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NY Court Says Police Can't Track Suspect With GPS
SoundGuyNoise sends in a story that brings into relief just how unsettled is the question of whether police can use GPS to track suspects without a warrant. Just a couple of days ago a Wisconsin appeals court ruled that such tracking is OK; and today an appeals court in New York reached the opposite conclusion. "It was wrong for a police investigator to slap a GPS tracking device under a defendant's van to track his movements, the state's top court ruled today. A sharply divided NY Court of Appeals, in a 4-3 decision, reversed the burglary conviction of defendant Scott Weaver, 41, of Watervliet. Four years ago, State Police tracked Weaver over 65 days in connection with the burglary investigation."
It sort of defeats the point of tracking if you tell us where it's going to be ahead of time.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
The judgment was that they couldn't track a person without a warrant. I presume that if they had convinced a judge of probable cause before they lojacked the suspect, they would have been in the clear.
I want to know whether it would be wrong if they steal my phone which has GPS tracking set up to be available to me?
Can't they just ask for a warrant, and not have to worry whether the case is going to be thrown out?
If it's worth the trouble to track the guy for 65 days, surely it's worth the trouble to get a warrant.
He usually sticks around articles about things ending in 'AA' (RIAA, MPAA, etc).
Perhaps if we change the title to "NY Court Says Police Can't Track Suspect with GPSAA" he'll swing by.
And it ruins the surprise!
I'd like to see the full text of the opinion. The small extracts I've seen so far basically amount to "I don't like giving the police such power", which, if it were the only legal basis of the opinion, would be the worst kind of legislating-from-the-bench, and not likely to survive an appeal. Surely in 20 pages of opinion, there was an actual legal basis given for their decision. One can hope?
When one reads the linked article, the court indicated it was because no warrant was obtained that the tracking via GPS was invalid, not the tracking in and of itself.
Had the police done their job and obtained a warrant to plant a device on the persons car, there wouldn't have been a problem. They obviously had reasonable suspicion to suspect he was the burglar because they knew enough to single him out.
This isn't about Big Brother watching you, this is about sloppy police work (though it does tie in nicely with the previous article from Wisconsin).
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
My understanding here is that monitoring without a warrant would constitute (no pun intended) a breach of the 'unreasonable search and seizure' part of the US constitution. If a cop can't investigate someone on the sole basis of profiling (racial or otherwise), then he shouldn't be allowed to GPS tag them without a warrant either. Seems simple to me... No?
Dozens of Wisconsin criminals have been seen driving in the general direction of New York.
Smivs on the intertubes!
From the skimming I did of the summary it looks like the sentence was over turned because they didn't get a warrant for using GPS to track the guy. Should someone who committed a crime be let go because some did not follow procedures NO, should there be discipline for not using proper procedures absolutely. Improper procedures should not cause a case to be overturned unless of course it could be shown that the person was guilty only because of the improper procedures.
Wrong. The ONLY punishment appropriate when government violates the rights of the accused in the course of collecting evidence is to deprive them of the use of that evidence.
If that means guilty people getting off, so be it, in the end, denying government actors the use of illegally obtained evidence in the end is the ONLY way we have giving them a disincentive to conduct illegal searches and seizures.
The Constitution is not a technicality.
Corporatism != Free Market
That it is better to let ten guilty men go free than to convict a single innocent man.
Throwing the case out is the discipline used when the police or prosecution step out of line.
I understand the argument that GPS tracking is not significantly more intrusive than tailing.
But I wonder how police officers would react if GPS devices were surreptitiously placed on their cruisers.
Should someone who committed a crime be let go because some did not follow procedures
Yes. That's the whole point of having a judicial system. It spells out how the police and the legal profession must act to bring cases to trial. If you're going to abandon that system, then I don't suppose you have a problem with police coming into your house at any time of the day or night to see if you are breaking any laws.
Improper procedures should not cause a case to be overturned unless of course it could be shown that the person was guilty only because of the improper procedures.
If you, as the police or prosecutor, can't be bothered to follow proper procedures, who's to say you didn't make up evidence to indict someone? It stands to reason if whatever procedures are in place weren't followed, how does the court know that what it is asked to rule on is valid?
