Court Rejects Warrantless GPS Tracking

The EFF is trumpeting a victory in a case in which it and the ACLU filed an amicus brief. "The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit today firmly rejected government claims that federal agents have an unfettered right to install Global Positioning System (GPS) location-tracking devices on anyone's car without a search warrant. ... The court agreed that such round-the-clock surveillance required a search warrant based on probable cause. ...the court noted: 'When it comes to privacy... the whole may be more revealing than its parts.'"

Comments

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[Garrett Fox]

You've noticed that Bush is out of office now, right? The new guy hasn't exactly shut down attempts to spy on us. He also supports Bush's warrantless wiretapping policy, one of Bush's most constitutionally questionable decisions.

Re:So just use cops

[AnonymousClown]

And they'll just tail you night and day, just as if they had a GPS on your car, and they won't need a warrant.

How is this about my online rights, exactly?

That takes manpower. That's not something you can do willy nilly. They'll be damn sure the person is a suspect before doing that.

Tackers can put be on a bunch of cars and automatically monitored for viewing later at cops leisure.

Meaning the GPS trackers can be used as a dragnet - let's put one on a bunch of folks' cars and see what we find regardless if they're a suspect or not. Cops then see what they think is suspicious and create a story around it (intentional or not) and now innocent guy is a suspect for a crime in the imaginations of the cops. Or innocent guy just happens to be at the wrong place at the wrong time and innocent guy is now in a bunch a legal trouble.