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Police Secretly Planting GPS Devices On Cars

Posted by samzenpus on from the spiderman-does-it-all-the-time dept.

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."

14 of 609 comments (clear)

  1. Do the police... by ForestGrump · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    Grump

    --
    Is it true that more people vote for the winner of American Idol, than vote for the president? -Ali G.
    1. Re:Do the police... by religious+freak · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Eh, I don't know if I'd go quite that far. Police can track you in public, but this thing could track you on private land (maybe your own - esp if you're a farmer or rancher).

      This is ok, but with a warrant, IMHO.

      --
      If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
    2. Re:Do the police... by Vellmont · · Score: 4, Insightful


      Else, what's the diff except it costs much less and is more discrete.

      Good argument. Then you'd also agree that I can put a GPS on anyones car without permission, including the police, elected officials, or you?

      --
      AccountKiller
    3. Re:Do the police... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Probably because in some cases that is exactly what is happening. Speed limits in some areas are set unrealistically low. Local traffic is basically ignored at any speed. Out of state plates will be pulled over and ticketed, even though to be safe they should be flowing with traffic.

      Traffic laws are also subject to politics. We don't get safety all the time. Sometimes it is just the perception of safety. Speed variance is a bigger killer than raw speed, but our speed limits are generally set lower than most drivers can handle. This results in one subset of the population doing the speed limit and the other subset of the population driving at a reasonable rate of speed for the road. So you'll get a spread of, say, 15 mph. A car going 75 is much more likely to hit a car doing 60 than it is to hit another car going 75. But we blame the speeders because they are speeding, rather than seeing that the system is stupid and dangerous.

    4. Re:Do the police... by stewbacca · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Because traffic laws don't exist to promote public safety. Otherwise they'd ticket people who fail to yield, make illegal lane changes and tailgate...all much more dangerous driving habits than breaking the artificially low speed limits that exist solely to generate revenue. IF they must be lazy and just ticket speeders, then why the hell don't they come to my residential street and pull people over for doing 45 in the 25. Instead, they sit on the expressway and give out tickets for 62 in a 55 on an wide-open, empty highway without another car in sight (let alone small children playing in the street).

    5. Re:Do the police... by daemonburrito · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Speed variance is a bigger killer than raw speed, but our speed limits are generally set lower than most drivers can handle.

      If you really think about this statement, I think you'll find it to be demonstrably false.

      It sucks that you get so many tickets for speeding. To avoid this, you should slow down. I suspect your argument comes from your perception of what the "flow of traffic" and "reasonable speed" is, which apparently can do with some recalibration.

      Slow down.

      (Please?)

    6. Re:Do the police... by stewbacca · · Score: 4, Insightful

      They're just quite a bit more difficult to spot.

      Bull Shit, with a capital BS. How hard is it to watch the average prick driver in your town change 4 lines at a time, with no blinker, cutting off one car in each lane? How hard is it to spot some 90 year-old fart in a Buick pull out in front of me from a side street, when there isn't a car within 2 minutes BEHIND me? How hard is it for a cop to sit at an intersection and spot people making illegal left turns against the red, because they don't want to have to wait another light cycle? I could write more tickets for tail-gating in ONE day on the beat than I could write speeding tickets in an entire month, which brings me back to the main point. Why do the freakin' cops sit at a "speed-trap" for 20 minutes, one or two times a month (mind you, not at an intersection, where the majority of collision accidents happen) if they are out there to protect us from evil speeders? If speeding at the particular (cough, convenient, cough) spot is such a public danger, then why the hell aren't they out there EVERY day? Why do the sit in conveniently unoccupied construction zones? To protect the absent workers and their precious gear? No, because fines are "doubled", meaning twice the profit.

    7. Re:Do the police... by MmmmAqua · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Because mom's diary is not the foundation of this country, which includes these very important sentences:

      The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

      The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

      --
      Arr! The laws of physics be a harsh mistress!
    8. Re:Do the police... by sleigher · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Well I am certainly not going to cite anything but I will say this in response. When I am going down 280 on the peninsula at 65 and everyone is whizzing past me at 75 I am a hazard. I might be the one following the rules but it is easy to see that I am the one causing the problem. Although I am following the 'law', it easier for an accident to happen simply because the other drivers have to actively avoid me.

      This is only my observation and not a scientific study!

      --
      All points of time and space are connected.
  2. Re:Scarier still... by vistahator · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Remember that 55% were dumb enough to reelect bush in 2004 too.

  3. Re:If you have nothing to hide by nickhart · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The police and FBI have a long, sordid history of intimidation, harassment and disruption of dissident groups and activists (up to and including murder). Any state surveillance of people should require a warrant—both to provide some oversight (which isn't much, considering the way some courts like to rubber-stamp these requests) and make a record of the state's activities against its own citizens.

  4. Re:Yes, but... by 77Punker · · Score: 4, Insightful

    How do you post at +2 with trolls like that?
    They may not dispense justice, but they can arrest and imprison you for days without filing charges. You get to be packed into a room full of real criminals for 72 hours while they figure out if you should even be charged or not.

    But I guess since there are no crooked cops this is not a problem.

  5. Re:Tracking Devices and the Fourth Amendment by Willbur · · Score: 4, Insightful

    There are a few interesting points in your post: It all hinges on the "reasonable expectation of privacy".

    If I'm walking down a public road, and I look around and don't see anyone nearby, do I have a "reasonable expectation of privacy"?

    Is there legal distinction between short term privacy and long term privacy? e.g. Is my expectation that people will not follow me around for any significant period of time "reasonable" under the US constitution?

    If a police officer is patrolling in a marked police car, do they have a "reasonable expectation of privacy" or would it be ok to tag that police car with a GPS tracker and display the location real time in a Google Maps mashup? Is there some other law that would prevent this apart from the constitution?

    If the above is ok, what about if the police office is parked behind some bushes/a billboard in a "Dukes of Hazard" style speed trap. Does that officer have a "reasonable expectation of privacy"?

    What about if said officer is patrolling in an unmarked car (but one which was ID'd as a police car earlier), do they now have a "reasonable expectation of privacy"?

    I'm guessing that most of these questions haven't been answered by US courts. I'd be particularly interested if there is a distinction between the expectation of privacy for police officers and the expectation of privacy for the general public.

  6. Re:The difference between "following" and "trackin by solitas · · Score: 5, Insightful

    For you, a private citizen, following a police officer or other official while in performance of their duties is illegal.

    It begs to be asked: why?

    --
    "It's time to take life by the cans." ~ Bender ("Bendin' in the Wind", ep. 3-13)