To use the well-worn phrase: Better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
1. It did not use up the "valuable" resource that is the detective. Meaning the police could just plant one of these devices on all cars in the city.
2. If a detective is following you, he normally will not follow you onto your private property, else he could be charged with trespass.
3.If a detective follows a person around that person has the ability to at least seek harassment charges.
Yes.
Beyond the constitutional arguments, The exclusionary rule is, arguably, one of the few effective measures for keeping police from disregarding due process and abusing their power. Otherwise, it is oh-so-very-very-tempting to just bend the rules a little to get the guy you "know" is the right one. If doing the wrong thing is a good way of getting your case thrown out, you'll be a lot less likely to do the wrong thing.
There is empirical evidence, as well, for this position. This is an op-ed from a legal academic who has studied the matter.
"Getting tough on crime" at the expense of method is initially attractive; but it is extraordinarily corrosive to our rights and liberties in the medium and long terms. The ethical flexibility that allows the cops to create a fictional confidential informant to seize otherwise unavailable evidence today, will be the same flexibility that allows the cops to create fictional evidence tomorrow.
There is not necessarily any conflict. That which is forbidden by the constitution and/or statutes of one state may be permitted in another. Whether or not this is permitted by the US Constitution must be decided by a Federal court.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Sounds good in theory maybe but its a very dangerous idea. Your rights would then be limited by the amount of grief an officer is willing to go through in order to catch you in some illegal act. Imagine you're a cop tracking down a serial killer and you think there's evidence inside someone's house, wouldn't you be willing to risk punishment to prevent the guy killing again?
All the sudden the rule would be 'you need a warrant and probably cause OR be willing to risk punishment' which is not quite the same thing. Throwing out the conviction is the only punishment that will work to deter abuses, because it is the only punishment that takes away the reward for illegal searches. Otherwise there will always be times when the reward (catching the bad guy) is greater than the punishment (the end of your career), especially when you'll be a hero to the public for your 'brave sacrifice'.
What I meant and said poorly, is that there must have been some sort of stolen goods that the guy had in his possession. That alone should be good enough for the guy to be put in jail. The fact that police followed improper procedures needs to be addressed in a very harsh manner. However, I still think that someone should not be able to get away with a crime on a technicality.
Due process is the principle that the government must respect all of the legal rights that are owed to a person according to the law of the land.
This case was about the police not respecting the legal rights of the accused person hence by it's very definition it is a violation of due process.
So, the police get a slap on the wrist and an innocent person goes to the electric chair? No. Absolutely no. We have to err on the side of caution and give the accused the benefit of the doubt. Innocent until proven guilty, and you can't be proven guilty with illegally obtained evidence.
I'd like to see a citation for this. Even if it is true, so what? Who cares what it was like before the 1960s. We didn't have high speed internet before the 1960s either. Should we also go back to computers that take up a whole room and aren't connected to one another?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruit_of_the_poisonous_tree
If following somebody in an unmarked car without a warrant is legal (and it is), I'm not sure why an electronic device that accomplishes the same thing through satellite tracking would not be.
SirWired
What I meant and said poorly, is that there must have been some sort of stolen goods that the guy had in his possession. That alone should be good enough for the guy to be put in jail. The fact that police followed improper procedures needs to be addressed in a very harsh manner. However, I still think that someone should not be able to get away with a crime on a technicality.
Doesn't matter. They illegally placed a tracking device and used that as the method of catching him with the stolen goods. Because the method they used to catch him with the stolen stuff was illegal, then that evidence is tainted and inadmissible.
Trust me, you don't want it any other way. Had the police done good police work (ie: followed him with police detectives) instead of the quick and easy way (slap the GPS onto his vehicle) they would have caught him and the conviction would have stood.
We shouldn't allow the government to get away with circumventing the Constitution with technology for their own convenience.
Plus, given that the police and prosecution now have been proven to have broken the law THEMSELVES to collect this evidence, I don't necessarily take their word for it that this was the burglar. Since they were clearly willing to break the law to get a conviction, who's to say they didnt' plant this evidence? The guilty don't deserve a presumption of innocence, and by this ruling, those involved in this case have been found guilty of violating the rights of the accused.
