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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.
It would appear that the police tagged the suspect's car, not the suspect's person. Leaving aside the issue that people equate themselves with their car, tracking a publicly registered vehicle on a public street seems less like a violation of privacy. After all, is it that much different (other than cost to the police) from tailing a person in an unmarked police vehicle? The tin-foil hatted criminal could always borrow a friend's car, walk, or take the bus to escape tagged-vehicle tracking.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
There are two separate issues here:
- Whether the suspect has to be alerted.
- Whether there should be a requirement for a search warrant (judicial oversight).
When police obtain a search warrant to bug a phone line they are not required to alert the suspect.-b.
Anyone got a link to a GPS jammer? that would help the criminals, simply JAM the gps signal for only 20 feet around you and their tracking is rendered 100% useless.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
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?
Let's say I already have a GPS navigation system in my car which records my progress. Does this mean that the police no longer need a warrant to seize the tracking information? Since I supposedly have no right to privacy regarding the path which I took, how can I have any right to privacy for an instrument that records it, regardless of whether the instrument belongs to me, the police, or some third party? Ergo, the police no longer need a warrant to obtain the tracking information from rental car agencies. No slippery slope here, folks. Just a small step down a well-lit path.
I seem to remember a rule that no, they can't follow a suspect for an extended period of time without getting a warrant. If I'm mistaken, there certainly should be such a rule. The word "search" means "To make a thorough examination of; look over carefully in order to find something; explore." When the police follow someone around they're searching for evidence of wrongdoing. The only question is whether or not the search is reasonable.
IMO following someone around town, whether by foot, by car, or by tracking device, is not reasonable.
Judges have shot down the use of red-light cameras in Minneapolis because of the inability of the cameras to *prove* that it was the owner of the car (who gets the ticket) that drove through the light. This seems to me a very similar situation, with the same problems.
A post a day keeps productivity at bay.
There's two ways to think of things:
Crime Control
Due Process
The quick version is that crime control means giving police wide latitude to do their job. If they 'know' someone is guilty, they shouldn't have to jump through hoops to arrest & jail them. Due process says what it means: all the i's have to be dotted & the t's have to be crossed.
Someone who says"I can very much see the police's side of this" is leaning towards the Crime Control school of thought, which is directly contrary to the system of law setup in These United States.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
This was not "some judge" who "was an idiot" in some Traffic Court meeting in a double-wide out behind the courthouse of Whoville, TN. This is the Federal Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. (I mean, this makes it worse!) The only appeal from these guys is the Supreme Court. Further, it is precedent setting and can be used in further cases. The best way to get it to the Supreme Court would be to get another circuit court (like the ninth) to rule the opposite way. That way the Supreme Court would be more compelled to get into it.
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
This is yet another case that begs the question, why does law enforcement feel warrants are such an impediment? Is this an issue of courts not being open 24x7 like drive through chapels in Las Vegas or is it that judges are foolishly trying to connect the dots and not let cops play out hunches? While I agree this one isn't that big of a deal if you get enough not a big deal warrantless things going on it becomes a big deal and suddenly the big deal things aren't such a big deal anymore.
>The judge did warn against 'wholesale surveillance' of the population, though, so ... that's some comfort.
No. It's not!Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
Don't date any daughters of police officers!
If everybody had a right to privacy everywhere, things like traffic cameras would become illegal. Should nobody be able to check whether it's best to go through First or Second Avenue, because Mr. John Smith is afraid his wife will see his car entering the "adult store" parking lot? And what if her cousin saw you, should she need a warrant to tell your wife? (hey, that wouldn't be a bad idea...)
There is *one* and only one well defined place to draw the line where your privacy becomes more important than my right to watch. The line should be drawn at the borders of your property. The police and everybody else should absolutely need a warrant to look into your home, but once you step into the street my right to see trumps your right to stay unseen.
This is one of the few gray areas of the law where I am actually not sure that law enforcement has done anything wrong. The 'slippery slope' that leads to constant monitoring of all vehicles, their position, etc (including speeding violations, traffic patterns, etc) is definitely something to be worried about ... however, in small scales, I can understand this a bit.
What I do not agree with is the placement of unsolicited materials upon private property by a third party. This sounds to me, on a basic level, like vandalism. Perhaps he can sue, as the police did deface his personal property. Am I allowed to attach papers or spray paint or Mooninites to my neighbor's car? Do we judge vandalism based upon how hard it is to remove the materials from the vandalized object? If so, would it not be vandalism if I simple stuck magnetized sex toys to the hood of my neighbor's car? I mean, just as easy to remove.
On the note about attaching electronic devices (mooninite or otherwise) - we should all be able to 'get back at the man' by suing the government for placing suspicious devices on our property, thereby inspiring terror. What if it was a bomb?! If a bright cartoon character in a public place is a hoax device, I fail to see how a hidden, inconspicuous device mounted to the underside of my car is not of a similar, if not more serious, threat to my well being.
