Supreme Court weighs ‘geofence warrants’ for cellphone data
The US Supreme Court in Washington, DC, US, on Monday, April 20, 2026. (Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — For generations, cops have obtained warrants to lawfully seek information from a specific suspect in a crime.
The Supreme Court on Monday is considering whether investigators can also use so-called “geofence warrants” to do the reverse — scanning cell phone data of thousands of innocent individuals in hopes of finding a suspect to apprehend.
The landmark case is the first time the justices will consider whether the controversial practice of digital dragnets, which have grown in popularity among law enforcement with advances in technology, violate constitutional protections against unreasonable searches.
Critics say the warrants intrude on Americans’ reasonable expectation of privacy by compelling service providers to turn over broad swaths of user location history and time stamps within a specified area over a specified timeframe.
Advocates for geofence warrants call them a critical tool that will help police more quickly solve crimes, in turn making communities safer. They also emphasize that most cellphone users knowingly transmit location data to third-party tech companies already.
The petitioner in the case, Okello Chatrie, was indicted on charges related to an armed robbery of a Virginia credit union in 2019 and wants key cellphone location evidence against him thrown out.
Authorities relied heavily on data obtained from Google under a geofence warrant that placed Chatrie’s cellphone within 150 meters of the bank during the crime.
The Trump administration, which is defending the law enforcement tool and Chatrie’s prosecution, argues that by sharing location information with apps and service providers like Google, a person forfeits any expectation of privacy.
A decision in the case — Chatrie v U.S. — is expected by the end of June.
(WASHINGTON) — Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito has temporarily extended an order that maintains nationwide access to the abortion pill mifepristone by mail and through telehealth visits.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Signage about slavery is displayed on an outdoor exhibit at Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on Oct. 24, 2025. (Photo by Michael Yanow/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — The National Park Service (NPS) on Thursday began restoring the panels that were removed from the slavery exhibit at the President’s House in Philadelphia.
The restoration comes after U.S. District Judge Cynthia Rufe ordered the Trump administration to do so by 5 p.m. on Friday. The outdoor exhibit is a memorial to the nine enslaved Africans who were held at the site by President George Washington.
NPS workers began restoring the panels ahead of the deadline, according to ABC station in Philadelphia, WPVI.
The deadline was set in an order filed on Wednesday by Rufe, who is overseeing Philadelphia’s federal lawsuit against the Trump administration over the removal of the slavery exhibit. The exhibit was taken down by the NPS on Jan. 23.
Rufe granted a preliminary injunction requested by the city of Philadelphia in a Monday ruling, ordering the Department of Interior, which oversees NPS, to restore the exhibit as the lawsuit moves forward.
In setting the deadline, Rufe cited the federal government’s “failure to comply” with her order to restore the exhibit.
The Interior Department appealed Rufe’s ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit on Wednesday.
On Wednesday evening, the department also filed an emergency motion for an immediate stay that would block the preliminary injunction granted to Philadelphia pending the federal government’s appeal.
“The Court should stay its preliminary injunction pending appeal because the Government is likely to prevail on the merits, will face irreparable injury absent a stay, and the remaining factors also support a stay,” the motion states.
Rufe ordered the city of Philadelphia to respond to the Trump administration’s motion for an emergency stay by 4 p.m. local time on Thursday.
ABC News reached out to representatives of the city of Philadelphia, NPS and to the U.S. Interior Dept. for further comment.
In granting the preliminary injunction and ordering the government to restore the exhibit, Rufe cited George Orwell’s dystopian novel “1984, comparing their actions to those of Big Brother in the book.
“As if the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell’s 1984 now existed, with its motto ‘Ignorance is Strength,’ this Court is now asked to determine whether the federal government has the power it claims — to dissemble and disassemble historical truths when it has some domain over historical facts. It does not,” she wrote.
“An agency, whether the Department of the Interior, NPS, or any other agency, cannot arbitrarily decide what is true, based on its own whims or the whims of the new leadership, regardless of the evidence before it,” she added in the ruling.
She also concluded that NPS should have consulted with the city before amending the exhibit.
Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker called the judge’s decision a “huge win for the people of this city and our country.”
“We will not allow anyone to erase our history today,” Parker said on Tuesday.
