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

Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[commodore64_love]

..... and their plan to track us via our GPS or cellphones. Good job justices.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[ducomputergeek]

Just wait until more electric cars are on the road requiring some type of toll or other form of tracking so that people can be sent "use taxes/road taxes" since folks aren't fueling up with liquid fuels that are normally taxed for this purpose. Then if they want to know where you've been, it's just a sopeana away. Or more than likely, the laws will be written to where all law enforcement has to do is file a request of information.

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:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[MyFirstNameIsPaul]

Huh? Where are the Democrats fighting for privacy? This isn't aisle issue, it's an establishment issue. They all support warrantless wiretapping and every other form of privacy intrusion.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't use logic on these people. It'll fail every time.

The bottom line is that for as "liberal" as Obama is coming off it makes me wonder how fucked we really are. the Tea Party has too much NeoCon blood in it to bring the GOP back around. The love affair continues on with the current idiot in the Whitehouse... Civil rights abuses are going to be winked at for generations if something isn't done in the next 2 or 3 election cycles.

We're really fucked.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[Xaositecte]

I think the point is that, during the Bush years, democrats were loading bemoaning Bush's wiretapping plans and whatnot, with the implicit idea that they wouldn't have done the same in his place. Now that it's happening, they're revealed as a bunch of hypocrits.

Not that this surprises me in the slightest mind you.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[Hylandr]

Then ride a bicycle.

- Dan.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[rgviza]

They're still bamboozled and think that "change" meant change as in "different".

They still think that democrats are different than republicans in some way.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[Beelzebud]

And a similar point could be made of right-wingers. As long as it was a right-wing administration they were just fine with warrantless wiretapping. Now? They're outraged!

What it really exposes is that partisans are hypocrites regardless of party or ideology.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[blair1q]

I think your complaint is driven by paranoia.

First off, we're giving massive tax rebates for buying one of those, and for good reason. They eliminate almost all of the bad things that gasoline combustion causes. Which obviates the need for gasoline taxes, which will still apply to those who drive gasoline vehicles. We'll raise the taxes on them and force them into electric vehicles.

Second, it's much more efficient when the time comes simply to slap a bigger tax on registering a vehicle.

Third, it isn't illegal for the government to collect information about you. It's illegal for law enforcement to pry into information about you when it doesn't have probable cause that you are committing a crime. No matter who has the information or how it was collected.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[commodore64_love]

>>>You've noticed that Bush is out of office now, right?

Yeah I know. In fact the idea to track us via GPS or our cellphones didn't come from Bush. It came from Obama who is just as bad.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[Anonymous Coward]

Bush right wing? He's not as left as Obama but he's pretty close. You're just confused by the useless (R) next to his name on TV.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[Anonymous Coward]

it's just a sopeana away.

Look, it's subpoena...or if you insist on using the Americanized form which is so ugly that most Americans don't even use it, subpena.

Sopeana sounds like a Mexican pastry.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[Beelzebud]

Yeah Bush is a right-winger. The idea that bush is 'to the left' or a 'liberal' is an invention of other right wingers as a way to excuse what they supported for 8 years.

Look at the policies Bush supported and tell me with a straight face that any of it was liberal, or left wing. Good luck.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[blair1q]

Don't confuse what Obama is doing with what Bush did.

Bush committed a crime by suborning those illegal wiretaps.

Obama is trying to avoid having to prosecute Bush and his administration for that crime, and to avoid having the government sued over what Bush did.

But when it comes right down to it, and he can't avoid it, that's what will happen. And it won't be Obama's fault.

Enjoy your healthcare.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[BassMan449]

Gas taxes have nothing to do with "the bad things" about gasoline. Gas taxes are what is used to maintain the roads. A large part of the states Transportation budget comes from the revenue collected through gas taxes.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm with you 100%

If Bush has a D after his name, yet did everything exactly the same, they would be calling him FDR.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

WHOOSH

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[gandhi_2]

I'm right wing and I was outraged at most of Bushes stuff.

I spoke up plenty.

Who the fuck are you to be talking shit? You don't know the difference between neo-conservatism and conservatism.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[AltairDusk]

I don't think you understand what the gas tax is used for. It is there to help pay for the maintenance of the roads and highway system, electric cars do not obviate the need for road maintenance. Hijacking it to push a public policy agenda is a mistake I'm not going to get into here (too far off topic). Increasing the registration tax to cover the maintenance needs places a greater portion of the burden on those who don't drive very far compared to the current method, the gas tax is not perfect for this either but those who use the roads more do pay more on average.

As far as the government holding information about you, remember that knowledge can just as easily be used to your detriment as it can to your benefit. As history shows us, trusting the government to always do the right thing doesn't tend to work out so well.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why when they asked me this in the survey I said, 'mileage tax' (based on odometer readings every year or so). I can see how taxing based on using certain roads would be an advantage, but is way to open to this kind of abuse.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[g0bshiTe]

You had me up until your last argument contradicted itself, otherwise you have very valid points.

Let's say that the government is collecting data on you. They know you bought a huge amount of diesel fuel, say you have some land and had a stump you were going to burn out. A few days later you purchase a large amout of fertilizer for revamping your garden or yard. You don't think some branch of law enforcement would knock on your door?

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[g0bshiTe]

+5 Funny AC for making a sopapilla pun.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[ducomputergeek]

Think about it. Right now people are taxed @ ~$.20 - $.30 cents a gallon in fuel taxes that in most states is already figured into the list price of the gas at pump. And gasoline taxes don't go to pay for cleaning up the environment. They go to building/maintaining roads (or at least that what the politicos say...whether it does or not is another debate)

Very few people think about the fact that the gallon of gas is really $2.30 plus $.25 in tax. No, they just see $2.55, pump and go. The cost of the tax is hidden to most peoples eyes. So they pay $3 - $5 every time they fill up their tank in taxes x number of times per month without even thinking about it. Probably amounts to $700 - $1000 per driver per year depending on the type of car and number of miles driven.

Well if suddenly you're asking those people to fork over $1000 at one time when they go to register the car, you're going to really piss people off when they see it in one lump sum. Voters won't go for it because suddenly they see it as another big chunk of tax. Yes, they were paying about the same before, but at $5 a pop, they never paid any attention to it before. But when you have to write a check for 4 figures, suddenly people notice.

Hence, if you replace that fuel tax with a "road use tax" via tolls or GPS tracking of how much you drove and split those bills up into a monthly tab at $30 - $50 per month, then people once again start to consider a monthly bill just like their utilities, cell phone, etc. and less as a "tax". Plus this method also gives the government the ability to place a tracking device on your car. The republican voting base likes it because it can be used to track "evil people" (Terrorist/Gangs/Drug Dealers/Child Molesters/Commies/whomeverisevilatthemomet). The Democratic base likes it because it can be used to tax people, especially people driving a lot of miles. Because those electric cars are going to be powered predominately by coal for the next 20 - 25 years.

I volunteered in college for a couple state reps/senators and a US congressmen. And we were having this very same discussion only replace electric cars with natural gas powered cars back then. They did pass a "a natural gas powered car costs you $600 per year to register." Even that was enough of a turn off to keep all but the proponents of such technology from converting their vehicle to propane/LNG.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[h4rr4r]

Why not just tax the odometer mileage when you do the registration?

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[digitig]

Left and right are relative positions. There is no objective centre. Rather, pretty much everybody considers themselves central, moderate, and judges everybody else relative to that. From where the AC is sitting, Bush might well have been left-wing. We all pretty much know where Bush was politically, so the posting actually tells us about the AC's position.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[rickb928]

This isn't hard to do with existing technology, GPS not required. Just require drivers to purchase those transmitters and put up readers along the road. Like a toll, it will tell you who drove by what.

In Maine, it was called TransPass for a while now EasyPass which works all the way down to Florida, with some pockets of resistance here and there.

Yes, as alternative fuel cars proliferate, the gas tax won't work. I predict that the government will increasingly tax truckers first, for various reasons. Then the excise tax on alt fuel cars will skyrocket, and eventually you will report your odometer reading and calculate a tax based on that. If you underreport the odometer, you will pay for it when you sell the vehicle. If you scrap the vehicle, you will pay then, or when you buy a replacement. Makes sense, as gas tax is essentially a tax on mileage, though I pay more for my Explorer than you do for your Prius, and I'm not sure the 'damage' I do to the roads is proportionally worse than what you do. Truckers have always paid higher fuel taxes on that premise alone.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[h4rr4r]

Simple registration tax cost based on odometer mileage solves this problem.

Increasing gasoline taxes to reflect its externalities is as close to a free market solution as we can realistically get.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[rickb928]

The Obama administration is continuing the practices. Stop apologizing for them. It is not necessary.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[h4rr4r]

Registration can easily be taxed monthly with some months using estimates and other months requiring an odometer reading which is verified come inspection time. Simple enough and no $1000 lump sum fees.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[rickb928]

And Obama's policy on wiretaps and surveillance is left-wing? There's not a nickel's worth difference between them. this is not Left v Right, Republicans v Democrats, it is Us v Them.

You're losing this argument.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[h4rr4r]

FDR's top marginal rate, 94% on all income over $200,000, was cut to 86.45%, does that sound like W or any recent president?

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[Beelzebud]

It's funny. Lately I've heard more and more conservatives make the claim that they were pissed off with Bush, and outraged at what he did, back when he was president. Yet I still retain a memory, and I lived through the Bush administration. Where were you guys when it mattered?

