Overturning the 2008 drug conviction of Antoine Jones, former co-owner of a District nightclub called Levels, the US Court of Appeals in Washington three-judge panel said that warrantless GPS tracking of a vehicle by law enforcement amounted to violation of constitutional rights.

In its Friday ruling, which was the first of its kind decision by a federal appeals court, the three-judge panel - comprising judges Douglas H. Ginsburg, David S. Tatel, and Thomas B. Griffith - said that the police cannot track the movements of a suspect using GPS (Global Positioning System) technology unless it has a warrant.

Striking down the drug conviction of Antoine Jones, the court said that the FBI and District police had violated the constitutional rights of Jones, who was arrested for drug dealing, by warrantless tracking of his movements using the satellite navigation system device installed on his vehicle.

Hailing the appeals court's ruling, Jones' attorney Stephen Leckar - along with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of D. C. and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which filed friend of the court briefs - said that the case was an momentous constitutional precedent, ready for review by the Supreme Court.

Commenting on the court's decision, Arthur Spitzer of the D. C. ACLU said: "This case is really a big step toward bringing the Fourth Amendment into the 21st century. The technology of the 21st century needs to be judged on its own terms, and not in terms of what some early 20th-century technologies meant."