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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."
Police have neither confirmed nor denied they placed the devices.
...followed shortly by...
A Trade Me spokesman said the listing was removed yesterday afternoon "at the request of the New Zealand Police".
Beep beep.
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.
Obviously not you.
I would have simply removed them, disabled them, taken them out on some back road, and run over them a few times, followed by a thorough beating with a sledgehammer. The police won't admit they were there, so why should you? Then they'd have to admit to them to get them back, and you could plausibly say you never knew they were there, and thus couldn't be held responsible for their disappearance.
Now if you want to get really funny, leave them powered up and transmitting on aforementioned backroad for a few minutes, make sure they get at least one location transmission off, and then beat the crap out of them.
And what kind of law requires a warrent to do something, except when the police are claiming they are in a hurry and don't need a warrent if they think the judge will be on their side?
You do realize that the US has very similar rules of evidence, right? That whole 'exigent circumstances' thing? There are similar rules for FISA wiretaps, even before this whole NSA scandal thing, in that DHS could have tapped someone's phone then gone and gotten a warrent retrospectively.
It's more limited than the scope of this law seems to be, but the idea is by no means absent from the US legal system.
He should have attached the devices to helium balloons and set them aloft.
Er... Why?
Glue them to a bus. Best of all a long range one. Or a delivery van.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
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Or a police car.
Or hide them somewhere near the police station and then re-activate them.
Police:Dear god, he is in the building 24/7 and yet we haven't seen him. He must be an invisible, cop hating machine that requires no food or water! Lets not fuck with him!
Monstar L
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 ^_^
...
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...
The subject in this case, Ralph Williams, has been arrested for theft of property. See http://tvnz.co.nz/view/page/1318360/1336811 for a more recent article.
I suppose the police will argue that listing the items as police bugs on an auction site shows awareness that the bugs weren't his to sell. Thus, he'd "stolen" them by their logic.
Mr. Williams' day in court promises to be interesting...
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
I would have mailed them to Nigeria or someplace where the roaming charges are quite high.
...it's like what McCain said about torture.
Sometimes, the good guys need to break the rules in order to do the right thing. This
doesn't mean that disrespect for the rules in general should be ensrined into the law
or SOP. If the situation is really serious enough that you need to ignore the usual
rules then you need to be prepared to take any of the consequences for breaking them.
This is especially true for anyone that is supposed to be "setting an example".
If you are a cop and aren't willing to take the consequences for breaking the rules,
then it's pretty obvious that the situation doesn't warrant breaking them. Being too
lazy to get a judge's signature is not a good excuse. Writting the law so that cops
can be lazy as a matter of routine is not good.
This is the part of "being Dirty Harry" that tends to get missed.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
"but what about smaller areas where a warrant at 3am means having to wrest an old man out of bed?"
Then you wake them up. Or you do your job properly, and plan better, so you don't have to go and bother someone at 3am.
(and that's hard to do)
Since when is surveillance ever an issue of immediacy? You usually engage in it over a protracted period in order to slowly gather evidence. Also a warrant hardly ever takes more than a day or even a few hours to get in any country I ever heard of. Anyhow, what Judge is going to refuse a warrant for a bugging device considered so important by the Police that they have already installed it?
This seems to be a deliberate loop-hole in the law to allow for warrant-less surveillance. The very fact that a regular police force investigating a fairly low-level crime uses this tactic kind of implies that this is fairly widespread or typical behaviour as well.
Yet another reason never to go to Australia.
Have you never heard of OnStar? That fits exactly what you describe - a perceived additional sense of security and safety by having a corporate entity (or a law enforcement or other governmental agency with or without a warrant) track your every move and even listen in on your conversations remotely. The courts have sided with disallowing OnStar's use for listening in on conversations inside the vehicle, but all it will take is one judge and that's out the window. OnStar's just one more good reason not to purchase a GM vehicle.
"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." --attributed to Benjamin Franklin
Then again, maybe it's stamped "Property of New Zealand Police. Removal prohibited". One never knows.
;)
Or more likely, based on the article: "Not Property of New Zealand Police, we don't even know about it. Removal prohibited by order of New Zealand Police"
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Nope. You want to confuse the piss out of the cops. find where you can apply the trackers to that will be incredibly random. Taxicab is the best choice as they go all over with no real pattern. A large stray dog is also fun.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
OnStar is a useful system to have in case your vehicle gets stolen. Problem for GM is their cars are so bad that noone will even steal them.
Professor Karmadillo Songs of Science
Its probably safer to not be found planting a device on a police car if you're currently under investigation for torching a cruiser.
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.
Technology -- No Place For Wimps! Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia Chatroom -- http://www.wemissjerry.org
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.
The truth shall set you free!