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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 they attach it to my car without my permission, doesn't it become MINE to do whatever I want with? Seriously, how many of these do they really expect to recover and download data from? Plus, doesn't it become "theft of services" the minute they hook it up to my car's electrical system?
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
Let's try a better analogy:
Do the police need a warrant to overhear my conversations while I'm on my cell phone in a public place? No, but they are legally required to have one if they're going to bug my phone.
I agree with the parent (and grandparent).
That is, as long as they don't charge you for breaking traffic laws while they're investigating whatever-else
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It is to be wondered how the cops would react if a citizen group began to secretly bug cop cars with GPS devices and tiny cameras intended to capture what they do to people in remote or isolated areas or late at night when the cops think no one can or is likely to see them.
A truly excellent pizza parlor is a delight unto the heavens. Treasure the sauce and the toppings!
Even without a warrant I've said it before... The Fourth doesn't cover spying. Anything that is not intrusive goes. I'm sure I'll get a lot of shit for saying that but go back and read the Fourth and you'll understand. The whole point of the Fourth is not to encourage criminals to keep secrets... its to stop police from interrupting law-abiding citizens' lives.
A GPS tracker will track exactly where the car is no matter what.
Given the limitations of GPS, except for when it's in a garage or building ;)
Seriously, though, if the police put a tracker on my car, and are unable to produce documentation demonstrating that they have done so, is the tracker mine if I discover it before they remove it?
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
An easy way to answer your question, and countless others like it:
"What would happen to me, as a private citizen, if I did this to a cop?"
If the answer is "Nothing," then it's probably a reasonable thing for the cops to do to you. If the answer is "Waal, I believe that there'd be a tasin', boy," then it is not.
So, you tell me. What do you think would happen if you were caught placing tracking devices on police cars?
And as for the courts permitting this kind of crap to occur: remember the most important lesson of the Gulag Archipelago. The judicial system is your last defense. When they fail to protect your rights, the time for peaceful reckoning is past.
Do the police require a warrant if they want to follow me around for the day?
No.
If yes then I believe this should require a warrant.
But its no.
Else, what's the diff except it costs much less and is more discrete.
Good point. I wonder if the police would object if I went up to their patrol cars, ghost cars, and other vehicles and slapped my own gps transmitters on them, and then published their whearabouts in realtime on google maps. I mean, I could do all this legally if I just had a bunch of people follow their cars around all day and post their whearabouts, right?
So whats the diff except that it costs much less and is more discrete?
Yet, something tells me the police would object strenuously to this.
Whether reasonably measurable or not, they are, without my express authorization or compensation, using energy from my vehicle and causing additional wear and tear on my vehicle. This could be construed as theft of service (transportation fees).
This is exactly why I'm suing the DOT for not cleaning the roads. I have to carry around all their dust, which is causing additional wear and tear on my vehicle. They're stealing my cars utility from me!
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
As I understand it, GM has been installing On-Star in all their verticals for some time. On-Star has GPS capabilities and also transmits audio. Since no one forces one to use the technology (one could cut the wires etc.) I don't think a warrant would be required in those cases.
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
Private land aside - OK, but they had better not complain if they don't have a warrant and I find and keep the device for my own use.
Also, you're paying money in gasoline and car upkeep to transport their gizmo. Send them a bill for (mass of tracker)/(total car mass) * gas cost.
They already can.. they're called mobile phones. Triangulation can get your location down to about 10 feet.
Alright, having just written a legal brief on the subject, I'll explain the legal rationale behind these rulings so that we can actually have an intelligent debate on this subject.
The Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures, only applies when a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy in the item or information searched or seized.
Here, the information about the person's location is what is being "seized." Thus, the way the debate is framed centers around the question: Does a person have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their location?
Now, the law is pretty clear in some respects. For example, you have a reasonable expectation of privacy in your home. Thus, the Fourth Amendment applies, and police need a warrant to track your movements in your home.