You might be in that 1% group of conservatives that were outraged, but as a majority, right wingers went along with everything Bush did. Bush had screwed up enough by 2004 that he deserved to be voted out, and yet there was no big counter movement in conservative circles against him. I don't remember any tea-party railing against his economically devastating policies.

You should also settle down about people "talking shit" (as if my comment was directed right at you), as you follow it up with a lazy insult pointed directly at me.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[Anonymous Coward]

Just like members of the right wing of the Republican party has suddenly become fiscal conservatives....
It has nothing to do with being fiscal conservatives, it has to do with where all the borrowed money is being laundered - er, I mean spent.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[h4rr4r]

They are both far right, corporatist is what they are. It is a fringe rightist movement that seeks to blend the corporation and the state into one device ruled for the profit of the wealthy.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[rickb928]

Yes. Remember, 'neocon' is a term invented by a leftist, and as a perjorative. No one I consider a Conservative uses that term in any other fashion, and certainly not about themselves. The Left and the uncommitted use it.

You can try and deny it, but the truth is obvious for anyone who cares to look into it. It is a common political tactic to try and define your opposition in either the least-favorable light, or into an untenable position. All sides use it.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[Beelzebud]

Obama is proving to be another center-right Democrat. It amuses me hearing Republicans call him a socialist, when his policies look more like what Reagan enacted. His "evil socialist" healthcare plan is basically the Republican health care plan from 1994, that they introduced to counter Clinton's plan.

I'm not sure how I'm losing an argument. I never claimed Obama was a liberal, or left wing... What I did state was that Bush was a right-winger, which he is.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[Beelzebud]

I don't disagree with that assessment. I slammed Bush, so ppl immediately assume I'm a Democratic fanboy. The Republicans and Democrats are both corporatist parties. In other words, fascist. By that I take the meaning that Mussolini gave for fascism: The merging of state and corporate power.

Right now we have no viable alternative. The Teabaggers aren't it. Most of those people are just Republican activists trying to push us even further to the right.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[mrchaotica]

...some type of toll or other form of tracking so that people can be sent "use taxes/road taxes"...

You know what's really asinine about that kind of idea? You could just use the fucking odometer to measure usage and it'd work just fine!

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[postbigbang]

New Defcon contest: odometer hacks. Plug into the little interface jack under your dash, and viola! Abatement!

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[Sloppy]

Oh, it's an aisle issue. It's just that the people just haven't elected anyone to stand in their aisle.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[mrchaotica]

I really wish people would start to understand that there's more than one dimension to politics. Who the fuck cares about imaginary "left vs. right" differences; the real concern is that both parties are skewed way too far towards authoritarianism!

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[PReDiToR]

Then you will have the latest .torrent being the schematics and workarounds for rolling the clock back on the latest Prius or whatever car is de jour at the time.

Reading the clock on a car is so unreliable that the MOT (roadworthiness test in the UK) certificate has the mileage on it, the V5 (log book or "pink slip") has a section where you can fill in the mileage at sale/transfer of ownership on it.

Trusting tax collection to a device owned and operated, maintained and presented by the person paying tax is just another recipe for tax evasion.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[ooshna]

Yeah if anything Obama is doing nothing but continuing the Bush years

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[MyFirstNameIsPaul]

Right now we have no viable alternative. The Teabaggers aren't it. Most of those people are just Republican activists trying to push us even further to the right.

Sadly, I have to agree. My local tea party has remained loyal to the original concept of the modern tea parties, which is just to protest government intrusion in general, but many of the larger ones have become extensions of the neocons. Basically, if they create a formal organization or elect a leadership, they're in opposition to the spirit of tea parties. Without any formal leadership, the opportunity for corruption is practically nil; with leadership, practically guaranteed.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[operagost]

The Republican plan was wrong then, and the Democratic plan is wrong now.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[element-o.p.]

So if I understand you correctly, you are saying that covering up for someone who did something illegal and failing to reverse the illegal policy is less evil than creating the illegal policy in the first place? I'm not so sure I agree with you there*.

* I'm not saying Obama's policies are more evil than Bush's, but IMHO, continuing an illegal policy simply because you didn't create it is no less evil -- or at best, is only slightly less evil -- than putting such a policy in place.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[Anonymous Coward]

Ask yourself about all those things 'democrats' have passed lately. When (not if there will be at some future point) there is a different set of people running the show do you trust them?

What can be a 'good power' today can become a corrupt one tomorrow. Do you seriously trust all groups to deal with power in an evenhanded way? This is why you should side with whatever group is against adding more power and scope to the government.

Also 'Enjoy your healthcare' What the extra 800 a month I am going to be paying ontop of my 500 a month insurance premiums? Then on top of the other 13% that I give to the gov already for SS/FICA. Or the fact that I am now required by law to pay a new tax? Yeah I am really going to enjoy giving more money to doctors who drive around in m3 BMW's. For that is what we are arguing about here paying those already rich dudes MORE money. All that and I end up with about the same level of service I have now (oh gooooodie). Mandatory insurance requirements were what got us into this mess in the first place. You somehow think more requirements is going to get us out? Also any bets on how long before that money is 'raided' to pay for some other program then the original one is underfunded? I give it 10 years (and it will be, as many programs are woefully underfunded). Take your check then look at the tax numbers on there and add it up. Then multiply it by half of the number of people in your city. You will then get a scope of they amount of money the government is playing with and saying 'they dont have enough'. Yeah that much... about every other week. Then think about this they spent it so fast they cant even cover what they got getting that amount in.

You should fight tooth and nail to remove powers from the gov not pile them on because you like the current crop of politicos. What happens when the group you dont like is in power? Bitch and moan?

Did Bush overstep his powers? Probably. Then Obama has his back and you support him on this? He *PROMISED* 'change' but instead went on to do more of the same in even more grandiose style. That *WILL* come back to haunt him. People thought they were electing a moderate who would fix things. Instead it was another partisan politico with a slick campaign and is now spending their great grand childs retirement fund. A day of reckoning is coming for the US government when its money is not worth the paper its printed on.

Honestly, what you are seeing coming out of the white house is not leadership right now but damage control. Notice how many things coming out of there are what 'the previous guys did' but not what they are doing? You will see that all the way up until elections in November. They realize how they were elected by 'not being Bush'. That will only go so far. They are trying to catch that lightning bolt again. But people are starting to think 'hey were is that change thought things were supposed to get better'... The house and the senate are up for grabs and Obama knows it. He has been a bully up until now instead of someone bringing change. He will need to learn as Bush and Clinton before him you need to work with us.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[h4rr4r]

How is that different from now?
Odometer hacking would let you increase the value of a car far more than it would let you avoid taxes.

It would also still be a crime.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[h4rr4r]

Odometer tampering would be far more valuable for the purpose of selling a used car. Yet, it seems it rarely occurs.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[h4rr4r]

No, it is simply a shortening of neoconservative. A political philosophy some might not agree with but certainly not solely a pejorative.

You seem to try to use left/leftist in a similar manner without really understanding what you are saying.

I would suggest you remove the log in your eye before attempting to address the speck in they eye of others.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[element-o.p.]

I disagree.

I was conservative until 2004, although I started having misgivings about the Republican party back when Bush Sr. was in office, and changed my official party affiliation from "Republican" to "undeclared". Now that I've established my political preferences (i.e., I'm anything but leftist), let me say that I seriously dislike the modern neocon Republican party.

I always understood the Republicans to be in favor of limited Federal government, small budget, strong state's rights, etc. The modern Republican party is anything but. The last eight years of Republican government have been nothing but a mad power-grab that disillusioned enough people to put Obama and a Democratic Congress in power. Now that they've been in place for two years, what do we have? More of the same (surprise, surprise).

As far as I can tell, the only big difference between the two parties is who pays the campaign finances. With the Republicans, it's the big corporations. With the Democrats, it's the unions. As far as policies, it's pretty much just a matter of "family values" (like abortion and gay rights), gun control and social programs. Republicans tend towards fascism (they seem to want to control what people can and can't do), but are strongly in favor of gun rights, and want to spend less money on social programs. Democrats tend to be more liberal (no pun intended) on what individuals can and can't do, would love to see the U.S. disarmed and want to spend more money on social programs. Ultimately, however, it's pretty much like AVP -- no matter who wins, we (the people) lose.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[moortak]

All? Dennis Kucinich would beg to differ.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[jafiwam]

You talk like the average glenn beck sperm swallowing douchebag. Without further evidence, I can only conclude you are also a liar. "Spoke up plenty". Hah. Slashdot records every comment ever posted, go dig out some of this "spoke up". Until then, you are a liar.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[blair1q]

No, they are not.

They are restricting their request to the public portion of internet communications. The routing information, not the payload data. The envelope, not the content.

They may or may not get that. It's reasonable to request it. You can encrypt everything else if you want it to be private, but you yourself have to disclose the addressing information to the machinery, and the machinery is considered public. There is no doctor-patient privilege between you and your ISP.

If you don't like the law, just say it. Don't pretend it's one party's fault just because you don't like that party.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[blair1q]

He's not continuing the policy, and he's certainly not covering anything up.

He's defending the nation in a legal matter. As the Chief Executive and the person who appoints the Attorney General, that's his job. Unfortunately, it's a hateful legal matter left behind by a criminal administration. I'd prefer that his first order in office were to prosecute every one of them.

I don't know why he didn't, but as he's a reasonable person and his enemies are not, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[bieber]

Sounds like a great way to ensure that everyone makes sure their car gets "stolen" or "destroyed" rather than selling or junking it. Or make odometer hacking more common...