If they didn't have enough evidence going in to get a warrant for the suspect in the first place, one wonders how flimsy their case was otherwise...
Corporatism != Free Market
You go right ahead and live on the block where 10 guilty guys went free.
Tell you what. I'll live with the criminals, and you live in the next town over where the cops can do whatever the hell they want. I guarantee you I'll have a longer, safer life than you will. What people like you never seem to understand is that when cops don't follow the law, they're no longer serving and protecting -- they're just the biggest, toughest, meanest gang on the street.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
There is a legal principal known as Fruit of the poisonous tree. Essentially, any evidence that has been found due to an illegal search, even if it wasn't found during the search itself, is inadmissible.
So if the stolen property was discovered because of the gps, then it is likely inadmissible. The article didn't say one way or another, so it is tough to tell. If it had nothing to do with the gps, then it can still be used in court
Remember also that the judge merely ordered a new trial with the bad evidence excluded. If they still have enough evidence that was discovered independent of the illegal search, he may still be convicted.
Ultimately, there is no better way to defend our rights that to completely bar any evidence that has been found in violation of them. It sometimes has the unfortunate side effect or letting the guilty go free, but so long as police maintain their professionalism and act legally it should be a rare occurrence.
Actually, it's somewhat more complicated than that.
This wasn't a case of a citizen suing the government because his privacy was violated by GPS tracking (which is kind of the way you framed it above). Rather, this was -- as far as one can tell from the poor summaries and extracts currently made available -- a case where the defendant in a criminal action seeks to have evidence excluded under the Exclusionary Rule, because, presumably, GPS tracking is unconstitutional.
Why would it be unconstitutional? It might be because of some specific provision in the New York Constitution. Or, it might be because the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution is deemed to be applicable to this case, with that Amendment being made applicable to state action through the Incorporation Doctrine.
If the latter case, then Due Process (of the "substantive" as opposed to the "procedural" variety) would be involved, because that's the basis of the Incorporation Doctrine. But, if the cops simply violated the state constitution, I wouldn't necessarily call that a "due process" issue. That's just simply cops breaking the law they're sword to uphold.
It's actually very simple as to why using a tracking device isn't considered kosher while tailing someone is.
Just imagine if the subject happened to be a phone conversation: It's the difference between putting a wire tap on a phone, and being in the same room and overhearing a phone conversation.
Say the police in state A* attach a GPS tracker to a car sans warrant, then say that the owner of that car drives to a different state, B**; would evidence collected whilst the vehicle was in State B count? Would the officers in State A be exposing themselves to actual liability (as opposed to the evidence simply being thrown out) in State B?
*Wisconsin
**New York
FGD 135
The problem I have with the exclusion rule is that it only "punishes" the police when they violate the rights of someone who is actually guilty. What recourse do I have when they pull me over without cause and/or search my vehicle and DON'T find anything incriminating? They have still harassed and intimidated me, but because they didn't find anything they could arrest me for, it is ok? Likewise, the police could use GPS to discover information totally unrelated to the case they are investigating, e.g. the vehicle of a married man they are tracing sits in a motel for a couple hours. They now have information they can use to extort the "suspect" into cooperating with the police to entrap others.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Probably because NYCL is into civil law, not criminal law.
Civil law, business ethics, military intelligence, etc.
Based on NYCL's writings, there is nothing "civil" about how the **AA lawyers treat their victims.
Wrong. The ONLY punishment appropriate when government violates the rights of the accused in the course of collecting evidence is to deprive them of the use of that evidence.
It might be worth pointing out that this is only true in the United States. No other country (including those with search and seizure protections enshrined in their respective constitutions) adheres to an exclusionary rule as a matter of constitutional principle.
Even in the U.S., the exclusionary rule took a while to evolve. Even after it was crafted as a federal standard, the states took a while to fall in line. There are ways of deterring bad official conduct that don't involve excluding relevant evidence of a criminal offense. (Civil suit against the police, independent disciplinary bodies, etc.) Other countries manage just fine.
