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Police Secretly Planting GPS Devices On Cars
bfwebster writes "The Washington Post has a long investigative article on how more and more police departments are secretly planting GPS tracking devices on the cars of people they are investigating — usually without a warrant. After-the-fact court challenges on this technique have largely upheld such use of a GPS device, though the Washington State Supreme Court has ruled that a warrant is required."
If you RTFA, you'll see a poll asking if people approve this tactic. As of right now, 55% do.
Rhymes that keep their secrets will unfold behind the clouds.There upon the rainbow is the answer to a neverending story
No if a private citizen does it they go to jail. If it is known to be illegal will any police officers go to jail for doing this? Of course not. Will their commanding officers be removed from police force for negligence of duty in allowing those under them to use illegal tactics? Of course not. Do the police give a shit if this is illegal, if they only get caught occasionally and when they do the suffer no personal penalties? Of course not.
We are all just people.
Do the police require a warrant if they want to follow me around for the day? If yes then I believe this should require a warrant. Else, what's the diff except it costs much less and is more discrete.
No, they don't need a warrant to tail you, your whereabouts in public places isn't considered a search, but public information. However...
The Sixth Circuit held in the Baily case, of attaching a beeper (rather than GPS, c.1980), that merely analogizing with tailing isn't sufficient to decide the issue, it's one of reasonable expectation of privacy.
The judge in the 7th circuit Garcia case wrote :
Personally, I read that as a warning, not a suggestion, but it's what he feels the law allows for. I'm slowly being persuaded by Moore's Law that perhaps a Constitutional Amendment clarifying the right to privacy (which many of us feels already exists in the 4th amendment) would be an OK thing. Now, to get Congress to pass that (ha!).
Bruce Schneier argues for the requirements of warrants for these kinds of tracking, to prevent rampant growth and abuse of the police state.
Fortunately for the police state, citizens are voluntarily loading up their cars with tracking devices (EZ Pass, Tire Pressure Monitors, OnStar), so they don't have to even bother installing a GPS device in some cases. Sure, everybody knows that cell phones can be tracked, but how many people know that federally-mandated tire pressure monitoring systems send out a unique 'MAC' for every wheel?
What's gotten people burned in several cases I've read about is that they were driving vehicles they didn't own, and the courts make a distinction there. Does the car you regularly drive have your name on the title or your wife's? That's exactly what got one guy's 4th amendment defense thrown out - his wife 'owned' the car he used, so they weren't tracking his property and he didn't have standing.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Would you trust /.?
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/09/05/1730239
"According to this article at CNN: Police arrested a man they said tracked his ex-girlfriend's whereabouts by attaching a global positioning system to her car. Police said Gabrielyan attached a cellular phone to the woman's car on August 16 with a motion switch that turned on when the car moved, transmitting a signal each minute to a satellite. Information was then sent to a Web site that allowed Gabrielyan to monitor the woman's location." A ruling last year stated that police need a warrant to track individuals in a similar fashion.
found this too: http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2334039
If you really think about this statement, I think you'll find it to be demonstrably false.
If you actually research this statement instead of taking a knee jerk reaction, I know you'll find that speed variance IS the culprit, established by many studies. You might also find that the recommended speed limits are at a speed such that 85% of the cars will be under it, that raising and lowering speed limits away from that 85% level has very little effect on speeds, and that jurisdictions set speed limits away from the 85% level as a response to lack of revenue or to give residents a false sense of something being done.
Go ahead. Look it up. Here's a clue: FHWA-RD-92-084
Infuriate left and right
So what's your theory about New Rome, Ohio?
60 residents, 14 police officers, almost 3000 tickets issued a year.
So many in fact that AAA put up a billboard outside of town warning drivers about it.
Granted, an extreme example, but don't pretend it doesn't happen.