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[blair1q]

You watche too much Fox News.

Troll around in here for awhile, then come back and try to tell me it's the same-old, same-old:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[gandhi_2]

So in your mind, words without prefixes are just they same word WITH prefixes, just shortened?

The conservatism and neoconservatism are not the same. Liberalism and paleoliberalism are not the same thing.

Bush was not a conservative.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[DragonWriter]

Just wait until more electric cars are on the road requiring some type of toll or other form of tracking so that people can be sent "use taxes/road taxes" since folks aren't fueling up with liquid fuels that are normally taxed for this purpose.

Electric cars don't require that. Many states already require periodic license fees and some form of periodic inspection for vehicles licensed for use on public roads. All you have to do to charge use taxes on electric (or, for that many, any other) vehicles when such a framework exists is include odometer checks in those inspections and charge (some amount) * (mileage since last inspection) as part of the registration fee.

Prevalence of electric cars may be used as an excuse for toll roads and, expedience in toll collection may be used to justify electronic monitoring devices, but there is a difference between making something necessary and providing an excuse or justification.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[gandhi_2]

Cryassing about Bush on slashdot isn't exactly a sign of courage.

Telling all your fellow Utahn's that most of Bush's Patriot act was the antithesis of Liberty and Limited Governance...which i did repeatedly...is a little bit better.

Constantly having to tell my friends they totally miss the core of the Net Neutrality issue (because Limbaugh has them all fucked up on it)....oh jeez.

Being the only person in my workplaces who: argues things like AGW is at least possible; encourages recycling and xeriscaping; and doesn't have 8 kids? All this and I still believe in limited government and the right of property? I'd really like to choke the ever-living shit out of you.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[maztuhblastah]

So your defense of the current administration's invasive, abusive spying is... that Obama wants to protect criminals?

Really? Your justification an illegal action is that it's to prevent someone else to from being tried for doing the same thing?

Wow.

And as for you smart-ass comment about health care: yes, I shall. I will enjoy my private health care: first-dollar coverage with no co-pay and no lifetime maximum, provided by my employer at no cost to me. A good thing too, since getting insurance on my own -- even *with* the new "Obamacare" stipulations (let's not pretend it's a full overhaul) -- would cost several hundred dollars per month for incomplete coverage... that is, of course, assuming that I could find an insurer willing to take me on at a feasible rate, given my existing health history. Not to worry though, because at least we've got the public option that Obama promised!

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[h4rr4r]

You need reading lessons, I said no such thing. I merely stated it was not a pejorative and that neocon was a shortening of neoconservative.

No he was not, he is/was a corporatist just like our current president. W was also a neoconservative like his daddy.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[Wyatt Earp]

Did George W Bush commit a crime?

He has not been charged, tried or convicted for illegal wiretaps, so it can't be said that he "committed a crime". The only president since 1975 to stand trial was Bill Clinton.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[Anonymous Coward]

You still need to go to some kind of pump to fill up with Natural Gas, right? So do the same thing at those pumps that you do now. Or were the people trying to popularizing these thinking you'd only fill up at your home Natural Gas connection, and nowhere else.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[number11]

Once they've been given power, no pol nor cop is ever going to want to give it back. For purposes of covering their asses, if nothing else. "What if we gave that power back, and then something happened? We'd be blamed." And most of the public is too cowed to demand it, because "it's for our safety". (So there aren't many complaints even about security theatre like scanners that make and retain nude images of travelers, or rules that won't let them take nail files onto planes.) That's why it's so very very important not to let them have that power in the first place.

It was the Bush administration's goal to vastly increase their control over the public, and they did. The Dems let them do it because the Dems were, by and large, too spineless to oppose it. I don't think Obama would have sought those powers, but don't look for him to be so superhuman as to throw them away now that he's got them.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[Wyatt Earp]

No, Obama's policies are not Reagan like.

From Wiki

Domestic policies
Federalism, and passed policies to encourage development of private business, routinely criticizing and defunding the public sector. He greatly accelerated the nation's War on Drugs. His policies put forth the largest tax cut in American history

Foreign policies
The United States also offered financial and logistics support to the right wing insurgencies in central Europe and took an increasingly hard line against socialist and communist governments in Afghanistan, Angola, Cambodia, and Nicaragua. The U.S. provided overt and covert aid to democratic guerrillas and resistance movements in an effort to "rollback" Soviet-backed communist governments in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

The only similarities there are Federalism.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[Anonymous Coward]

@blair There is so much wrong with your post, That I can't even begin to detail it. Suffice it to say, that you, Sir, are a fucking idiot.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[element-o.p.]

He's not continuing the policy, and he's certainly not covering anything up.

Shortly before taking office but after being elected president, he voted to provide telco immunity, despite promising to vote *against* that bill. That's continuing the policy. Furthermore, after being elected, he refused to release documentation about the warrantless wire tapping. That's covering up.

He's defending the nation in a legal matter. As the Chief Executive and the person who appoints the Attorney General, that's his job.

Ummm, no. As Chief Executive, he is sworn to uphold the Constitution. By continuing the policy, covering it up, and failing to prosecute those who abused their authority in enacting the policy, he is most definitely *NOT* doing his job.

Unfortunately, it's a hateful legal matter left behind by a criminal administration.

If it was truly a criminal administration -- and mind you, I agree it was -- then he is bound by oath to do exactly that. If he fails to prosecute the previous administration, then he is implicitly giving his approval to those crimes.

I'd prefer that his first order in office were to prosecute every one of them.

Well, we are in agreement here :)

...as he's a reasonable person...

I think you are using your conclusion to prove your assumptions here. I've seen nothing to suggest that Obama is a reasonable person. From my perspective, he is every bit as corrupt and partisan as his predecessor. The only difference I see between Bush and Obama is to whom he is beholden (and a little bit of variance in social policies). That hardly makes Obama and his cronies more "reasonable" than Bush and his cronies were

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[Hatta]

Don't confuse what Obama is doing with what Bush did.

Bush committed a crime by suborning those illegal wiretaps.

And Obama is continuing the illegal wiretaps. "Bush did it first" is not a defense.

Obama is trying to avoid having to prosecute Bush and his administration for that crime, and to avoid having the government sued over what Bush did.

By digging the hole deeper? That may or may not be his intent. Either way it's no less contemptible.

But when it comes right down to it, and he can't avoid it, that's what will happen.

You're living in a dream world. Nobody is going to be prosecuted for the crimes of the Bush administration.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[MyFirstNameIsPaul]

And so does Ron Paul, but they are only two.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[blair1q]

"Gas taxes have nothing to do with "the bad things" about gasoline."

I didn't say they did, though actually, they do, because those taxes are also used to implement pollution controls and monitor compliance, etc.

But what I said was, we're giving tax rebates to buyers of electric vehicles because the vehicles eliminate most of the bad stuff about gasoline: the polluting fumes, the foreign dependency, the dangerous production system, the onerous distribution system, the chemical dangers, etc. Electricity isn't exactly zero-carbon-footprint or perfectly safe, but it's a whack better than the flammable poison we have to buy from people we currently call our enemies and then pump into the air half-burned.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[blair1q]

Index the registration tax to odometer reading and vehicle gross weight.

Case closed.

Stop being paranoid.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[blair1q]

No, it didn't. It wasn't about what the government could do with the info, it was about what it could legally do with the info.

And I don't mind law enforcement knocking on the door of people who atypically amass explosive components. Those are the people they should be asking questions. And the more times it's unnecessary the better.

I would mind a lot if they knocked-IN my door for that. But to do that they need a warrant. Which moots all of these arguments, since with a warrant they can tap your phones, bug your car, install cameras in your bathroom, etc., etc. And to get a warrant they need a little more than a couple of receipts; they need to show probable cause, and just possessing those things isn't probable cause.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[blair1q]

Here's a clue for you:

If the 30-cent tax went away, the price wouldn't drop by 30 cents.

There's a reason gasoline is one of the most heavily taxed commodities yet the oil companies are the most profitable in history.

And there are tax stickers all over the pump. Everyone sees them all the time. The number who bleat about them is way more than "very few".

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[h4rr4r]

You might want to move. If you do not like living with the religious crazies Utah is not for you.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[blair1q]

Trusting tax collection to a device owned and operated, maintained and presented by the person paying tax is just another recipe for tax evasion.

Our entire tax collection system is "voluntary" in the sense that the taxpayer is the one responsible for accurately reporting their data.

For corporate-paid income, there's another system for reporting it, but that's for the benefit of the corporation, who are legally allowed to deduct employee salaries. Banks do the same, for the same reason. The IRS doesn't have a means of extracting information about your cashflows unless it's something the entity collecting it has to do to report their own taxes.

And it's only one number on your form. So the revenoors rely on your integrity for about 99% of the information it has on you.

Adding this won't change that much.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[blair1q]

Just when did I piss on your shoes?

And can I do it again some time?

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[commodore64_love]

If Obama's such a great fuck, why did he sign the Patriot Renewal Act? He should have vetoed it and proven he was better.

Except of course Obama is as big of a tyrant as that bitch Bush was.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[StopKoolaidPoliticsT]

It's funny. Lately I've heard more and more conservatives make the claim that they were pissed off with Bush, and outraged at what he did, back when he was president. Yet I still retain a memory, and I lived through the Bush administration. Where were you guys when it mattered?

