Police Busted When Tracking Device Found On Car

uh oh notes a story from Down Under where a police investigation came to a screeching halt as a man being investigated by the police found tracking devices in two of his cars, ripped them out, and listed them on an auction site. "Ralph Williams, of Cromwell, said he found the devices last week in his daughter's car, which he uses, and in his flatmate's car after the cars were seized by police and taken away for investigation."

Comments

Can you legally sell them

[ShooterNeo]

If the police leave something in your car like that, do you now legally own them? If a burglar breaks into your house and leaves his jacket, I'm pretty sure he can't ask for it back. If the police did not obtain a warrant, it seems like an analogous situation. I'm not sure what the rules are if the cops did obtain a warrant.

Re:Can you legally sell them

[Anonymous Coward]

Same thing goes for pot (weed, marijuana) growers in British Columbia. You get a slap on the wrist for the offense and get to have your equipment back. How's that for a toothless system?

Re:Can you legally sell them

[petermgreen]

I don't belive it is illegal to posses such gear so giving it back is the right and proper thing to do if they can't show it was used in a crime.

Re:Can you legally sell them

[DavidTC]

If someone leaves something on the edge of your land, sure, just like if someone leaves something on top of your car.

But that's not this situation. Someone clearly intended for him to take possession of it, it wasn't some accident or situation where they couldn't move it any further. It's like someone erecting a shed on your lawn or leaving an envelope full of money taped to your door. It was a deliberate attaching of their property to yours, and the safe assumption is that it was some sort of gift.

Re:Can you legally sell them

[sepluv]

I've just read a chapter on accessio (Wikipedia link) in a book I have. That is the principle (originally of Roman law) by which the owner of a greater thing (e.g.: a car) can derive possession and possible ownership of a smaller thing (e.g.: a tracking device) that has been attached to that greater thing. This would occur if a house (lesser) was built on a piece of land (greater), or something was written on, painted or stuck to another object such as a parchment, statue, garment or building. Note that the owner of the less thing doesn't even need to have attached it themselves for their property to fall under this rule. IANAL, but going by the examples that I've seen this seems to be just the kind of situation this rule was designed for.

(BTW, I'm talking about principles of Roman law that have been copied into the law of many modern jurisdictions--I don't know anything specifically about NZ law.) What is interesting is that, though the owner of the greater work usually has to indemnify/compensate the owner of the lesser work for their contribution, this is not the case if the owner of the lesser work was acting maliciously or in bad faith against the owner of the greater work (which would seem to be the case here).

There is also a principle called usucapio or usucaption (Wikipedia link) by which physical possession of a chattel eventually leads to the ownership being transferred to the possessor after a certain time (a year in Roman law). This originally applied to all property, but in many modern jurisdictions principally only applies to movable property (e.g.: cars).

In summary, I'd suggest the police really need to consult a lawyer before getting themselves any deeper.

Also, I found this interesting blog entry on this case that alleges this is part of a dispute over access to his children with his ex-wife in which the police are taking his ex-wife's side.

Re:Can you legally sell them

[Speed Pour]

Minor correction, the example you give of a burglar dropping his wallet is an example of accidentally leaving the object in somebody's care. In this instance, the police knowingly and willingly put the devices into his possession. And you're right, unless he willingly accepts the devices, then the rightful owner doesn't change...EXCEPT, when he found the devices, he clearly opted to take ownership, and proceeded to attempt a sale. Unless some law prohibits ownership of these devices, then he has every right to do with them as he chooses (as long as it remains within the confines of the law ;). The really interesting part is, if there is a law prohibiting ownership of these devices, it means the police department is an accessory to the crime, in addition to any other crime they committed in placing those nifty little toys in the first place.

Of course, now this guy has just pissed on the police...even if he weasels out of whatever he's guilty of, they will bust this guy's balls for years to come.

Re:Can you legally sell them

[DavidTC]

If a meter wench put clamps on your wheels, they do not then automatically belong to you.

No shit, Sherlock. Did the big 'Property of The City' on it clue you in there? There's a reason they put that on there, you know.

He found unlabeled boxes attached to his car. He called the police, he asked if the boxes were theirs. They were not. (At least, according to the police, and, obviously, they'd know.)

And if someone welds a can of caltraps under the rear bumper of your car (to be shook loose at random), you can not be held responsible for accidents that's caused by them.

You can't be held responsible for something you had no cause to know about, but that's entirely unrelated to whether or not it's your property. If they stole a box of nails out of your front seat and stuck them under your bumper, or just unattached your bumper and made it fall off, you aren't liable either. (Assuming the facts are not in question.)