There are two parts to 4th amendment law applicable here. The first is "search or seizure". The second is the warrant requirement. This case said that planting a gps tracking device on your car is not a "search" and therefore there is a lesser police suspicion required. Because it is not a "search" within the constitutional perspective, a warrant is not required. This is similar to a previous case where a beeper was placed inside a barrel that was used to track drugs. In both cases, as long as it was possible to track the items WITH THE NAKED EYE, it was constitutional to track them with technological methods. The general rule is that if you can do it without technology or technology that is widely available, the police can do it with technology that is NOT widely available. Unfortunately this lowers the cost of police surveillance, which allows more surveillance and some fear the eventual creation of widespread "dragnet" surveillance which the court has warned it would not allow. The supreme court has not ruled on this specific issue, but it will eventually because there is a conflict between the various circuits of the federal system
From the article: But if police follow a car around, or observe its route by means of cameras mounted on lampposts or of satellite imaging as in Google Earth, there is no search.
Someone watches too much 24.
Libertarian Leaning Political Discussion Forum.
We have a reason to suspect that you violate the speed limit on public roads.
Slap!
This GPS receiver will let us know exactly when you do. Your ticket will come in the mail. Thank you for supporting our county!
Please do not remove the device, as you will be charged with destruction of government property.
If moderation could change anything, it would be illegal.
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
Maybe the way to look at it, is imagine if this were a McBain movie.
McBain's partner, just a week before retirement, has just been shot by Columbian cocaine dealers. McBain runs out into the parking lot, sees his police car is on fire, and a car speeding away. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a magnetized tracker (presumably there's some backstory about how it ended up in his pocket), and throws it at the fleeing car. It hits the roof of the car, but at a bad angle, and rolls down the side, dramatically slides, and miraculously takes hold.
Maybe that car has the crooks in it, and maybe it doesn't. But he's just taken his best guess. As the fleeing car speeds off over the horizon, McBain goes back to his bleeding partner.
"Get Mendoza, and .. *cough* .. and tell .. my wife .. I .. *cough* love he--*gurgle*. [dies]" McBain gets a determined look in his eye, walks back outside, where a guy has just dismounted a motorcycle.
"Police business, I am commandeering this vehicle," he says in a heavy Austrian accent, and he mounts up and peels off with a powerful screech. It is a very "cool" motorcycle, despite the prominant Kawasaki logo.
He pulls another electronic gizmo out of his pocket. We get to see the brand name very clearly: it's an HP Pocket PC with a MS Windows CE logo. He pushes a button, and there's an amazingly beautiful 3D movie (took 2 weeks to render on the Opteron cluster) on the little screen, showing just where the car of interest is.
At this point in the movie, I have to ask you something. Are you thinking, "Whoa, that's not cool! Total abuse of power and violation of the 4th!" Or are you thinking, "Go McBain!" Well, what are you thinking, punk?
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Trust me on this: the cops have absolutely no interest in where you're going. All you paranoid maniacs need to stop thinking that you're the centre of the universe, and assuming that everyone wants to know everything about you. We don't. You're irrelevant and useless, and we have no interest in you whatsoever. If you're crazy enough, we might be marginally interested in you as a source of amusement, but that's about it.
Police are only interested in where you've been or where you're going if they have a reason to suspect you of a crime. And if they suspect you of a crime, they can already track your movements - it's called surveillance (you know, like the "steakout" in your favourite holywood trash-flick). Police have never needed a warrant to track your movements for the simple fact that there is no such thing as a right to "privacy of movement"! Nor should there be. If you're moving around in public, people will see you. Period. The only restraint placed on police use of GPS surveillance should be the need to have probable cause.
I think a lot of people don't understand just how important the term reasonable suspicion is in the US justice system.
I am a law enforcement officer in Florida. If I have reasonable suspicion that you are actively engaged in a crime, I have the right to detain you, without arresting you or charging you, for up to 24 hours.
While detained, I cannot search your person or your vehicle. You cannot give consent to be searched either, as you would be under duress and not free to go.
What I can do is a cursory pat-down of your person for safety reason (see Terry Stop case law). I can also observe your vehicle from the outside, and if I see any weapons or contraband in plain view I can immediately arrest you and do a full search of both your person and your vehicle.
Reasonable suspicion gives a police officer an enormous number of tools to work with. People need to learn what it means, and once they understand what it means, lobby for change if they do not like it. Most police officers stick to the letter of the law, and to the letter of the case law to the best of their abilities. If you change the law to restrict cops, all *good* cops will abide by it whether they like it or not.
The key limit of what we can do under reasonable suspicion is "an unreasonable violation of a reasonable expectation of privacy." The judge probably believed that a GPS tracker placed on the exterior of a vehicle was no more invasive than an officer following the vehicle around to see where it went. We already do that when we do undercover surveillance ops.
Go back to the books, bub. Just because the Constitution doesn't spell it out, doesn't mean it isn't there.
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
It's the Ninth Amendment. Read it and remember it.
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.