On the other hand, you have no expectation of privacy when you travel out in public. This is rather obvious because when you travel in public, everyone around you can see you and knows where you are. Thus, the Fourth Amendment does not apply, and it has been long established law that police can conduct surveillance on anyone in a public area without a warrant. (Note: This is the same basic rationale by which placing cameras on street corners does not violate the Fourth Amendment.)
The Supreme Court has further extended this rationale to apply to electronic tracking devices (e.g., GPS, Triangulation Beacons) used for tracking people in public. The rationale is that as long as the subject is in public, he has no reasonable expectation of privacy in his location.
Thus, the Fourth Amendment does not apply and you have no constitutional protection against police attaching a GPS device to your car. Police can track your car with a GPS locator, provided they break no laws with respect to installing the locator (A non-constitutional issue).
That said, the Supreme Court has left the door open to regulating this type of behavior by police. The majority opinion in U.S. v. Knotts left open the possibility of using "different constitutional principles" to regulate police use of tracking devices if "dragnet type law enforcement practices" developed. Dragnet in this context refers to systematic and coordinated measures for apprehending criminals or suspects.
Thus, presumably one could argue that if the police started using GPS devices in our cell phones to track everyone in a systematic manner, another constitutional principle, like for example the right of privacy, could be applied to find a constitutional ground to prevent it. Whether the Supreme Court chooses to use the dicta in Knotts is of course up to it.
Anyway, that's it, have fun debating.
The sun beams down on a brand new day, No more welfare tax to pay, Unsightly slums gone up in flashing light...
an example today: New Orleans cops who shot and killed civilians. Dismissed.
as to "If you do it"; a while ago in Portland OR the Mayor and chief of police (now the new mayor) said it was ok to look through the trash of a person of interest so... a local paper looked through the MAYOR's trash and published the results. Sure were a lot of wine bottles.....
- Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, minutus carborata descendum pantorum.
Logan's Run had this concept.
Runner!
This happened in New Zealand a little while ago.
A guy found some police tracking devices on his car, ripped them off, and listed them on TradeMe (the local eBay replacement).
Repton.
They say that only an experienced wizard can do the tengu shuffle.
It's true that GPS devices are radio receivers, not transmitters. But receivers emit signals too, and these are detectable. In countries where you have to pay license fees to operate a TV or radio, they send out detector vans to nab scoflaws. I also recall reading in Spycatcher that MI-5 used them to detect secret shortwave receivers; don't recall how they distinguished KGB agents listening for instructions from Moscow Center from innocent Lawrence Welk fans.
Otherwise they'd ticket people who fail to yield, make illegal lane changes and tailgate...
Each of those is a ticketable offense, as is the catch-all "reckless driving". They're just quite a bit more difficult to spot.
The point is that the police departments make no effort to enforce them. They enforce two things: Speed and Intoxication.
It is hard to argue with drunk driving. Having a moving object that ways 3000+ lbs cruising with no brains in control is a good use of traffic enforcement.
But speed?
Everyone "Knows" that speed is dangerous. The problem is that the facts don't support what you think you "Know". Lets try hard statistics (that they don't tell you because they aren't sexy).
- 80% of fatal traffic accidents happen at 45mph or less. (We spend most of our time in SoCal a 5mph on the freeway)
- The California Highway Patrol used to have a list of the top 20 root causes of accidents.
#4 on the list with 16 percent was driving too slow!
#16 on the list with a fraction of one percent was driving to fast.
- In the mid 80s the NHTSA commissioned a report to show how many lives 55mph saved. The report was delayed 18 months because they didn't get the results they wanted. After massaging/spinning the statistics for a year and a half the best they could come up with is if they ignored the vast improvements in auto safety each life that they saved cost 150 man/years of extra time on the road. An analysis of the data showed that the safest speed to travel was 10 to 15 mph faster then the flow of traffic. (Car and Driver had a great analysis of it)
Now if you consider the vast improvements in auto and tire safety it becomes obvious that the actual risk from driving went UP because of the 55mph limit. The 1st obvious reason is because if you are crawling along at a speed that doesn't require that you pay attention people won't pay attention. (Refer back to the bit about moving objects with no brains controlling them...) A second reason is they had bred a generation of drivers that were unsafe a 55 because they had learned "aiming skills" instead of "driving skills".
