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Court Rules GPS Tracking Legal For Law Officers
Via Engadget (which does a good job of explaining the case), an anonymous reader passed us a link to a GPS Tracking Systems Blog post. The site, which reports regularly on GPS-related news, has word that on-the-sly GPS tracking is legal for officers of the law. A 7th circuit court of appeals ok'd the use of a GPS device in apprehending a criminal. Though the defendant's lawyers argued on fourth amendment grounds, the judge found GPS tracking did not warrant an 'unlawful search and seizure'. The judge did warn against 'wholesale surveillance' of the population, though, so ... that's some comfort.
The summary left out the most important tidbit of information in this case: The police did not have a warrant for their actions.
If the police have reasonable cause to suspect that someone is up to no good and they go through due process to get a warrant, I have no problem with them using GPS as a tool in their arsenal of crime-fighting weapons.
However, I have a major issue with the police, with no reason to think I might be doing something wrong and no warrant to back it up, putting a GPS receiver on my car just in case I do do something wrong.
The judge in this case was a complete and total idiot. He can warn all he wants to, but he just set a legal precedent that says they can if they want to. There is now absolutely nothing stopping the police from GPS-bugging anyone at any time for any reason, or even with a complete lack of a reason. Who here thinks that even though the police can GPS-bug people without a warrant that they simply will choose not to do so because the right thing to do, in the spirit of the Constitution, is to get a warrant first?
Yeah, I don't either. If you give the government that kind of power, it has shown throughout history—including many incidents in recent U.S. history—that it will not only use it, but push it even further.
If I recall correctly, the rationale behind the original decision was that police can follow people the old-fashioned way—a stakeout—without a warrant or probable cause, and that GPS-bugging them is legally no different, because people should have no reasonable expectation of privacy while driving on public roads.
Well, I'm sorry, I vehemently disagree. The resources required to conduct a stakeout demand that the police don't just do it all willy-nilly for no reason, and anyone who expects to be electronically tracked when there is no reason or cause to do so is an idiot. I know it, you know it, the police know it, this judge knows it, but with the swing of a gavel, he just legalized the excruciatingly stupid idea that you don't have any privacy on the roads. Some people think that talking about Big Brother watching us is an exaggeration, but when I read about stuff like this, it's really hard to see much of a difference.
If there's any justice to be had from this, this idiot judge's decision will be overturned at some point.
That's all good IF they have a warrant to authorize the tracking. The judge's decision essentially opened the door for warrantless surveillance of "suspects" - lack of judicial oversight over police actions isn't a good thing.
-b.
If the police abandon their equipment by attaching it to my property does it become part of my property? Any good geek would want a nice new GPS reciever with a magnet on it to play with, wouldn't they? I've had run ins with the cops in the past, I inspect my vehicles from time to time. So far I haven't found anything new, but who knows?
There are several differences. For one thing, the car is still private property. Do the police have the right to just start messing with and essentially modifying your car without permission (from you or a judge)? I mean, if someone ELSE crawled under your car and attached a GPS to it and started tracking your location, should that be legal? If not, why would we let the police do it without a warrant?
In addition, the tracking does not somehow automatically stop when the car EXITS public streets and enters private property. This is pretty much the equivalent of tagging someone's actual body with a nano-GPS device. Sure, the police could physically walk behind you when you're in public, but should they have the right to know what room you are in inside your house, at all times? And should they be able to know your location 24x7, from the comfort of their office chair, without even needing to convince a judge you're a likely suspect in a crime?
I also do think the fact that this makes it much cheaper and easier to do IS significant. It's kind of like privacy on the Internet: lots of things that have always been "public knowledge" have in actually tended to be fairly private due to obscurity. Now, they can suddenly be instantly accessible to anyone in the world, often showing up unbidden in unrelated searches. Such changes in ease of access do indeed call for changes in laws regarding accessibility and privacy of information.
> Crime Control
I always assert that the rest is pre-empted by choice of the definition of the word "crime". We don't have too many criminals. We have too many laws.
If we could refine our system of laws then, in instances such as this story, the appropriate use of power wouldn't be questionable because there'd be no excuse to abuse it in other more borderline situations.
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
the cops are on the public dole, how do we know they aren't wasting our dollars messing around on duty?
track all the cops all the time, record everyting they say or do.
then track politicians next. then everyone on the public payroll.
they work for us, it's about time we put the hammer down on their screwing around on duty
I take offense with that characterization and would go so far as to say that you're trying to divine a lot from a simple statement. And the statement is pretty simple: the police, by and large, are decent people trying to do a job. They're not power-mad little dictators, they're trying to protect people. Now, that doesn't mean we don't need to check them, because we surely do. But when they request a power with new technology, I'm willing to listen to their reasons with the assumption that they're sincere. I'm not always willing to grant them that power, however. (In fact, I tend to lean the other way. You might want to recalibrate your magic people stereotyper there.)
All I said, and all that was meant, was that I can see the police's case here. Using a GPS tracker is not, in may respects, different from just following a person around. (Which they are allowed to do, as far as have ever heard.) But, as I noted, there are some differences that make me balk and not really feel that they're quite the same and that the tracker is going too far.
In short, next time, try reading more careful and *not* leaping to assumptions. You'll save yourself some embarassment.