And no, if a burglar drops his wallet with $1,000 on your floor, that doesn't make the money yours. He may be guilty of a crime, but that doesn't give you any rights to what's not yours.

Which is why I made the distinction between 'attached' and not attached. Sometimes things fall on or in your property. That does not make them yours. (Unless they are vegetation, which oddly enough is yours in most places.)

And sometimes things are left on your property, for you, and they are in fact yours.

It's all what a reasonable person would think. A reasonable person assumes a wallet laying on the ground is not for him (Even in his own house), whereas a reasonable person would assume an unlabeled envelope taped to his door full of cash is for him, even if he can think of no reason why this would be.(1) However, sitting in his front lawn, nope, not for him.

Likewise, if you're parked in a parking lot and walk up and see a cooler full of soda sitting on your car, it's reasonable to assume some ass is just using your car as a table and that is not, in fact, a gift.

And if you walk out and see something stuck under your wipers?(2) That is pretty clearly someone leaving you something on purpose.

In other words, while something simply being on your property doesn't make it yours (And I didn't say it did.), it doesn't mean it's not yours. Transfer of ownership can be implied by leaving something for someone.

It happens all the time with delivery people, or people leaving things in mailboxes. (According to postal regulations, things that enter the postal system are property of the recipient.) Or, like I said, things stuck under wipers.

He checked to see if the police had left it, which would be the only people that reasonable would attach things to his car not as a gift, and it wasn't them.

Now, if someone else shows up and claims it's theirs and the left it attached to his car by accident, he might be in trouble, but as it pretty obviously is the police's, only they would have grounds for complaint. And they can't because they said it wasn't theirs, leaving the obvious implication it was his.

1) Well, it might be on the wrong house, but that doesn't really apply to this case.

2) And that raises an interesting question. Are you honestly asserting that people can't legally claim ownership of pieces of paper stuck under their wipers? And before you say 'Paper is valueless', let's postulate it is an 85 dollar concert ticket.

Warrant?

[ShanghaiBill]

Did they have a warrant to place the devices? TFA doesn't say.

Two devices two parties

[BlueParrot]

Guys forget about judges, buses, smashing them to pieces and whatnot. You have two tracking devices. The obvious thing to do with them is to glue them to the politicians cars. One to a democrat, the other to a republican. Bonus points if you get a friend to cross-file fake DMCA requests from the respective victims to one another. Jackpot if you can crack their wireless connections and download a gig or two of child porn, Disney movies and instructions for growing pot. Then file an anonymous tip or two... If things are to change it needs to have negative consequences for the people who make the rules...

Re:Sue the police?

[tomhudson]

" You being a Canadian and all it is really none of your business."

Why didn't you say the same about Iran and Saddam Huessein? After all, you being an American and all it is really none of your business.

Can you say "I am a hypocrite?" Truth hurts, doesn't it, hypocrite ...

Fact is that bad US economic policy (the stock and housing bubbles) threatens global security, and that Bush is the #1 threat to world peace. Not the leaders of Iran or Iraq or North Korea.

Re:they will become mandatory sometime too

[Short Circuit]

The insurance industry would love that as well. When I bought a Progressive policy a few weeks ago, I was asked if I wanted to have one installed. Considering my total daily commute is 6 miles, it would certainly save me a lot of money...But I didn't like the privacy aspect. /I would love to ride a bike to work instead of a car, but that option vetoed by someone else.

Re:Ralph Williams arrested for 'Theft of Property'

[darkmeridian]

Is this entrapment? The cops leave their property on your car. You're not supposed to be able to find them. When you find them, you get in trouble.

I guess the cops weren't so hot on him selling them on eBay. I don't know what the difference would be, though. The cops literally gave it to him.

Re:Ralph Williams arrested for 'Theft of Property'

[sepluv]

Why don't they just let it go instead of digging a deeper hole for themselves by arresting him and lying. This is almost as bad as the recent incident of the under-not-so-good-cover police agents provocateuse with the rocks trying to start a riot in Montebello, Quebec.

As stated in the article, he asked the police officer whose mobile phone device was contacting if the police had left their property on his car. When they denied they were theirs, he concluded they were fair game to sell as they were on his property. I think the judge might take a dim view of this.

Re:Sue the police?

