The U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to consider on September 28 whether to hear Maine lobsterman Frank Thompson’s challenge to the state’s GPS tracking requirement for federally permitted lobster boats. The date appears on the Court’s docket for Thompson v. Wilson, and the Associated Press reported this week that the justices will review the petition at their private conference.
The September 28 step is not a hearing on whether Maine’s program is constitutional. It is the point when the justices decide whether to accept the case for full briefing and argument. If the Court declines review, the federal appeals court ruling upholding the tracking requirement will remain in force.
Thompson, a fifth-generation lobsterman, argues that requiring a GPS device on his privately owned boat as a condition of holding a license amounts to an unreasonable search under the Fourth Amendment. His petition says the device must transmit a vessel’s location whenever it is in the water, including while docked or used for personal trips. The challenge targets Maine Department of Marine Resources Commissioner Carl Wilson, whose agency applies the tracking rule to federally permitted Maine lobstermen.
The First U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Thompson in November 2025. Its opinion concluded that lobster fishing is a closely regulated industry and that the program gathers a limited category of location data. The court also stressed that license holders have long operated under extensive federal and state oversight. Thompson’s Supreme Court petition asks the justices to decide whether those considerations permit continuous location monitoring outside active fishing.
Maine implemented the requirement in late 2023 to comply with a federal data-collection rule. Regulators say vessel-location information can improve stock assessments, offshore enforcement and management decisions by showing where fishing activity occurs. In a statement after the First Circuit ruling, Wilson said the confidential data could help managers understand the fishery’s footprint and avoid unnecessary economic harm; the AP’s account of that decision also noted that the trackers operate when boats are docked or used personally.
The dispute arrives as Maine’s lobster harvest has contracted from the exceptional volumes of a decade ago. State landings totaled more than 78 million pounds in 2025, roughly comparable with typical catches in the 2000s but well below the years when the annual haul routinely exceeded 120 million pounds. Conservation advocates say that trend heightens the need for detailed data; fishing groups counter that monitoring should be designed to protect privacy.
What happens next
Four justices must vote to grant review. An order could follow the September 28 conference, although the Court does not always announce its action immediately. A grant would put the Fourth Amendment question before the justices during the new term; a denial would not endorse Maine’s policy, but it would end this appeal and leave the First Circuit decision intact.
For Maine’s federally permitted lobstermen, the practical requirement does not change while the petition is pending: covered vessels must continue transmitting location data whenever they are in the water. The immediate development is therefore procedural but consequential—whether the nation’s highest court will examine how traditional licensing authority applies to always-on digital tracking in a working fleet.
