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Court Rules GPS Tracking Legal For Law Officers

Posted by Zonk on from the so-keep-yer-nose-clean dept.

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.

7 of 293 comments (clear)

  1. It ok'd the WARRANTLESS use of GPS by KingSkippus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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 did warn against 'wholesale surveillance' of the population, though.

    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.

    1. Re:It ok'd the WARRANTLESS use of GPS by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 5, Insightful
      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?

      What's worse, would EZ-Pass or On*Star (I have neither system - I'd rather bleed to death at the side of the road after an accident than lose my privacy 100% of the time) data obtained without a warrant now be admissible in court? I suspect that the cops might not even have to leave the comfort of their offices to attach the GPS bug if they play the game right.

      -b.

    2. Re:It ok'd the WARRANTLESS use of GPS by CrashPoint · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Fact: The US Federal Government is out of control. Fact: They can justify anything they want at any time. Fact: If you notice it you will either be sent on a 5150 as "paranoid", shipped off to Gitmo, or you will meet a brick wall of denial.

      Fact: The only economically viable solution is complete and utter dismantling of the Federal Government. Failure to do so will inevitably result in pi55ing off someone who _is_ crazy enough to start a real war or execute a series, not just one, but a whole string of 9/11 style strategic attacks.

      Opinions: 2
      Unsupported Assertions: 3
      Facts: 0

      Knock it off with the "Fact:" crap. You're not helping.

    3. Re:It ok'd the WARRANTLESS use of GPS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      My girlfriend has a GPS on her car without knowing. Ok, I'm the one who put the GPS on her car. Oh, and she doesn't know that she's my girlfriend.

    4. Re:It ok'd the WARRANTLESS use of GPS by T-Ranger · · Score: 5, Insightful

      GPSs can under ideal circumstances accurate down to 30cm. On handheld units, perhaps 10m. So WTF, lets go with that number. Further assume that people never travel faster then 1000km/h, which is about half the speed of a Concorde but still significantly faster then any commercial jet today in service. 1000km/h / 10m = 27.77 hz (maximum relevant data collection cycle) - 3 111.27 cycles/day. Say that they are lazy and they store UTM coordinates as 8 bit strings, thats 15 chars; 15 bits. 32 bit timestamps (which would be stupid, may as well be WTF ever GPS uses), and say 50 chars/bits for some kind of UID, we get 97.... call it 100 bits/user/cycle. Or around 40 kilobytes/day. Say I'm wrong, and off by a factor of 10, and they have no DBAs who know about data encoding. 400 k/day, less then 12mb/month.

      12mb/day is nothing, in the grand scheme of things, if "they" were motivated to do it. And assuming that they use a non-brain dead encoding scheme like I have proposed, and only record position if there is movement, then we are likely down to few mb/years. Cycle the data out so we only record ~100m accuracy, every 30 sec/max (fractions of hz), we are down to few mb/lifetime.

    5. Re:It ok'd the WARRANTLESS use of GPS by Bin+Naden · · Score: 5, Funny

      That's called stalking which IS illegal Unless you have a badge

      --
      There should be a "-1:Groupthink"
  2. If I find the bug, can I keep it? by radionerd · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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?