Fifth-generation lobsterman Frank Thompson has lived on the waters around Vinalhaven Island, Maine, for over 60 years. He’s been working on lobster boats for 55. Lobstering is the family business—his father taught him to pilot a boat when he was a child. In turn, Frank taught his own children everything he knows and proudly watched them take up lobstering themselves. Today, he and his wife, Jean, run Fox Island Lobster Company together with their two sons.
But in 2023, the industry that Vinalhaven and Frank’s family had built a life around was rocked by an invasive demand by the federal government: submit to constant, warrantless, suspicionless GPS surveillance, or lose your license.
That year, the federal Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission passed a mandate requiring all licensed lobstermen in the northeast states along the Atlantic to install and continuously operate GPS trackers that send their ships’ location to the government at least once per minute. Shortly afterward, Maine’s Department of Marine Resources adopted and reinforced the requirement statewide. The tracking rule demands that the GPS remain active as long as the vessel is in the water—including when it is moored, docked, or being used for personal, recreational, or off-season purposes. This means 24/7 surveillance for lobstermen like Frank, who essentially live on the water, using their boats to fish, see friends, transport family members or community members to the mainland for medical care, and more.
These lobstermen are small business owners, not suspects. Yet if they don’t comply with a rule treating them like criminals and tracking them around the clock, the government has threatened to revoke their licenses and force them out of the industry they’ve devoted decades of their lives to.
Frank resolved to challenge this unconstitutional trespass and surveillance in court, filing a federal lawsuit in 2023. But a district court sided with the government and dismissed his case, claiming that lobstering is a “closely regulated industry” that qualifies as an “exception” to the Fourth Amendment. An appeals court upheld the dismissal in November 2025.
Digital surveillance without a warrant is unconstitutional—regardless of industry. The government cannot exclude licensed professions from the Fourth Amendment’s protections and compel lobstermen to submit to government trespass and around-the-clock surveillance.
Now, Frank is taking his legal challenge to the country’s highest court. Represented at no cost by Pacific Legal Foundation, along with co-counsel Mark Pinkert of the Holtzman Vogel law firm, Frank filed a petition for certiorari, asking the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down the tracking rule and vindicate the Fourth Amendment rights of all Maine lobstermen.
What’s At Stake?
- The Fourth Amendment protects every American from unreasonable search and seizure. The government can’t use administrative law loopholes to ignore those protections and compel people working in licensed jobs to allow the government to trespass on their private property and submit to around-the-clock surveillance.
- The government cannot make the surrender of your constitutional rights a condition for accessing a license, permit, or other professional credential.