Conservatives (note, conservatives and Republicans are not the same thing, especially not the Republican leadership) disagreed with GWB on different issues than those on the left did. Conservatives opposed amnesty for illegal aliens despite the attempts to push it by Bush/McCain/Graham and were frustrated by his lack of effort to secure the borders and ports, fought back on the Harriet Miers SCOTUS nomination and caused him to withdraw it, opposed Medicare D (lefties opposed it because they wanted the credit for passing it, conservatives opposed it because they don't support the expansion of the federal government), strongly opposed TARP and all of the bailouts, opposed No Child Left Behind (written by Ted Kennedy btw) because of federal power expansion over local school boards, opposed the handling of Iraq after the military victory even though many supported the initial goal, opposed the creation of the DHS and the federalization of the TSA, etc. Do I need to go through and get links, or can you google those if you dispute them?

You might be in that 1% group of conservatives that were outraged, but as a majority, right wingers went along with everything Bush did. Bush had screwed up enough by 2004 that he deserved to be voted out, and yet there was no big counter movement in conservative circles against him.

There was a TON of disagreement on the right with Bush, the left just refused to see it because they were too busy screaming and shouting about other things to notice. And yeah, in 2004, conservatives supported Bush. Sitting Presidents tend to be renominated by their party and, what were conservatives going to do, vote for the complete opposite of what they believe by voting for Kerry? They held their nose and voted for the least worst option of the two. Had the Democrats fielded someone the conservatives could stomach, it's possible that they could have won in a landslide. Instead, they picked a guy nobody was particularly excited about.

I don't remember any tea-party railing against his economically devastating policies.

The spending? Conservatives complained. TARP and the bailouts, conservatives complained. Expansion of the CRA, conservatives complained.

However, if you're calling tax cuts "devastating," conservatives and you have a different view of economics, whereby they don't believe economics isn't a zero-sum game, that the Laffer Curve shows that cutting tax rates may produce higher revenues through GDP growth if there is too much tax (and they did, Bush and the Congress just spent faster than revenues grew), etc. You might as well be debating emacs/vi or gpl/bsd because Keynesians, Chicagoans (economics) and Austrians (economics) are never going to see eye to eye.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[interkin3tic]

Gas taxes are what is used to maintain the roads. A large part of the states Transportation budget comes from the revenue collected through gas taxes.

If we go with hydrogen fuels, then obviously a tax on fuel will still be possible, and would be much easier than GPS for everyone. If we go with electric cars, then increased license and registration, increased sales tax on cars, and increased other taxes would still be an easier path to covering those expenses than GPS. If for some reason we are absolutely sold on sticking with "You pay for exactly how much you drive," I'd expect some type of correspondence with your odometer, not telling them your position at all times.

Installing a GPS in everyone's car is the most complicated and expensive way of measuring how much one has used the roads and would face significant public opposition. Politicians usually take the path of least resistance. I think it's unlikely GPS will be trotted out as a widespread policy.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[Uberbah]

If the guy doesn't have qualms calling you, a U.S. citizen, a terrorist and placing you on a CIA hit list, and then try to deny your father the right to hire an attorney on your behalf, somehow I doubt he's going to think twice about tapping your phone without a warrant.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[moortak]

I went with the Democrat, because you mentioned them specifically. There's also Barbara Lee of California. I 'm not saying the Democrats are doing well on this issue, I just take issue with the word All. There are differences among congresspeople and they should be acknowledged when present.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[kwbauer]

Oh yeah, Obamacare was definitely the path of least resistance.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[Anonymous Coward]

You make the false assumption that Republicans are right wing, when in fact they are left of center themselves.. They only LOOK right wing in comparison to the Democrats. Which is why both have no problem with trampling all over your few remaining rights.

Anyway, doesn't the proliferation of GPS (and OnStar-like service) equipped vehicles negate the need for whichever alphabet soup government agency to plant a separate device? Years ago the Feds could and did secretly enable cellphone mics to listen in on mobsters, do you really think they cant get a car to tattle on its owner?
1. Secretly subsidize "safety devices" for automobiles that are really small powerful computers.
2. Cause said car to "require" service at a GM (government motors) dealer.
3.??
4. Arrest owner based on data collected.
5. No Profit, go directly to jail.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[Anonymous Coward]

One would think that they would go with the system which is becoming more prevalent in australian cities (for toll roads) where cars are tracked by camera and numberplates are looked up.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[MyFirstNameIsPaul]

Actually, I'm going refute your claim. Kucinich and Lee both voted for the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which excepts the SEC from FOIA requests.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really, just have them take a portion of the taxes they get from the electrical company and use it for the roads instead.
Nothing needs to be raised at all.

You buy an electrical car == You use more electricity == Your electrical bill goes up == You pay more in taxes on your electical bill.

Now the part they will have to pinpoint is what percentage of the taxes they generate from the electricity will be used for the roads.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[Anonymous Coward]

umm, neither of them are left-wing parties, they are Right-Wing and extreme far Right Wing.

What we the US government actually needs is a left wing party, or even better, the removal of party affiliation within governments entirely.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[moortak]

Protecting one governmental organization from FOIA requests isn't related to privacy questions, the topic at hand. They have both voted against things like the patriot act and FISA expansions.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[MyFirstNameIsPaul]

Okay, there is a difference between transparency and privacy, I'll give you that. Now how about the Affordable Care Act? It requires all medical records to be kept in a centralized database run by the Federal Government. Does that equate to privacy failure? I realize not a direct attack on privacy, but the Government is awful about protecting records. I'm one of the veterans who received a letter from the Veterans Administration telling me that my medical records were insecure, then made secure again, without ever providing me with a solid explanation as to what happened and what steps were taken to prevent the same thing from happening again.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[moortak]

I'm not saying they are perfect, just that there are Democrats fighting for privacy. Bills like the Affordable Care Act aren't about a single issue like your health records, but hit a bunch of different points. Sometimes one priority wins out over another it doesn't mean that privacy is unimportant.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[MyFirstNameIsPaul]

I would argue that it does mean privacy is unimportant. They could easily have left that out of the bill. Whatever their goal is can be accomplished without requiring every medical decision made by a doctor to be uploaded to a central server.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[moortak]

Neither of the two I've mentioned wrote the bill in question, so they didn't get to leave that part out. They came around to it on the balance of the whole package.

Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans

[alexo]

He's defending the nation in a legal matter.

Government != Nation.
Administration != Nation.

So just use cops

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

Re:So just use cops

[h4rr4r]

Thus increasing the cost, meaning they won't do it.

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.

Re:So just use cops

[mldi]

1) You can lose the cops
2) Cops need to sleep
3) There's not a detailed electronic record of every movement
4) Not cost effective
5) Cops hate it

It's quite a bit different. Not to mention that cops tailing your car doesn't fall under the category of "electronic surveillance", and so it isn't part of the slippery slope.

Re:So just use cops

[scorp1us]

One of the assumptions we deal with, or rather fail to deal with, is we assume the government has "better things to do". We may be small fry, but there is an enabling going on. You're only small fry until you've pissed someone off for whatever lawful reason. (Disagreements happen even when both parties are being lawful).

Out west, they think "Washington is so far away" but really they aren't anymore.
We think GPS-tracking is based on public information....

But all these ideas are based on the assumption that the government has better people to go after. Having a limited resource like man power, assures the biggest offenders are handled first, and on down the line to the jay-walker. But as computers can work 24/7/365, and never forgets, and technology gets cheaper, the force of the law gets more prevalent.

Given enough information, you can identify a person at a crosswalk, using the intersection cameras and mail them a fine. If it gets in the mail soon enough, it'll be at their house before they get home.

So historically speaking there is a notion of "scope" or "reach" (as typified by "long arm of the law"). As we get more technology, it becomes easier to become a victim of government. Even if they don't act on what they know about you (cost-benefit) they can still use it at a later date. Most of us I am sure have some unflattering FBI files, collected opportunistically. Drunken Facebook postings and blog posts, its all there to be compiled and added to your dossier...

Re:So just use cops

[PinkyGigglebrain]

I think there are two other factors to consider as well that make GPS tracking bad.

A GPS would be able to track you while on private property, a ranch maybe, a couple of agents couldn't do that so in such a case a GPS is more invasive of a person privacy.

Another factor is if someone else drove the car that had the GPS attached, they would be tracked even though they are not "a person of interest". This would be problematic if you tried to use a GPS track of someones car to place a specific person at a location at any time.

In regards to Police, in their minds EVERYONE is guilty of something and its their job to catch you, and they feel its alright to use every trick in the book to get you to say something they can use against you.

Remember its "Anything you say can and will be used used against you".

Interesting to Watch.

Re:So just use cops

[Anonymous Coward]

How is this about my online rights, exactly?

It's called "Your Rights Online", not "Your Online Rights". There is a reason for that, and that reason is plain to anyone who is not savagely retarded.

Re:So just use cops

[Attila Dimedici]

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.

You are right, but that means they need enough cops in order to get 24/7 coverage. Which means that a single cop who is looking to get something on me for some personal grudge can't do it all on his own, he has to get someone far enough up the chain of command to authorize all that manpower involved. Not only that, that much expenditure of manpower over any length of time is going to be noticed by the politicians holding the purse strings. Yes, it is still possible for a person in the right place to abuse the system to persecute thier enemies, but it reduces the number of people who are in that position.

