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Warrantless GPS Tracking Is Legal, Says WI Court
PL/SQL Guy writes "A Wisconsin appeals court ruled Thursday that police can attach GPS trackers to cars to secretly track anybody's movements without obtaining search warrants. As the law currently stands, the court said police can mount GPS on cars to track people without violating their constitutional rights — even if the drivers aren't suspects. Officers do not need to get warrants beforehand because GPS tracking does not involve a search or a seizure, wrote Madison Judge Paul Lundsten."
How can warrantless GPS tracking be legal while warrantless car searching is illegal. I am sure that a higher court will reverse this ruling... but it is scary to speculate about what happens if it is not reversed.
Laws and amendments need to keep up with game changing technological development.
That means I can attach GPS devices to police cars! Never again will I get a ticket while driving through the People's Republic of Wisconsin!
Women are like electronics: you don't know how damaged they are until you try to turn them on.
... it was dark, this guy was attaching a device to the underside of my truck that looked like a bomb. So I shot him.
Have gnu, will travel.
If it's only vehicle location track, how is this different than having the police tail the vehicle or follow it via helicopter, etc. This seems like a lower-cost mechanism for doing the same thing. Is there more to it than that?
This is why we have the Bill of Rights. Because governments will trample on personal freedom at their whim unless controlled by the law or the people.
This ad space for rent.
This sounds like a crazy decision, but the WI judge isnt making any new law here (not that the law is correct.) In fact, police have always been able to do this, because citizens have "no reasonable expectation of privacy" when they are in public. 4th amendment law rarely protects anyone when they are outside in public, with the rare exceptions of when their bags or persons are protected from search and/or seizure (that is, if a search or seizure has occurred.) If you are interested more in this crackpot area of the law, see US v. Katz and its wide ranging progeny, especially US v. Knotts (electronic tracking devices, no reasonable expectation of privacy in your location).
On the one hand, you've got the theory that this is analogous to assigning an officer to watch and tail a suspect's car, which is perfectly legal without a warrant.
On the other hand, you have, for example, things like Kyllo v. United States, where using thermal imaging equipment was treated as a search even though ordinary visual observation from off the property is not.
I suspect a higher court would rule that GPS devices are more common in civilian use than thermal imaging, and that when driving your car in public you have no reasonable expectation that your movement will be unobserved, and so rule that this court got it right, there is no Fourth Amendment violation.
if Police can do it without it being a suspect OR having a warrant, then we, the citizens, should have that same right. That means that we can now track judges to find their homes, what schools their kids go to, where member of the opposing political parties are heading off to (what do you mean that is a no-tel hotel; and hookers were there, along with representatives from Exon??? Really). Want to know where the chief of police or head of your school lives? Real easy now that nobody has privacy.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
As a lawyer in Wisconsin, I can tell you that this decision is pretty meaningless. I have had several cases go to the court of appeals (this court) and you almost always lose there on novel issues like this one. Til the WI supreme court rules takes this and rules or denies further appeal, this is not news. For some reason our CoA's don't like making big splashes, they will almost always just side with the state.
that privacy must be considered as well as just rights against search and seizure. My state has ruled exactly the opposite: that a warrant is necessary in order to track someone with GPS.
The WI decision contradicts decisions in a number of other states. I doubt it will stand.
Does this mean I can do it? Stalking jokes aside, what's the difference between me attaching a GPS to someone's car and me following them around? Surely it's legal for me to tail a car. This just makes it simpler for me to track the whereabouts of multiple cars at once.
When the axe came to the forest, the trees said, "Look out - the handle was once one of us."
From August 14, 2008 - http://www.insidetech.com/news/articles/2833-police-planting-gps-trackers-on-cars-without-warrants
Privacy advocates are shocked. They say that by monitoring the movements of people, many of which are likely innocent, police departments across the country are committing a Big Brother-esque invasion of privacy. And one state Supreme Court is on their side. The Washington State Supreme Court ruled that a warrant must be obtained to justify such invasions of privacy.
However, other state supreme courts - including New York, Wisconsin and Maryland, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit in Chicago - have declared that warrants are not needed.
First - way to go, State of Washington.
Next, it's not cut and dried, legally. From TFA:
Sveum, 41, argued the tracking violated his Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure. He argued the device followed him into areas out of public view, such as his garage.