Traffic enforcement is about revenue. Fear a government that has become so disconnected that it thinks you are its source of income instead of thinking that it is supposed to serve you.
Oh and back to the original point of this thread...
Ben Franklin would have a conniption. The United States was the land of freedom. If it wants to become that again then it needs to ALWAYS error on the side of freedom. You think these things make you safer? More secure? Security is a FEELING. They are protecting you from things that aren't a credible threat. The government can NEVER make you safe unless they lock you in a closet. You are mortal!!! Life has a 100% mortality rate. Being safe is never the point unless your eyes are closed. LIVING is the point. Go out and live and don't worry. You might experience some things that have a little risk involved with them. If you do you will probably smile because you are LIVING!
That would be a lot more compelling if it weren't wrong.
First off, of course most fatal accidents are going to happen when going less than 45mph, the vast majority of driving done each year in the US is on arterials, which are usually designed around a 30 or 35 mph limit. Around here, it's not so hard to find a couple of places where going 40mph would cause a car to go off the road or flip in good conditions.
Not to mention that the effective speed is more or less doubled when in a head on collision. Head ons for that reason tend to be quite dangerous.
Second off driving too slow is defined by it's relation to the speed of traffic, going 10mph isn't going to cause any problems unless the flow of traffic is going substantially higher.
Third off higher speed means shorter reaction times and more likelihood of screwing up a call and ending up in an accident.
And lastly if speeding tickets were about revenue in most areas, then officers would be required to write a ticket whenever they could and warning tickets would exist. But, I don't think you'd be interested in getting things correct when paranoia is clearly more interesting.
with what's happening in Arkansas. No, not the assassination of that congressman, but rather what's happened in the small town of West Helena, Arkansas.
They have a crime problem there and the government imposed a "curfew" that eventually ended up becoming what is practically all out martial law. It started out as a teen curfew and now people are reporting that they're being told to not come out of their houses by the police. They're not simply advising it, but ordering it by punishment of law. Enforcing it via men with guns. Now with the ability to know where you go and what you do there is absolutely nothing stopping a situation where an entire population is under constant monitor.
It's beginning. No, scratch that, it's began. I wouldn't be surprised if a full force take over of the government occurred before the next president is sworn in. Before the end of the year, even. Normally, I'd question myself for saying such outlandish things, what with my active, run-away imagination and all, but this time it's all adding up. I gotta get my family out of here.
The eternal struggle of good vs. evil begins within one's self.
This happened in New Zealand - the guy put it up for auction.
http://xmb.stuffucanuse.com/xmb/viewthread.php?tid=4399
The operative word in GGP was "kills".
You should read the paper you referred to again. It does not say what you say it says. Even then, I think you know that you're cherry-picking one obscure study, from 1992, which doesn't really address the question at hand. And the "here's a clue" thing makes you look like an ass.
Greater speed leads to greater a greater chance of fatalities. Inappropriate speed is anti-social. You want to make yourself the sole arbiter of what the safe speed of a road is. I think you're wrong, and I've got the law and that big fucking metal sign on my side.
Just think about it. Seriously. Have you had a loved one killed in a auto accident? Can you imagine what it's going to feel like when you kill someone because you think you're entitled to go 15% above?
On behalf of everyone who understands the forces involved in a car collision, I'm asking you to just please just slow down and get to your destination 5 minutes later (or at exactly the same time because traffic lights regulated the flow).
Also, ceasing telling people that driving the speed limit is dangerous would be nice, too.
My apologies for a random response. This looks as good of a place as any to reply to :)
What happens if I find the GPS device, toss it in to a random street gutter? Am I liable for the device now? Do I go to court? Can they prove it? Am I now guilty of interfering with a police investigation? Do I have to pay for the (probably expensive) device?
I don't have a problem if they have a warrant. I don't have a problem with wire-tapping with a warrant. This seems to go a little over-board.
Cheers.
