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Massachusetts Police Can't Place GPS On Autos Without Warrant
pickens writes "The EFF reports that the Supreme Court of Massachusetts has held in Commonwealth v. Connolly that police may not place GPS tracking devices on cars without first getting a warrant, reasoning that the installation of the GPS device was a seizure of the suspect's vehicle. Search and seizure is a legal procedure used in many civil law and common law legal systems whereby police or other authorities and their agents, who suspect that a crime has been committed, do a search of a person's property and confiscate any relevant evidence to the crime. According to the decision, 'when an electronic surveillance device is installed in a motor vehicle, be it a beeper, radio transmitter, or GPS device, the government's control and use of the defendant's vehicle to track its movements interferes with the defendant's interest in the vehicle notwithstanding that he maintains possession of it.' Although the case only protects drivers in Massachusetts, another recent state court case, People v. Weaver in the State of New York, also held that because modern GPS devices are far more powerful than beepers, police must get a warrant to use the trackers, even on cars and people traveling the public roads."
You cannot be forced to provide testimony or evidence against yourself. By tracking your vehicle, the state is forcing you to disclose your location at all times against your will, which is also a violation of the 5th.
This is the same reason why you cannot be forced to reveal the encryption keys on your computer by your own will.
The idea that somehow installing a tracking device interferes with the owner's use of the vehicle is preposterous. It is even more preposterous to make that claim if the owner has no knowledge of the installation of the device.
Neither is this a matter of illegal search and seizure, as the movements of a car can be tracked directly by having a car follow it everywhere. The tracking device does nothing more than make this an automated task.
The courts are wrong here and it does nothing but empower criminals and reduce the avenues of justice for the average citizen. This type of weakening of police powers is precisely why groups like the Yakuza are able to get away with so much in Japan. By skirting the very edges of the law, they are able to remain untouchable while those they terrorize are very likely to overstep their legal bounds due to the inability of the police to successfully remove the true criminals.
I don't support the EFF because I don't support this type of pseudo-YRO type of knee-jerk ideology. Pure ideology is fine, but when it runs afoul of reality it must bend.
Would this law come into play in the use of bait cars? On one side the police would be tracking a suspect via GPS installed on a car without a warrant. On the other side it would be the cops own vehicle instead of the suspects. Common sense tells me that bait cars would be perfectly fine, but I can still see a car thief using this ruling as a defense.
Why should the police be worried about getting a warrent? It is not as if officers are walking around with GPS devices to plant on suspects they suddenly see. No, these are planned operations with justification. Then why not get a warrent?
Police should not be wasting public resources nor possessing and exercising excessive discretion in "following hunches". Get the warrent. Its' easy.
Great, common sense wins for once. If the cops really need to track someone, they can still do so. It only takes a short period of time to ask a judge to sign a warrant. If a judge isn't willing to sign the warrant, then the cops have no case, simple as that. Lazy cops who would rather rely on technology instead of "police work" have no business being a cop.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
How is the GPS installation physically performed? Do they have a cop walk up to a car and clip it onto the bottom, all while hoping no one notices? What if the car is in a garage? What if you see them putting the GPS on your car, after they have obtained a warrant? Are you allowed to take it off?
I put the 't' in electrical engineering.
Here's a question though.... if the owner has no knowledge of the installation of such a monitoring or tracking device, but later discovers it, is he or she committing any crime by disposing of it on their own? Particularly considering the fact that if they did not know about it, they would not necessarily have any reason to realize why it was there in the first place, and in some cases not even realize exactly what it is.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
silly rabbit. Civil liberties are not for kids.
Really. Just take one look at the average school board handing out restrictions left and right to children.
Thou shalt wear the uniform approved by the state, thou shalt not disrupt class by having the wrong color hair.
Thou shalt not express wear the any symbol of a faith other than our own (crosses are ok, pentagrams, jewish and islamic symbols are not).
Thou shalt not question our authority to suppress you beneath our jack booted thugs.
Thou shalt not have tattoos or piercings, thou shalt not be gay, etc.
Children have no rights and no real representation, yet when they do work they are taxed, when they spend money they are taxed (in locations with sales tax).
Yet they can not vote, nor can they legally protest. This bothered me when I was young, and it still bothers me now that I am old.
Unfortunately I have no answers, no solutions.
Allowing young workers and buyers to go tax free would inevitably be exploited.
Allowing the vote is not a good idea due to their lack of knowledge and critical thinking (though the same could be said for many adults).