The court disagreed. The tracking did not violate constitutional protections because the device only gave police information that could have been obtained through visual surveillance, Lundsten wrote.
Even though the device followed Sveum's car to private places, an officer tracking Sveum could have seen when his car entered or exited a garage, Lundsten reasoned. Attaching the device was not a violation, he wrote, because Sveum's driveway is a public place.
"We discern no privacy interest protected by the Fourth Amendment that is invaded when police attach a device to the outside of a vehicle, as long as the information obtained is the same as could be gained by the use of other techniques that do not require a warrant," he wrote.
Although police obtained a warrant in this case, it wasn't needed, he added.
Larry Dupuis, legal director of the ACLU of Wisconsin, said using GPS to track someone's car goes beyond observing them in public and should require a warrant.
"The idea that you can go and attach anything you want to somebody else's property without any court supervision, that's wrong," he said. "Without a warrant, they can do this on anybody they want."
So, what the real issue? Surveillance? Like it or not, that's legal. A cop can follow you all day long, so far as I know, as long as it doesn't amount to what a judge would call harassment. (That said, a judge's threshold and mine are probably quite different.)
Or is the real issue as the ACLU says, the attachment of a (police) device to property without court supervision?
I'm going with the ACLU on this one. Bond used a homer(*) 45 years ago in Goldfinger, and that was cool - or so we thought, because the of the target. But when I think now that the pursuer had a license to kill - I wonder if the future shouldn't be protected very, very carefully.
(* - Yep, they called it a homer in the movie. Nonetheless, cue Simpsons' jokes in ...3...2...)
Pathological kinda promises Path + Logical - but instead, you get stuck with pathetic.
Me officer? Hell no. I've not driven anywhere all day, and your GPS logs PROVE IT!
Sweet as!
Without continual observation the results are potentially useless!
Eclectic beats from Leeds, UK
handmadehands.co.uk
I almost would have said "attach it to a police car", but then... it might look suspicious if you happen to be on every friggin' crime scene in the city.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
What the defense lawyers should have argued is that by affixing the GPS device to the defendant's car without his knowledge or request, the GPS device was a gift to the defendant. When they did so, they gave up the right to claim the device as their own property, and in fact gave it to the defendant. There is precedent to back up this argument.
When the police took the tracker back, the defense should have claimed that was a seizure of the defendant's property, and should have required service of a warrant. Hey, it worked for music CDs. Might as well try it for GPS trackers.
What's the next step? All vehicles will be required to have a government controlled GPS device.
I am not a lawyer... but,
Modern tort law states.
Intrusion upon seclusion occurs when a perpetrator intentionally intrudes, physically, electronically, or otherwise, upon the private space, solitude, or seclusion of a person, or the private affairs or concerns of a person, by use of the perpetrator's physical senses or by electronic device or devices to oversee or overhear the person's private affairs, or by some other form of investigation, examination, or observation intrude upon a person's private matters if the intrusion would be highly offensive to a reasonable person.
Unless this does not apply to LEO...
In theory you could expand this ruling to include monitoring of a persons latptop as long as they where not at home, to view connections made but not the actual communication, perhaps extending to his communication. Or even extended to snooping any wireless communication that can be received in a public place, even using basic encryption that is known to be compromised ie wep etc. (read below)
The argument which is kinda valid, is that the information of placing a tracking device can be obtained by following the person, hence the argument that it tracked him into a non private place IE his garage, while in theory a violation of privacy is still info that could be obtained visually from public view.
To me this appears to be spirit vs letter of the law issue. The letter of the law does make this type of tracking legal, but is that really the Spirit of the Law... I can see lots of loopholes extending from this ruling.
---In a time of Chimpanzees I was a Monkey.
This isn't a cut and dried situation. Police need a warrant to search your house. There is no question in this matter. The Constitution is pretty clear on the matter, and there's loads of case law. However they don't need a warrant to conduct surveillance on your house. They are free to park on the street and watch what goes on. For that matter, so are private citizens. I can park near you house and watch you if I like.
So that's where the argument that it is fine comes from. This isn't a search, they aren't looking through your car, this is surveillance, they are just watching where you car goes. They could legally do this by simply following your car, so one could argue this is just an extension of that.
