A Geofence Warrant Typo Cast a Location Dragnet Spanning Two Miles Over San Francisco

Zack Whittaker, reporting for TechCrunch: Civil liberties advocates have long argued that 'geofence' search warrants are unconstitutional for their ability to ensnare entirely innocent people who were nearby at the time a crime was committed. But errors in the geofence warrant applications that go before a judge can violate the privacy of vastly more people -- in one case almost two miles away.

Attorneys at the ACLU of Northern California found what they called an 'alarming error' in a geofence warrant application that 'resulted in a warrant stretching nearly two miles across San Francisco.' The error, likely caused by a typo, allowed the requesting law enforcement agency to capture information on anyone who entered the stretch of San Francisco erroneously marked on the search warrant.

'Many private homes were also captured in the massive sweep,' wrote Jake Snow, ACLU staff attorney, in a blog post about the findings. It's not known which law enforcement agency requested the nearly two-mile-long geofence warrant, or for how long the warrant was in effect. The attorneys questioned how many other geofence warrant application mistakes had slipped through and resulted in the return of vastly more data in error.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.