Re:So just use cops

[AhabTheArab]

Given enough information, you can identify a person at a crosswalk, using the intersection cameras and mail them a fine. If it gets in the mail soon enough, it'll be at their house before they get home

Why bother with mail at that point? Modify already existing red light cameras to be able to view crossing pedestrians. When jay walking or some other crime is detected, automatically cross reference with facial recognition databases and email the offender a notification to pay a civil fine before they're even done crossing the street.

No, I'm not saying this will be happening in the near future or that anybody within government is trying to make this happen now, I'm simply stating the possibility of it. And as you said, the more ubiquitous the enabling technology becomes, the more likely it will be implemented (for your safety of course).

Re:So just use cops

[element-o.p.]

"Oh, I'm sorry, officer. The e-mail was caught in my spam filter!" Since I run my own mail server, no one will be able to prove otherwise.

Re:So just use cops

[akgooseman]

Why bother with email? A civil fine can be automatically withdrawn directly from a bank account, credit or debit card. Much more convenient for everyone this way.

Re:So just use cops

[Anonymous Coward]

WRONG!

News affecting your ability to live as a free, responsible person online belongs in the Your Rights Online (YRO) section.

I just utterly and completely destroyed you. Didn't mean to humiliate you like this, but you had it coming.

Game over, I win, 1-0.

Re:So just use cops

[forkazoo]

So historically speaking there is a notion of "scope" or "reach" (as typified by "long arm of the law"). As we get more technology, it becomes easier to become a victim of government. Even if they don't act on what they know about you (cost-benefit) they can still use it at a later date. Most of us I am sure have some unflattering FBI files, collected opportunistically. Drunken Facebook postings and blog posts, its all there to be compiled and added to your dossier...

Whenever there is a scope, there is scope-creep.

It's as true in government as it is with development. The general rule of thumb is that any branch of government will eventually grow until it can send mail... Or something like that.

Re:So just use cops

[sjames]

That's a key point. If we actually had perfect law enforcement we would either drop a great many laws or society would rip itself apart. We currently rely on the amount of work involved in law enforcement to act as a sort of natural prioritizer to make police go after what matters and skip the small stuff. Needless to say it's far from perfect, but it is at least something. We used to also rely on a sense of proportion in law enforcement and prosecution, but that's already out the window.

Re:So just use cops

[sumdumass]

You also forgot that with cops following your car, when your at the stop light on the corner where the 7-11 is being robbed, they are going to see that you are not involved in the robber where a GPS monitor would/could be used to indicate you as the getaway driver or something.

Re:So just use cops

[winwar]

"I think there are two other factors to consider as well that make GPS tracking bad.

A GPS would be able to track you while on private property, a ranch maybe, a couple of agents couldn't do that so in such a case a GPS is more invasive of a person privacy."

Which is also why this ruling doesn't really mean a whole lot. It's certainly good but people miss the elephant in the room.

Cell phones. Many have GPS capabilities. Those that don't still provide location information. Most people have them and carry them. And the companies will provide that information to the police without much resistance. So, yes, police may not be able to plant a GPS on your car without a warrant. But you may be willingly carrying one on your person. And its information may not be protected....

Re:So just use cops

[PinkyGigglebrain]

Cell phones. Many have GPS capabilities.

You make an excellent point.

We can hope that this ruling will make some progress towards requiring a warrant to get GPS/location information from anyone. And once that requirement is in place it might only be a short time before someone sues their cell company for invading their privacy by giving their location without due process.

New technology always leads to new laws or reinterpretations of existing laws to narrow or widen their scope to include the abilities of that new tech.. We can only hope that in regards to any information concerning a persons location or communications the courts will uphold interpretations that expand protections of personal privacy rather than diminish it.

To anyone who would trot out the "Nothing to hide, nothing to fear" argument I would ask that you included your cell phone #, name, credit card # (including CVN & expr date) and its billing address in your comment. After all, you have nothing you want to hide, right?

Re:So just use cops

[ultranova]

If we actually had perfect law enforcement we would either drop a great many laws or society would rip itself apart. We currently rely on the amount of work involved in law enforcement to act as a sort of natural prioritizer to make police go after what matters and skip the small stuff.

Even more importantly, perfect law enforcement would give the government absolute power. Imperfect enforcement means that resistance movements can grow under the radar until they become powerful enough to actually accomplish something. Perfect enforcement basically means that status quo stays forever.

Re:So just use cops

[yuna49]

There are cases about cell phone tracking working their way through the courts as well.

I know it's horribly un-Slashdot of me to have read TFA, but here's Jennifer Granick of EFF on the subject:

"The court correctly recognized the important differences between limited surveillance of public activities possible through visual surveillance or traditional 'bumper beepers,' and the sort of extended, invasive, pervasive, always-on tracking that GPS devices allow," said EFF Civil Liberties Director Jennifer Granick. "This same logic applies in cases of cell phone tracking, and we hope that this decision will be followed by courts that are currently grappling with the question of whether the government must obtain a warrant before using your cell phone as a tracking device."

I'm still curious

[FooAtWFU]

What happens if you find such a device on your car? Sure, you can call the police because there's a suspicious item on your car (which may be dangerous!! what if it exploded?) but do you think they would say something like "oh no, that's ours!" -- or could they tell you to leave it there?

What happens when you run a packet dump and notice a government spyware program? whee! ...

Re:I'm still curious

[casings]

If it wasn't secured to your car with duct tape, you can probably be pretty sure it wasn't done by the police.

Re:I'm still curious

[Monkeedude1212]

Look, I know that IT professionals get stereotyped as the guys who ruin peoples lives by either making their work a living hell with Windows Updates breaking every application - or by exposing some personal emails that shouldn't have been sent on your work outlook account, or even by neglecting to upgrade you off of that old Windows NT box.

But really, how bad does it have to get before you start suspecting that someone might have planted an explosive on your car?

Re:I'm still curious

[ducomputergeek]

Most drivers I know in Chicago willfully place such devices in their windshields for paying tolls. I know they aren't GPS yet, but probably future versions will be and people will use them and sign away on whatever forms in the name of connivence.

Re:I'm still curious

[commodore64_love]

>>>I know they aren't GPS yet, but probably future versions will be

How do you know that? The current gadgets are actually quite dumb, because it keeps them cheap to handout for free. Converting them to a GPS device would be about 20 times more costly, as well as requiring an external power plug, so I think your prognostication is wrong.

Re:I'm still curious

[bennomatic]

In the Chicago area, with the number of toll booths on the road, those devices might as well be GPS, as your passes through those booths are tracked with a time stamp, so anyone with access knows where you were and when. I've heard (but not validated) that you can actually get a speeding ticket mailed to you if you go from checkpoint A to checkpoint B faster than the speed limit, assuming there's no traffic at the far end to slow you down enough.

Re:I'm still curious

[bill_mcgonigle]

Most drivers I know in Chicago willfully place such devices in their windshields for paying tolls. I know they aren't GPS yet, but probably future versions will be and people will use them and sign away on whatever forms in the name of connivence.

You know new cars are mandated to have wireless tire pressure monitoring systems from the factory, right? And each tire has a globally-unique MAC?

It's to save the planet, you know, not so they can keep tabs on all cars moving past discreetly-placed antennas.

Re:I'm still curious

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to installed GPS tracking devices for the Feds - so I can help you out. These devices are very rarely deployed - fairly expensive and time consuming, even w/o the warrant, which most Agencies have required as a matter of policy anyway for the last ten years. Yeah, sometimes the Feds anticipate rulings like this and do more than required so they won't lose evidence on appeal. Get over it. If you find one on your vehicle - you've earned it - and you won't be scratching your head as to why. Either you've been REAL busy doing some fairly bad stuff or your car is routinely used by others to do so. Knowing who was in the tracked vehicle (if the GPS records are simply being logged and downloaded) is a problem - so you're probably under physical surveillance too and the box is just to reel you back in if you get beyond visual range. Yeah, you can take it off, throw it away, turn it in at the local cop shop - you can even put it someone else' car. Won't matter - you'll soon be in line for an upgrade - that you WON'T find. And as for detecting .gov spyware with your packet sniffer. Good luck with that.

Re:I'm still curious

[PPH]

What happens if you find such a device on your car?

You leave it there for a while. So they get used to the fact that they can trace your movements. When they are comfortable with tracking you, you remove it and stick it on a cop car. Then you call a friend and tell him that the deal will go down 'at the usual place this afternoon'.

So the ATF, DEA or whomever mounts an assault on Li'l Johns Bar and Grill, where most of the local cops hang out all day.

Re:I'm still curious

[toastar]

What happens if you find such a device on your car? Sure, you can call the police because there's a suspicious item on your car (which may be dangerous!! what if it exploded?) but do you think they would say something like "oh no, that's ours!" -- or could they tell you to leave it there?

What happens when you run a packet dump and notice a government spyware program? whee! ...

I wouldn't report it, I'd attach it to the nearest taxi.

Re:I'm still curious

[Caerdwyn]

A long while ago (about 1996) I noticed unusual traffic coming in to my hobbyist server. Things that nowadays are just part of the background noise: port scans, SYNs to nonexistant hosts (I had a /28 block on a fractional T1. NerdPeen ACTIVATE!), that sort of thing. The source IP address in question then crawled my website and connected to my SMTP server and sent mail to itself (wisdom such as "don't be an open relay" was not widespread at the time... my diagnosic skills were better than my security skills at the time).

A few nslookups and whois later, and a traceroute or two, and I was at Langley. Huh. Was someone there doing something? Or was it spoofed in some way? It's not like I had ever done anything interesting in my life other than flip a significantly-non-stock VW Rabbit onto its roof and host a website for friends to post their dirty pictures. Hmmm, maybe that was it. 007 wanted pr0n!