Now please don't think I'm advocating this, just saying that it isn't a clear situation.
Since the police are using his own property (the vehicle) for a public purpose (the tracking/investigation), they need at least probable cause and more likely a warrant to satisfy both procedural and substantive due process. If you read the article, you should take notice that this was essentially the argument that the ACLU spokesperson made without explicitly mentioning the 5th Amendment.
There's also an "unreasonable interference" due process argument.
Unfortunately, failing to raise the appropriate argument in the lower court may be construed as a waiver unless the defendant can demonstrate incompetent council.
'Poor (evil stalker) guy is probably screwed.
If asked by a police officer (in the US) to account for my movements, my right to decline to answer is protected by the 5th amendment.
Requiring me to carry a tracking device that would automatically answer this question is tatamount to forcing me to verbally answer, and thus seems to also be a violation of my 5th amendment rights.
How could this possibly be legitimized by tricking me into carrying a tracking device by slipping it into my pocket/bag/car?
This doesn't impact the police's ability/right to physically follow me; I just shouldn't have to help them.
I can't wait until someone decides to challenge all this crap and puts some of these devices on patrol cars, or even the car of Madison Judge Paul Lundsten, and lets the cops decide how to respond (no, I'm not going to do it. The cops in my neck of the woods are pretty decent folk).
If a warrant is not needed, what is to stop ANYONE from doing this, and doing so LEGALLY?
What law might I be charged with if I were to put one on a patrol car? Why wouldn't that law apply to a cop doing the same thing?
Just because you have the word "Judge" before your name doesn't mean your not an idiot. This entire decision on the judges part completely muddies the water in terms of existing laws that were designed to prevent STALKERS from doing this.
A warrant is a surety that the tracking is being done for legitimate purposes. As it stands, what the cops are doing is NO different then what a stalker might do because there is no assurance of legitimacy.
Where does the law stand on civilian use? If there's no warrant needed, a cop can use this method for personal reasons? Track the wife, kids, friend suspected of sleeping with the wife, other cops? There needs to be oversight and/or rules for potentially abusive tools/methods.
The GP's idea is brilliant.
you had me at #!
If you read the judges decision, he hasn't actually decided anything. He looks at four allegations.
The judge essentially shows that attaching a tracking device in a public place to determine things that can be determined by visual observation has already been decided to not require a warrant, that police have the right to observe someone on a public road without a warrant(including by satellite), and that while information gathered while the defendant is not on public roads is illegal and must be suppressed there have already been decisions determining that just because some evidence is obtained illegally and must be suppressed does not mean that other evidence obtained legally has to be suppressed.
Everything this guy has decided is based on previous decisions, and from the referenced portions of the decisions it seems that he applied those decisions validly.
You could certainly argue that the existing decisions aren't valid, but since they're supreme court decisions this guy doesn't have the authority to overturn them.
There's also the plus that he's basically already decided that any evidence gathered about your location when you're not on or able to be seen from public roads is illegal and must be suppressed. It's good law for what he was given.
How long til surreptitious police monitoring GPS use becomes widespread and they start firing off automated speeding tickets?
How about cameras outside every residence, peering in? The cameras are on public property right? They don't require trespassing or B&E to install them right? How is this any different?
Anyone that is ok with the police doing this is a moron.
-Viz
Don't kid yourself. It's the size of the regexp AND how you use it that counts.
The spirit of the idea seems to be tracking an individual without having to go through the trouble of a warrant. The spirit will undoubtedly be abused. If there are no loop holes to jump through to start tracking an individual they might as well track everyone. It's even easier if the vehicle already has a tracking system such as OnStar. From there they can do whatever they want such as track speeding and mail you tickets.
I can say [REDACTED] anytime I want!
It seems to me a GPS device would give inadmissible evidence if just attached to the car and left there. The police would still have to physically follow the car to provide eyewitness testimony (or better yet, video evidence) that the car travelled to all the places the GPS unit did.
If the police don't observe the car's journeys, then they have no way of proving that the GPS wasn't removed from the original target vehicle, moved independently of it by a third party, and then reattached later.
As far as I know, that's called 'reasonable doubt', and makes the evidence sufficiently suspect to tampering so as not to be reliable in a court of law. I think it would render the evidence gathered by the device to be considered 'hearsay'.