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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.
That makes sense. They're tracking the car.
The police in this case were using the GPS to track the person, through the car. The car itself wasn't at issue. Thats where this all falls apart. If the car was stolen, then they have an argument.
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.
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.
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!
Don't date any daughters of police officers!
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.
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.