A few emails and one phone call later and I was talking to an instructor at Langley who was teaching basic network forensics. He said they were choosing random domains then learning what they could about them and presenting that knowledge as a classroom exercise, and apologized if their was any disruption; he said it was only an attempt to do basic recon of non-NATted networks, not penetration (insert joke here). My response was something to the effect of "OK, no problem, I understand. But... I noticed . I shouldn't have. And I'm a total amateur at this. If your students are going to be able to do their jobs, they need to be less obvious about it."

If you find a BatBug on your car, the cops need to know of their incompetence. Then send it to Gizmodo!

Re:I'm still curious

[fotbr]

But there's nothing that says those systems have to remain in place. If you're that paranoid about it, you can fix that in your garage: it's not terribly hard to remove, remount, and re-balance a tire, and the sensors are just stuck to the inside of the wheel with some 3M double-stick tape.

Re:I'm still curious

[selven]

I'm pretty sure it's legally yours to do whatever you want with it. I suggest you attach it to a pigeon.

Re:I'm still curious

[dgatwood]

What happens if you find such a device on your car?

I don't know about you, but I'd probably pull it off and attach it to the nearest semi going across the country. Or maybe a squirrel.

And then install a jammer just in case they try it again with a bug that's harder to spot. Maybe even generate a fake GPS stream showing that the vehicle was at 30,000 feet, traveling at Mach 7, over the northern coast of Ecuador.

Re:I'm still curious

[ericfitz]

RFID toll tokens have already been successfully used to prove location and travel:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ericfitz/archive/2007/08/10/ez-pass-logs-used-in-divorce-cases.aspx

Re:I'm still curious

[vux984]

You know new cars are mandated to have wireless tire pressure monitoring systems from the factory, right? And each tire has a globally-unique MAC?

Its a short range transmitter.

Far more frightening is the reflective metal plate bearing a registered unique series of numbers and digits that all cars are mandated to have attached to the vehicle in plain sight. These plates can be seen and read at considerable distance, and can be trivially traced to the registered owner. Over the last couple decades reliable electronic means of reading this information off of fast moving vehicles has become commonplace.

Its a fairly short hop from there to having a city wide network of camera's tracking every vehicle they see.

But hey, stay focused on the Tire Pressure Monitoring Systems, I'm sure that's the bigger threat. :p

Re:I'm still curious

[ducomputergeek]

Ever driven in Chicago? How much does it cost for the city/county/state to install and upkeep all those scanning stations on the roads. How much would it cost in the future when most cars sold today already have GPS standard and ability to access the cell network? What do you think OnStar is?

Re:I'm still curious

[bill_mcgonigle]

Your car won't pass inspection unless they're operational.

Re:I'm still curious

[Anonymous Coward]

If it was welded on with a paperclip and a battery, MacGyver installed it...

Re:I'm still curious

[h4rr4r]

Please supply a citation for this. It is not part of any state inspection I am familiar with, and many states do not have inspections at all.

Re:I'm still curious

[bill_mcgonigle]

Over the last couple decades reliable electronic means of reading this information off of fast moving vehicles has become commonplace.

What's the cost?

Re:I'm still curious

[element-o.p.]

Good plan. Then they'll know you found it and they will replace it with a new GPS that they've hidden better. As far as jamming and/or generating a fake GPS stream...well, I know this is /. so there's a greater than average collection of geeks and hackers, but do you really think you can spoof military grade encryption? Seriously?

Re:I'm still curious

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, the trick is jamming a signal is illegal (in the USA). You just played right into their hands.

Sending them false data however is a very entertaining prospect.

Re:I'm still curious

[vux984]

What's the cost?

"There's an app for that!"

Well, not yet (that I'm aware of), but its not that far off.

Even today the main cost in camera deployment for red-light and photo-radar camera tech is in the ruggedized camera installations. The actual camera and ocr tech isn't all that expensive.

You can already DIY with a web-cam and the right software.

Re:I'm still curious

[dissy]

But really, how bad does it have to get before you start suspecting that someone might have planted an explosive on your car?

One reeeeally crazy ex bad?

Re:I'm still curious

[bill_mcgonigle]

Even today the main cost in camera deployment for red-light and photo-radar camera tech is in the ruggedized camera installations. The actual camera and ocr tech isn't all that expensive.

You can already DIY with a web-cam and the right software.

Yeah, I can, but government pays $50,000-$100,000 @ for red-light cameras which are the class of tech you're talking about. They'd probably get off 'cheap' with a $200 worth of parts in an antenna/transponder setup for only $5,000 each.

Re:I'm still curious

[bill_mcgonigle]

In some states if your car is outputting any ODB-II codes, you don't pass. I may or may not have a code eraser device I keep handy for such reasons.

Don't get me wrong, State inspections are a stupid, counter-productive idea. But they use them like a club in some jurisdictions to get what they want.

Re:I'm still curious

[sjames]

Better, ebay it. Talk about package tracking!

Re:I'm still curious

[fotbr]

That depends on the state.

Re:I'm still curious

[Anonymous Coward]

Your story is both unsurprising, and a soberingly scary/re-assuring insight in to the quality of instrucion our nation's best spy's are recieving.

Was the instructor just too lazy to conduct the exercise in real world conditions(proxy)? Or just dangerously incompetant? I think the answer to the second question is yes regardless of the answer to the first.

Re:I'm still curious

[vux984]

Yeah, I can, but government pays $50,000-$100,000 @ for red-light cameras which are the class of tech you're talking about. They'd probably get off 'cheap' with a $200 worth of parts in an antenna/transponder setup for only $5,000 each.

Its not like the red light camera's are really all that sophisticated either. All the heavy OCR lifting happens at the backend. The individual cameras are pretty simple. You are paying for electrical hookups, conduit, under pavement sensors, integration with the traffic lights, network connectivity, and as you implied there is always the 'enterprise/industrial/government-use' markup to all costs. The costs you see quoted per camera are grossly inflated by installation and maintenance. The actual component cost on the camera and networking tech really isn't all that high either.

The cost of a TPMS would not be substantially lower per unit. Just look at what the per unit costs of transponder operated tollway systems are. Its no $2000.

Further TPMS monitoring would be a lot harder, given that anyone could just switch out their tire pressure transmitters, or remove them entirely. Not to mention lots of cars still don't have them. And its not like there is an established government registration system tracking which car they all belong too either.

License plates are pretty universal and already entirely government regulated and recorded.

Meanwhile tracking license plates is real, toll road systems already exist that do it now. Red-light cameras are real. Photo-radar is real. Its not some 'in theory we can do it'.

Finally, on the technical side: tpms updates are very low power short range updates and typical tpms only broadcast once per minute and only if the wheel is exceeding 25mph. Between those two constraints, you aren't going to get anything from people trundling along in gridlock (tpms won't transmit at all), and at highway speeds...e.g. 60mph, a wheel will send out a low power short range ping once per mile. Good freaking luck intercepting transmissions from a stationary position... especially an 'inexpensive one'.

Re:I'm still curious

[commodore64_love]

Which has nothing to do with GPS. GPS can pinpoint your specific location and make it easy to police to come get you. In contrast EZpass only shows a few points spread-out over dozens or even hundreds of miles. i.e. Only when you enter and exit the tollroad. AND it's typically old data that would be of no use for police to locate you.

Re:I'm still curious

[DVD9]

How is it expensive? The device cost no more than a thousand dollars. They upload the data once a month if set to do so and someone can click through it when they want. They can search the data quickly if they have something in mind. Getting a warrant is as easy as sending a package from the post office, probably easier. The only way the Fed would have trouble is if the person in question was "connected" and thus gave the judge pause. As for your comment about .gov spyware I'm sure you are correct about that. The only hope for freedom is LESS police.

Re:I'm still curious

[DVD9]

And how would I go about doing either of these things? Particularly jamming a GPS transmission. Keep in mind that most of these devices log over thirty days and then transmit that information perhaps at 3:30 AM for a few seconds before resuming logging another months worth of driving.

Re:I'm still curious

[bill_mcgonigle]

Further TPMS monitoring would be a lot harder, given that anyone could just switch out their tire pressure transmitters, or remove them entirely.

Not if their presence is mandated for inspection. This seems to vary by State.

Not to mention lots of cars still don't have them.

And no doubt some antique cars never will. But every car built since 2008 will have them.

And its not like there is an established government registration system tracking which car they all belong too either.

I've read their id's are tied to the VIN at the factory. The VIN is obviously tied to people via the registration system, which is also mandatory.

The license plate systems are being challenged in court. Will TPMS come to the fore if they are disallowed? I dunno, but the technology does exist, may or may not be widely deployed, but is a bad idea regardless. There are even concerns about targeted IED's being used based on TPMS codes.

Basically, there's no reason for globally-unique MAC's to be needed for TPMS, but they're mandatory. Change this one thing and everything else goes away.

Re:I'm still curious

[bill_mcgonigle]

Right you are - I was just reading some states explicitly exempt them, other states have a 'no codes' policy. And the enlightened States are going 'no mandatory inspections' anyway.

Re:I'm still curious

[Thing 1]

AND it's typically old data that would be of no use for police to locate you.

I'm not worried about the police locating me, just as I'm not worried about my non-Blackberry messages being intercepted by the UAE authorities.