What recourse do I have when they pull me over without cause and/or search my vehicle and DON'T find anything incriminating? They have still harassed and intimidated me, but because they didn't find anything they could arrest me for, it is ok?
No, it's not okay. Your recourse is to file a complaint with the police department and/or your state government (Attorney General's office might be a good place to start if the local police department doesn't handle the complaint). In a system that isn't completely corrupted, the officer will at least be suspended for the duration of the investigation.
What police can or can't do to a vehicle depends on what state you are in. Big surprise.
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The summary suggests, that there would be only one global way that this decision can go. While in reality, tracking a suspect with GPS can, and most likely is, ok in some cases. While in others it is not. And in some, it is even dependent on other factors.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
There are instances in which the police may wish to track someone in order to gather intelligence. This information will never appear as evidence in court. So, they'll go on planting GPS units wherever they want. They'll just have to manufacture some probable cause to make a stop.
This sort of thing has been done for ages. The cops know who the 'bad' people are. And they've got a pretty good feel for when they're up to no good. So, where something like running a stop sign or failure to signal a lane change are overlooked for the general public, the usual suspects will get pulled over, patted down and have their vehicle tossed*. GPS technology just allows them to collect intelligence from the comfort of a donut shop instead of actually patrolling a neighborhood.
*A friend of mine in the local PD refers to this as charging someone with "Mopery with intent to gawk".
Have gnu, will travel.
1) If my car is always garaged, don't the police have to break and enter to install a GPS tracker?
2) How do I detect whether or not a GPS receiver has been attached to my car?
3) If this box was there for 2 months, it must be drawing power from the car battery. Doesn't that make it a lot easier to detect? Doesn't that also mean that it is probably only working when the car ignition is on?
4) GPS signals from satellites are low-power, therefore they must be easy to jam. Isn't there a potential market for devices that do just that? You probably only need to jam the signal when the ignition is on. Better yet, transmit false GPS data and really mess with the cops' minds.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
We here in South Carolina applaud your rhetoric but thanks to that Yankee jackass Lee, your assertion that we are state citizens first and US citizens second has been proven false.
For all the crap people give the south, I'm glad y'all are realizin' what the whole "state rights" thing was about. I always read with interest the rants most recently from Cali and Texas governments about their relationship with the Fed.
No other country ... adheres to an exclusionary rule as a matter of constitutional principle.
Ummm. How about Canada.... (Section 24(1&2))
Atlas stands on the earth and carries the celestial sphere on his shoulders.
I can't tell you how overjoyed I am to hear that one of our courts has remembered there are limits to police power.
Unfortunately, the men with the uniforms and guns aren't worrying about such trivia. Have you spoken to any police officers lately? If you don't happen to work in municipal systems or security like I do, hop over to the forums at "officer.com" for an eye-opening read.
The current meme running among police officers is "wolves, sheepdogs and sheeple." That is, the "bad guys" are wolves, cops are sheepdogs, and the civilians are sheep. Sheep are worthless, stupid and deserve to get skinned.
The last member of a SWAT team I met told me a joke. He stomped on the ground twice and spit toward his foot. "You know what that is?" he asked. I shook my head "no." He grinned and said "cop cpr." When I asked if that was the procedure for criminals or victims, he called me a liberal fraker.
Another cop was telling me a story, well bragging really, and a footnote to the story was that a teenage girl was injured. When I asked him why that happened, he responded in fairly rough terms that officer safety took priority over all other considerations. I told him that during my time on base, we were always told that armed men in uniform were supposed to put themselves in harm's way to protect the civilians. Again, in rather rude terms, the officer responded that he didn't care how many civilians were killed, but that he was absolutely not going to expose himself or his fellow officers to real danger.
The court decisions are wonderful, but until we fix the broken traditions and discipline within our nation's police departments, it's an academic exercise at best.
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
I don't pity liberals at all. Things that are not human are not worth pity.
You, sir, have just achieved a new low in online political discourse. Anyone who spews any amount of bile, on Slashdot or in any other online forum, will be able to say when called on it, "Well, at least what I said wasn't as bad as what tjstork said!" -- and odds are they'll be right.
Um ... congratulations, I guess.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.