutes a "search." 2 [omitted] It is important to be clear about what occurred in this case: The Government physically occupied private prop-erty for the purpose of obtaining information. We have no doubt that such a physical intrusion would have been considered a "search" within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment when it was adopted **** The text of the Fourth Amendment reflects its close connection to property, since otherwise it would have referred simply to "the right of the people to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures"; the phrase "in their persons, houses, papers, and effects" would have been superfluous. Consistent with this understanding, our Fourth Amendment jurisprudence was tied to common-law tres-pass, at least until the latter half of the 20th century. Kyllo v. United States, 533 U. S. 27, 31, 121 S. Ct. 2038, 150 L. Ed. 2d 94 (2001); Kerr, The Fourth Amendment and New Technologies: Constitutional Myths and the Case for Caution, 102 Mich. L. Rev. 801, 816 (2004). Thus, in Olmstead v. United States, 277 U. S. 438, 48 S. Ct. 564, 72 L. Ed. 944 (1928), we held that wiretaps at-tached to telephone wires on the public streets did not constitute a Fourth Amendment search because "[t]here was no entry of the houses or offices of the defendants," id., at 464, 48 S. Ct. 564, 72 L. Ed. 944. Our later cases, of course, have deviated from that exclusively property-based approach. In Katz v. United States, 389 U. S. 347, 351, 88 S. Ct. 507, 19 L. Ed. 2d 576 (1967), we said that "the Fourth Amendment protects people, not places," and found