What I am worried about is "an attacker" being able to do this. Like someone wanting to take my stuff when I'm not home; or kidnap me or my kids (hey I figured out part of the root of that word, but how is it related to sleeping during the day?); or injure, or kill me.

Generally the authorities are less of a concern. Generally.

Re:I'm still curious

[vux984]

You addressed some of the regulatory issues surrounding them. But neglected completely the technology limitations. The fact that they don't transmit continuously (or at all at low speeds).

But yes, I'm sure the manufacturer can report which transmitters went with which vin... but they currently are not. And yes, I'm sure the states could mandate them in inspections, but all you'd have to do is swap them out again once you got home... or remove them entirely. That is really the weak spot in the whole system. You can just swap them out yourself, the way people bypass emissions systems or retune their vehicles after they get home from a state inspection. Its virtually undetectable by law enforcement. It keeps honest people honest, and that's about it.

Realistically, if they really wanted to enhance the vehicle tracking system, they'd just augment the license plate to include a transponder of some sort. But honestly, simplicity is best. The advantage of plates is that they are plainly visible to law enforcement, and already serve the purpose of identifying vehicles. They can't easily be tampered with without generally failing the 'can law enforcement detect it' with the unaided eye from his patrol car.

Going at it by way of tracking tire-pressure sensors is simply needlessly complicated way of going at it.

Re:I'm still curious

[Anonymous Coward]

So the best tactic then is to not let on that you're aware of it? Thanks for the tip.

Re:I'm still curious

[melikamp]

If you find one on your vehicle - you've earned it

Bullshit.

and you won't be scratching your head as to why

More bullshit.

Either you've been REAL busy doing some fairly bad stuff or your car is routinely used by others to do so

You are living in your own fantasy land.

I used to installed GPS tracking devices for the Feds

Riiiight.

Re:I'm still curious

[bill_mcgonigle]

The fact that they don't transmit continuously (or at all at low speeds).

Assuming a 4-wheeled vehicle, you'd have a signal on average every 15 seconds, right? AFAIK they're not clocked.

But yes, I'm sure the manufacturer can report which transmitters went with which vin... but they currently are not.

How would you know this (either way)? Are you saying they refuse subpoenas on this or that one has never been issued?

And yes, I'm sure the states could mandate them in inspections, but all you'd have to do is swap them out again once you got home... or remove them entirely. That is really the weak spot in the whole system. You can just swap them out yourself, the way people bypass emissions systems or retune their vehicles after they get home from a state inspection. Its virtually undetectable by law enforcement. It keeps honest people honest, and that's about it.

The talk a couple years ago was to check these at sobriety checkpoints. You could do the same at toll booths if you wanted to (I don't think either are in practice).

Realistically, if they really wanted to enhance the vehicle tracking system, they'd just augment the license plate to include a transponder of some sort.

We call that EZPass in these parts.

Going at it by way of tracking tire-pressure sensors is simply needlessly complicated way of going at it.

I still think it's an order of magnitude cheaper if you wanted to do it. Look at this another way - why hasn't EZPass switched over to an all-optical/OCR system?

Re:I'm still curious

[Anonymous Coward]

And as for detecting .gov spyware with your packet sniffer. Good luck with that.

Yes... because the government possesses Magic that allows spyware to function without actually using a physical network connection. Hey smartass, the data is going through a cable and if the gateway DPIs the contents for long enough it will find the traffic.

As far as secret transmitter boxes go, if you have an RF scanner you shouldn't have much trouble locating it. If you're a motorhead rather than a tech, you'll probably find suspicious boxes in your car anyway.

Everything you said sounds like a rehash of the classic "Big Brother is watching you". Sorry, I refuse to scared of my government, they can go fuck themselves (and get a warrant).

Re:I'm still curious

[dgatwood]

It's actually pretty easy.

For a device that is easily found, you start with a Faraday cage. Bear in mind that GPS receivers go out of satellite range periodically, so losing signal would not be flagged as an unusual condition. Once it is inside the Faraday cage and is not receiving a signal from the actual satellites, you merely generate the bogus signal and inject it into the cage. using a properly shielded cable whose shield is electrically connected to the faraday cage chassis. Then, you can spoof the signal in absurd ways.

Granted, I'm not aware of a way to spoof the encrypted stream, but at least in theory I'd expect a receiver to fail over to the unencrypted stream in the absence of the encrypted stream. And more to the point, if you aren't being tracked by the U.S. military, it's unlikely that their receivers will be able to decode the encrypted stream anyway, so as long as you spoof an encrypted stream, regardless of the key used, that should theoretically be good enough to fool even a fairly sophisticated consumer-grade receiver....

If you mean jamming one that you can't find, that's also not too hard. You simply transmit a signal on the same frequency that pushes the noise margins beyond the detection threshold of the device. You power it off a separate switch so that you can turn it on and off at will. When you're away from home, you first pull into a location that is known to block the signal, e.g. a parking garage. Turn on the transmitter, go do your business, go back to the parking lot, and turn it off. Then, go home. Be sure you randomly choose parking garages. Sure, the signal loss is easily detected if there are logs of signal loss, but they still can't feasibly prove that you did something illegal, short of physically tailing you.

Re:I'm still curious

[Anonymous Coward]

its the principle of our laws that this shouldn't happen - hence the privacy laws
whose going to determine who warrants a gps and who doesnt ?
  whose gonna monitor the monitors that monitor the monitors ect ect ad nauseum
its a time consuming and waste of my taxpayer money to do this that i didnt vote for them to do with my tax money -
realistically for it to be legal on any level or have any merit as evidence there'd have to be a
lawful case held against that person that would require the vehicle to be tracked
and even then whose to say he/she decides to keep the vehicle there'd be no way
to legally get every vehicle that criminal person would/could own tagged.

the only people that would/could get away with it are vigilante's batman style and
sadly that wont hold up very often in court as evidence

Re:I'm still curious

[dgatwood]

When you're talking about overwhelming an under 50W signal from a satellite in orbit using the body of your car (an inch or two from the GPS receiver's antenna), it shouldn't take much power. Thus, there is a small possibility that you could obtain an experimental license (maybe part 74) from the FCC for transmission on a lower frequency, build a homebrew transmitter with harmonics in that band, and make it leak beyond the legally allowed spurious emissions limit. I'm not sure if that would pass legal muster or not. And you might even be able to do it with leakage that falls within the legal limits, but my guess is probably not.

Of course, the cynic in me would point out that A. the transmitter would be in a moving vehicle, making detection and fines/confiscation pretty unlikely, and B. if you're using it to cover up a serious crime, a $10,000 fine and a year in jail is peanuts, so it might still be worth it. Either way, I'm not in any way recommending that people do this; I'm merely pointing out that in theory, it can be done.

Re:I'm still curious

[dgatwood]

Do you really think they allow encrypted GPS receivers to be used by civilian authorities? I don't even think they give encrypted GPS receivers to military personnel. It's pretty much exclusively used internally inside things like smart bombs, AFAIK.

Re:I'm still curious

[vux984]

Assuming a 4-wheeled vehicle, you'd have a signal on average every 15 seconds, right? AFAIK they're not clocked. Given all 4 wheels will likely hit 25mph at roughly the same time, they will probably all fire at roughly the same time. How would you know this (either way)? Are you saying they refuse subpoenas on this or that one has never been issued? Neither. I'm saying -the government- doesn't already have a database of tpms macs to registered vehicle owners, and even if they did it would be unreliable. I'm sure you could probably trace a tpms mac back to the vin and from there back to the registered owner, but its a hell of a lot more effort. The talk a couple years ago was to check these at sobriety checkpoints. You could do the same at toll booths if you wanted to (I don't think either are in practice). How? They aren't active at stationary or low speeds. We call that EZPass in these parts. Precisely. There is no reason they would -ever- resort to trying to sneak through the back door and try and co-opt tpms into a surveillance system. If they wanted a surveillance system, they'd just ask for a transponder to be added, or run with optical methods. I still think it's an order of magnitude cheaper if you wanted to do it. Look at this another way - why hasn't EZPass switched over to an all-optical/OCR system? Cheaper sure, especially historically. And you don't need the ocr at the backend. But realistically, the bulk of the cost is in installation etc not components. And once the backend is in place additional units aren't that much more incrementally expensive. why hasn't EZPass switched over to an all-optical/OCR system Good question. Where I live, the newest bridge has both. An optical OCR system to toll regular drivers, or... if you are a frequent user you can get a transponder and pay a reduced rate... but you have to rent the transponder so its its only cheaper if you cross pretty regularly. I really have no idea why you can't just register your plates and pay a monthly 'subscription' for a reduced rate, and have it all done optically... but that's how it was set up. Most of the other new tolling systems I've seen in other cities all have optical now. Optical is clearly newer, and I don't doubt it costs 'more' but I think costs have dropped to the point that its clearly the direction most new systems are incoporating... and that will drive costs down further.

Re:I'm still curious

[Caerdwyn]

In 1996, everyone was much less sophisticated in their understanding of IP networking and its exploitability (as evidenced by me having an open relay, no firewall, and all hosts fully exposed to the Internet without NAT). We look upon it in horror now, a decade and a half since, but consider. What network security practices did ANYONE have, other than "have good passwords and don't have your FTP incoming directory world-writable"? Who had a firewall in their house? Linux was on kernel 1.1, and few had even heard of it. SCO still had more engineers than lawyers. Steve Jobs still had a spleen. Network access was dialup or if you were lucky ISDN (except for people with big NerdPeens). Windows was on Win95 (with the worst TCP/IP stack in the history of everything, prompting many people to download replacement stacks).