The boards and panels that were removed told the stories of Austin, Christopher Sheels, Giles, Hercules, Joe Richardson, Moll, Oney Judge, Paris and Richmond — the nine enslaved Africans held by Washington as his home in Philadelphia.
They were removed to comply with President Donald Trump’s March 27, 2025, executive order, “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” which directed the Interior Department to remove what they called “divisive, race-centered ideology” and narratives from federal cultural institutions, a department spokesperson told ABC News in a statement last month.
ABC News’ Peter Charalambous and Sabina Ghebremedhin contributed to this report.
In this U.S. Navy released handout, Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Frank E. Petersen Jr. (DDG 121) fires a Tomahawk Land Attack Missile during operations in support of Operation Epic Fury, on February 28, 2026 at Sea. (Photo by U.S. Navy via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — While President Donald Trump says Operation Epic Fury could last several weeks, a question some are raising is how long U.S. and allies’ missile defense stockpiles can last in an extended conflict with Iran.
Trump has insisted that the U.S. is well equipped to fight, with a “virtually unlimited supply,” and other Gulf states have pushed back on claims that they are running missiles.
How much of the U.S. interceptor stockpile is being used up to defend against Iran’s continued heavy missile and drone attacks is classified, but it’s expected to be among questions lawmakers have for top Trump administration officials this week when they brief lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
Some experts are also raising concerns about America’s cache of the expensive air defense missiles as the Iranian military continues to target U.S. assets and other allies in retaliation.
Kelly Grieco, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center think tank and former assistant professor at the Air Command and Staff College, told ABC News that the conflict is becoming a “war of attrition.”
Watch special coverage on Nightline, “War with Iran,” each night on ABC and streaming on Disney+ and Hulu.
The U.S. and Israeli militaries are now in a race to destroy Iran’s missile capabilities, including launchers and production facilities, before the U.S. and Israel’s own stockpile of air defense interceptor missiles in the region is depleted, according to Grieco.
“The question is becoming who runs out of missiles first. Does the defender run out of interceptors,” she asked, referring to the armies of the U.S., Israel and the Gulf states. “Or does Iran run out of missiles, or their ability to launch missiles?”
“If the Iranians are able to launch with the kinds of numbers they have been launching over the past 48 hours over the next four to five weeks, that does not seem sustainable from an interceptor perspective,” she added.
“But if those numbers drop off because the U.S. and Israel destroy the launchers themselves, or their storage facilities, and the numbers drop dramatically, then we could potentially sustain this campaign,” Greico said.
Retired Lt. Gen. Dan Karbler, former commander of the U.S. Space and Missile Defense Command, told ABC News Live Tuesday that extensive drone use by the Iranian military has prompted the use of smaller short-range missiles as interceptors.
“We don’t want to shoot Patriot missiles at the drones,” he said. “So, some of our short-range air defense, more capability of that type of nature needs to flow into countries so we’re using our short-range missiles to take out these drones not our very limited patriot missiles.”
President Trump attempted to assuage concerns about the stockpile Tuesday — but also acknowledged the number of some of the highest-grade munitions is “not where we want it to be.”
“The United States Munitions Stockpiles have, at the medium and upper medium grade, never been higher or better — As was stated to me today, we have a virtually unlimited supply of these weapons,” Trump wrote on social media early Tuesday morning.
And even as he says the U.S. will “easily prevail” in this war and that the U.S. is prepared for the operation to go on for “whatever it takes,” Trump wrote that “Wars can be fought “forever,” and very successfully, using just these supplies.”
The U.S. was already concerned about its stockpile before this war as the Russian-Ukraine conflict, the Israeli-Gaza conflict and last summer’s conflict with Iran have dramatically increased demand for Patriot and THAAD missiles, according to Greico.
Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missiles that are used to defend against Iran’s most powerful ballistic missiles are in particularly short supply. Grieco estimated that if the U.S. uses its THAAD missiles at same rate as the 12-day conflict with Iran last year, it likely only has enough for about two weeks now at most.
Grieco said it will take a long time, and be costly, for the U.S. and other countries to replenish their antimissile stockpiles, which are more time consuming and expensive to produce than the Iranian weapons they defend against.
Iran has not launched missiles at the same scale so far compared to the attacks during conflict with Israel last year.
Israeli officials and independent experts said they believe that may reflect a strategy by Iran to run down air defense supplies with relatively smaller but steady attacks over a longer period.