[Obyron]

If the old man finds doing his job to be such an inconvenience, maybe it's time to retire and join the rest of the fogies in Shady Acres. Judges / Magistrates / Trial Commissioners / Whatever The Hell You Have In Jurisdiction X know very well that late night phone calls and police knocking on your door at 4am to get warrants or EPOs or what-have-you signed is part of the job. The stuff you see in police procedural dramas where the cops don't want to call Judge SoandSo because it would be a horror to wake him up is silly. To me, "not wanting to wake the judge" is a sign that the evidence for the warrant is paper thin, and they know he'll chew their ass for waking him up over nothing, when they SHOULD be waking him up over -something-.

Re:Two Words: Helium Balloons...

[mikelieman]

1) Find controversial local politician, and controversial local journalist.

2) Transfer devices to their vehicles.

3) CALL POLITICIAN AND JOURNALIST and tell them the cops have their cars bugged.

4) Enjoy the subsequent stories of Police Corruption in the newspaper.

Re:Why sell them? Then you admit they were there..

[Technician]

Or even better, put each of them into separate packages, mail one to China and one to America.

Would love to see the police phone bill after that ^_^
--

If the device is not subscribed to roaming service, it could be a waste of postage.

I think it would be much more fun to wrap the GPS antenna in foil so it can't give the location. Then put it in a backpack and spend a few hours shopping near police parking and impound lots. Unwrap the antenna for a few minutes at each location before catching the city bus. Do this only when a large crowd is there.

Cell tower triangulation is not near as accurate as GPS location and requires bugging the cell company for location information. That would introduce delays. After you are done with that, take it to the local post office and buy a parcel box and send it to a bad address cross country. They may be able to locate the post office where you dropped it off, but they would have a very hard time finding the right package. In most places the post office will not let the police rummage through the mail room. Be sure not to use your name on the return address. Wait for it to be returned to shipper, also to a bad address. Hopefully by that time the batteries will die and they lose the package.

SIM card?

[phorm]

OK, so it uses a SIM card,which apparently also works in a mobile phone. So, it might be fun to pick up a cheap cellular phone from ebay, then slap the card in and regularly make a few bothersome phone calls to various numbers that have a caller-ID, then slap the card back in the device(s) before attaching them to one of the vehicles mentioned in the previous post.

Personally, though, I think it might be more fun to attach the thing to a sewer-sucker or garbage truck... something unpleasant at any rate. Perhaps the interface would allow one to reconfigure the number it calls out to, so you could make use of the device itself.

Regardless, though,it seems that - legitimately or not - the police have it in for this guy, and doing anything of the like is just going to piss them off and provoke an unpleasant response. How about taking them to court for police harassment? If they don't have a warrant then you've got a good case (and who knows, you might be able to keep the things after, especially if it's denied they own them). If they do... well at least you get to see what the grounds of the warrant were.

How this was found...

[Technician]

a man being investigated by the police found tracking devices in two of his cars, ripped them out,

The article was very sparse regarding what problem he had with the cars that led to the discovery. I will take a speculation stab at this. Cell phones are well known for causing RFI problems with poorly shielded electronics doing everything from causing keyboards on PC's to lock-up to putting a buzz into radio and stereo gear.

The location of the device was on the passenger side footwell. This would place it close to the engine computer in many cars. It may be an easy to install location for the police and the GPS antenna can be located under the dashboard giving a good location for GPS reception through the plastic dash and windscreen, but the cell transmitter in that location could and probably did cause problems with both the stereo and engine computer. As he stated, it was a botched installation that led to the discovery. A proper install would have located the cell transmitter in the trunk away from sensitive electronics to transmit out the rear window. The car ran poorly, but it was probably the teltale radio noise that geve it away. Removing it fixed both the radio and engine computer.

This interference issue is why most magnet mount tracking devices are mounted on the rear of the car away from the engine compartment. Inside the plastic rear bumper on a metal bracket is a favorite location. there is little chance of interference revealing it's presence, and good GPS and cell signals.

Dumb crooks

[Dzimas]

The tracking devices were attached to collect evidence. The smart thing would have been to leave them attached and continue life in a nice, law abiding fashion. Instead, Mr. Dimwit rips the bloody things out of the cars and tries to sell 'em. Duh.

Re:Good going from the PR dept.

[fractoid]

Yeah... A guy who is already under investigation is going to STEAL SOMETHING FROM THE POLICE???? Are you on crack? He didn't steal it. They gave it to him. And I'd imagine that you can change the number it reports its location to by changing the SIM or something.

Re:Would've been hilarious if...

[andreMA]

Re: (1)... Uh, no. They'd blow his car up to dispose of the "bomb". They don't try to disarm bombs unless it can't be removed from property they care about... which doesn't include the vehicle of someone already on their shit list.