The U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously Monday that police must get a search warrant before using GPS technology to track criminal suspects.

The ruling represents a serious complication for law enforcement nationwide, which increasingly relies on high tech surveillance of suspects, including the use of various types of satellite technology.

A GPS device installed by police on Washington nightclub owner Antoine Jones' Jeep helped them link him to a suburban house used to stash money and drugs. He was sentenced to life in prison before the appeals court overturned the conviction.

Associate Justice Antonin Scalia said that the government's installation of a GPS device, and its use to monitor the vehicle's movements, constitutes a search, meaning that a warrant is required.

New York Securities Litigation Law Firm

New York Securities Litigation Attorneys

We are trusted advisors for litigation and regulatory enforcement matters. When disputes arise – in the enforcement, customer and employment context – we are skilled negotiators, using every available resource to protect our clients and minimize disruption to their business. When litigation is unavoidable, however, we are tenacious advocates with time-tested experience before state and federal courts and regulatory bodies, and in a broad range of arbitration and mediation settings.

Leveraging decades of collective experience in the financial services sector, our firm was established to help clients respond to this rapidly changing environment and highly complex marketplace.

Please click the links below to learn more about our law firm's practice areas:

Securities Litigation and Arbitration

Securities Industry Regulatory Defense

Broker-Dealer Advisory Services

Securities Industry Employment Litigation

Commercial Litigation

Herskovits PLLC
065 Avenue of the Americas
27th Floor
New York, New York 10018    

Contact:
Tel: (212) 897-5410
Fax: (646) 558-0239

The Supreme Court on Monday blocked a California law that would require euthanizing downed livestock at federally inspected slaughterhouses to keep the meat out of the nation's food system.

The high court ruled that the state's 2009 state law was blocked from going into effect by federal law administered by the Agriculture Department's Food Safety and Inspection Service. .

Federal law "precludes California's effort ... to impose new rules, beyond any the FSIS has chosen to adopt, on what a slaughterhouse must do with a pig that becomes non-ambulatory during the production process," said Justice Elena Kagan, who wrote the court's unanimous opinion.

California strengthened regulations against slaughtering so-called "downer" animals after the 2008 release of an undercover Humane Society video showing workers abusing cows at a Southern California slaughterhouse. Under California law, the ban on buying, selling and slaughter of "downer" cattle also extends to pigs, sheep and goats.

But pork producers sued to stop the law, saying the new law interfered with federal laws that require inspections of downed livestock before determining whether they can be used for meat.

A judge has ruled demonstrators don't have a First Amendment right to protest Friday afternoon in front of a New York City federal courthouse that has hosted several major terrorism trials.

Judge Lewis Kaplan said Thursday he wouldn't order the federal government to let an Occupy the Courts demonstration occur outside the lower Manhattan courthouse. He says the space isn't a public forum and the government acted reasonably in denying a permit.

A government lawyer says the courthouse poses unique security concerns in part because of terrorism fears.

Protest organizers had asked the judge to overturn the General Services Administration's rejection of their permit application. Their lawsuit said their First Amendment rights were violated.

The nationwide protest marks the second anniversary of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling against limits on spending by independent organizations.

An appeals court says it cannot reduce a $20 million restitution order against the public relations consultant who partnered with lobbyist Jack Abramoff to bilk Indian tribes out of millions in inflated fees.

Michael Scanlon is serving a 20-month sentence after pleading guilty in part to defrauding the tribes of their right to "honest services." Abramoff persuaded tribes that hired him for lobbying to pay inflated fees for Scanlon's public relations services, and the two secretly split the profits.

The Supreme Court weakened the honest services law last year and Scanlon argued the $20 million he's been ordered to repay his victims should be lowered to reflect that ruling.

But a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington ruled Friday that courts cannot modify plea agreements.

Shoe retailer Zappos is facing a national class action suit one day after it warned customers that its servers had been hacked.

On Monday, the Amazon-owned shoe company sent a mass email stating that 24 million customer accounts had been breached. The incident resulted in hackers obtaining names, phone numbers, emails, encrypted passwords and the last four numbers of customer credit cards.

The lawsuit claims Amazon violated a part of the Fair Credit Reporting Act by failing to properly encrypt and secure customer information, and seeks unspecified damages for 24 million customers.

The lead plaintiff in the case is a Texas woman but the suit was filed in federal court in Louisville, Kentucky on the grounds that Amazon has servers located in that state.

As these type of hacking incidents have become more common, so too have related lawsuits. So far, though, few of these lawsuits been successful because customers have been unable to show that they have been harmed by the data breaches.

The Kentucky lawsuit appears based in part on a novel legal theory that customers will now be more susceptible to phishing and other online scams because hackers have their email. It also alleges the plaintiffs suffered emotional distress. Other high-profile data breach cases such as one involving Sony’s Play Station have been based in part on state consumer laws.

Although courts have been reluctant to find that customers have been harmed by data breaches, there is evidence this may be changing. A security publication recently reported
that an appeals court allowed customers to claim they suffered harm in the form of having to buy insurance for identity theft.

Some media publications this week praised Zappos’ for having a pre-arranged plan to respond to the data theft. The company claims that its customer credit cards remained secure because they were stored in a separate server.