I maintain that everyone saying that it is the difference in speed is right. Except I broaden that statement even further. Chaos kills. Any kind of chaos on the road creates problems. For example, difference in speed, double lane changes, drifting out of the lane, suddenly braking for no reason, following too close, changing lanes without signaling, etc. If you think about the laws, nearly all laws are written to control the amount of chaos that can occur. This is why some states have a minimum speed law in addition to the maximum. My driving style is to actively avoid those who are increasing chaos. If I can not predict their every move, I don't want to be anywhere near them. I try to return the favor by being very predictable myself. If you don't use your turn signal to change lanes when other cars are around, I ask you to think about how much chaos you are creating (how do you react when a car suddenly changes lane for no apparent reason?).
As for the original issue. There is a huge difference between following someone and tracking their car, and it has to do with scalability. There are only so many police who can trail someone, and so it becomes a forcing function to limit its use to only those cases that really make sense. However, tracking devices can be put on everyone's car, and heuristics used to pick out interesting patterns. Suddenly, you have big brother and a system that requires very little investment to monitor the entire population. That's a pretty dangerous place to get to in terms of what happens next. If you disagree with this, I suggest you go watch minority report and think about how far this type of monitoring takes us in that direction.
Privacy and anonymity are very closely coupled to freedom. You can't impose on either without affecting freedom.
Cops ain't citizens, what makes people think the two should be equal in what they can do?
Think about, doctors are allowed to prescribe drugs to citizens, should citizens be allowed to prescribe drugs to doctors?
Surgeons are allowed to cut open citizens, should citizens be allowed to cut open surgeons?
Lawyers are allowed to legal advice to citizens, should citizens be allowed to give legal advice to lawyers?
We have all kinds of rules that say people in proffesion X can do things that people not in the job can do not. Hell, a postman can open mailboxes and even open mail. Good luck doing that as a private citizen. Do you know that there are laws against who can put items in your mailbox?
For that matter, even simpler things like exceptions to wearing a seatbelt exist for people who got to get in and out of cars a lot. WE ARE NOT ALL EQUAL!
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
If you watched the film "Enemy of the state", fair game to finding any snooping devices, they are now yours, your tax dollars paid for it, and they are now in your hands.
That is a great question.
Here in Germany, a police-tracker was auctioned off at a leftist culture festival after it was discovered on the car of one of the attendands. The police tried to intervene, but could not prove in front of a court that the tracker really belonged to them.
Greater speed leads to greater a greater chance of fatalities. Inappropriate speed is anti-social. You want to make yourself the sole arbiter of what the safe speed of a road is. I think you're wrong, and I've got the law and that big fucking metal sign on my side.
The problem is that, in many areas, 'Safe speed' and 'legal speed' are two different things. For example, the autobahn has a lower accident rate than the USA, yet no speed limits.
Studies have shown that going after 'impolite' drivers, not just speeders, has a better effect on safety.
Just think about it. Seriously. Have you had a loved one killed in a auto accident? Can you imagine what it's going to feel like when you kill someone because you think you're entitled to go 15% above?
Closest I had was an aunt who died as a child before I was born by a drunk driver, on a sunday morning, at 3X the legal limit, back then!
Even before the manslaughter, he was breaking enough laws to spend time in prison and lose his license for essentially life. Repeat DUI, speeding, failure to stop, failure to yield, etc...
Doing 35mph in a 30, not as likely to cause anything. Lacking artificial speed limits, studies have shown that people overwhelmingly drive at a speed safe for conditions. IE in a lots of traffic situation they slow down.
On behalf of everyone who understands the forces involved in a car collision, I'm asking you to just please just slow down and get to your destination 5 minutes later (or at exactly the same time because traffic lights regulated the flow).
Or get there 15 minutes later because the bloody lights are timed for the higher speed. I've seen and driven it. Drive 5mph above the speed limit and you make every light. Drive the speed limit you hit every red light just as it goes red, for maximum wait.
Also, ceasing telling people that driving the speed limit is dangerous would be nice, too.
Paying attention, driving with traffic, signaling, etc... Are all more important than that square sign with a number on it.
I don't read AC A human right