Yeah, the instructor wasn't all that good. In fairness, neither was anyone else. The story does not reflect what training our best information warfare specialists ARE receiving; it's what ordinary Air Force net admins were being taught when the whole concept of the Internet being open to anyone but universities and the DoD was still a fresh idea.

We've learned quite a bit in 14 years. I'm a little wiser, and it's a good bet that the gentlecritters at Langley are a LOT wiser.

Re:I'm still curious

[24-bit Voxel]

I think that any military personnel with brains will give the canned and approved excuse for anything. Training exercise isn't really a new one. I'm not saying they did anything wrong necessarily but it's a fairly common cop out, almost to the point of cliche.

Re:I'm still curious

[drinkypoo]

What happens if you find such a device on your car? Sure, you can call the police because there's a suspicious item on your car (which may be dangerous!! what if it exploded?) but do you think they would say something like "oh no, that's ours!" -- or could they tell you to leave it there?

If it's attached to my car, it must be mine. It's going on eBay post-haste.

Re:I'm still curious

[commodore64_love]

>>>Generally the authorities are less of a concern. Generally.

"The authorities" killed over 100 million of their own citizens during the last since 1910..... including countries that were so-called "democratic". I think there's reason to be concerned.

Re:I'm still curious

[element-o.p.]

I'm not saying the GPS receiver is encrypted; I'm saying the data feed from the GPS receiver to the monitoring authorities may be encrypted. I'd encrypt it, if I was monitoring a bad guy.

If you want to spoof a data stream, you'd better be able to send it in the format they expect, including any encryption methods they may be using.

Re:I'm still curious

[dgatwood]

Why would you bother to fake data on the output side of the device when you can lie to the device itself? The whole point was that you can take it off your car temporarily (and leave it in your garage or whatever when you're doing something bad, then put it back on, and that further, if you really wanted to, you could spoof completely absurd data to make them think the device is malfunctioning, none of which would require attacking any of the outgoing crypto at all.

I send you a cleartext email. You encrypt it and send it to the government. The government knows it was not modified in transit between you and them, but has no way to know if somebody modified the data between me and you. It's the same deal with GPS. If I can fake the GPS stream itself, I can make that GPS device fully believe it is in Siberia, and it will dutifully report through whatever SSL-wrapped TCP connection over 3G or whatever it uses that it is in Siberia. If it were transmitting data continuously, then yes, you might have a hard time, but because it sends the data out periodically (and presumably retries later if it fails to send out the data), the unencrypted GPS input represents a security vulnerability the size of a small planet.

Re:I'm still curious

[element-o.p.]

I'll be honest, I hadn't considered faking the input to the GPS rather than the output to the cops. Having said that, I am curious if it is really that simple. After all, GPS works by correlating something like four channels of input (more if you're using WAAS).

If there really was a security vulnerability the size of a small planet, as you claim, then I'd think that's a much bigger threat to, say, commercial aviation (can you say "terrorists?") than the fingernail file I'm no longer allowed to carry in my carry-on luggage -- not that I am naive enough to think security theatre is *really* about security.

Anyway, I see your point.

Oh

[Anonymous Coward]

Shit

aw

[Phizital1ty]

I was hoping i could play spot the gps tracker with my friends, or also my other favorite, Who wants to faraday the bottom of their car!?

Re:aw

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, your GPS is in your pocket.

Re:aw

[nizo]

Someone needs to plunk a few of these GPS units onto several elected offical's cars and post the results. Hilarity is sure to ensue.

Nice one

[JackSpratts]

Go EFF!

Re:Nice one

[Flea of Pain]

Yes sir! Right away sir! I will start EFFing as soon as I see the opportunity sir!

Re:Nice one

[JackSpratts]

i see a promotion in your future.

Re:Nice one

[Nick Number]

How about now?

After all, it is about EFFing time.

So far so good.

[Local ID10T]

Lets see how this goes on appeal.

This is the kind of issue that winds up before the supreme court. It is simple, and obvious, but somebody is going to argue it to their last breath.

Re:So far so good.

[dnaumov]

But, but, but, but... "National Security!!!"

Re:So far so good.

[Monkeedude1212]

And "The Children!"

Re:So far so good.

[GrumpySteen]

If we don't track people, TERRORISTS will KIDNAP your KIDS and use DRUGS to turn them into GAY SUICIDE BOMBERS!

Re:So far so good.

[Kashell]

And "Freedom!"

Re:So far so good.

[Nadaka]

...who use the Computers, because the bible says that computers are the BEAST! ...and listen to that heathen rap music by Marylin Manson!

Re:So far so good.

[dgatwood]

Lets see how this goes on appeal.

You know, when I read the headline, I expected ninth circuit. I mean, I'd be shocked if this decision had come out of the 4th or 5th, but even the D.C. circuit coming to that conclusion is a bit surprising, IMHO. It's not exactly a bastion of liberalism or civil liberties.

What's particularly baffling is that the ninth actually went the other way. So it's almost certainly a sufficiently contentious issue to get certiorari. I'll be interested to see the appeal, too. It seems clear that warrantless GPS tracking could be easily abused, and that the relatively low cost and effort involved makes it a fairly significant escalation of police surveillance. On the flip side, one could legitimately argue that anything you do in a vehicle is done in a public place and that you have no expectation of privacy. So it's definitely not clear cut either way.

I would tend to err on the side of requiring a warrant, particularly given that it is a relatively low bar and given that there is minimal chance of the decision to plant a GPS device being so time critical that a warrant could not be reasonably obtained. And if we see warrantless GPS tracking used in a sufficiently widespread way, there is substantial risk that people will employ countermeasures to jam GPS signals in and around their vehicles. The resulting mess would endanger public safety. So it is important that GPS tracking be very limited. Requiring a warrant does this. Without requiring a warrant, the temptation is too great to use GPS as a crutch in place of proper surveillance, which in the long run would be seriously detrimental to society.

Re:So far so good.

[blair1q]

If it really is a national security issue, all bets are off.

But it probably isn't. It's the Bush administration's legal stink-bombs gumming up the future, just as they were planned to do.

We waste our time and money and attention trying to remove the rotting fish from the walls, while he and his buddies are laundering the money they looted from our safe.

Re:So far so good.

[localman57]

If we don't track people, TERRORISTS will KIDNAP your KIDS and use DRUGS to turn them into GAY SUICIDE BOMBERS!

Or worse yet, they might share music. Oh, think of the artists! What will the poor artists do if we don't track people?

Re:So far so good.

[Dhalka226]

I highly doubt the Supreme Court will hear the case.

To the best of my knowledge, there are not a plethora of conflicting lower court rulings on the issue. And while there is a constitutional question to be answered, I don't see it as wildly different than other cases they have decided such that it needs a separate ruling. These are the major criteria that the justices use to determine whether or not to hear the case.

Just because you are technically able to appeal up to them does not mean they will grant your petition for certiorari. In fact, about 98% of requests are not granted and their cases are unheard.

Re:So far so good.

[AltairDusk]

Well at least they aren't making them listen to Ke$ha...

Re:So far so good.

[DVD9]

National Security trumps everything including the Constitution and the children. An American soldier sodomized a 12 year old boy at Abu Ghraib. The National Security Act of 1947 burned the Constitution.

Re:So far so good.

[DVD9]

You just made the argument FOR the Supreme Court to hear the case. I can't imagine them not overturning this. Kagan will no doubt join a majority doing so. The only way to increase freedom is to decrease surveillance, which means weakening the police. Less FBI, less CIA, less Pentagon spending (they spy on you if you oppose them and will even initiate Federal prosecutions through civilian police agencies like the FBI).

Re:So far so good.

[shutdown -p now]

They go bankrupt and then get hired and brainwashed by terrorists to become suicide bombers.

So it's still about national security.

"government claims"

[artg]

So who, exactly, wanted to assert this right ? Names, please, not agencies.

Re:"government claims"

[ducomputergeek]

Eventually it will be *DOT (with the * being your state). Got to come up with some way of taxing electric car users to use the road if they aren't paying for it in fuel taxes.

Re:"government claims"

[Aboroth]

It was just "The Government". You know, that undefined blob of mental mass that you can blame everything on and assign as the cause and/or solution to all of yours and the world's problems.

Re:"government claims"

[Anonymous Coward]

Battery taxes...

Re:"government claims"

[Monkeedude1212]

You know, that undefined blob of mental mass that you can blame everything on and assign as the cause and/or solution to all of yours and the world's problems.

You are just lining yourself up for a "Your Mom" joke, by the way.

Re:"government claims"

[Anonymous Coward]

So who, exactly, wanted to assert this right ? Names, please, not agencies.

I have no idea why you care. The appelle is "UNITED STATES OF AMERICA" aka the government, but here you go:

Peter S. Smith, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued the cause for appellee. With him on the brief were Roy W. McLeese III, John V. Geise, and Rachel C. Lieber, Assistant U.S. Attorneys.

Re:"government claims"

[Anonymous Coward]

that's what SHE said.

Re:"government claims"

[robot256]

Wait, you mean fuel taxes pay for roads? What fuel taxes? Oh, you mean the absurdly low $0.46/gal (26.2c state + 18.4 fed.) that doesn't change with the price of gas and accounts for $20 billion (fed. portion of $29.6b total) out of $40 billion of federal highway spending? I don't think the electric cars are going to make that much difference--they aren't even *trying* to make gas taxes actually pay for all the roads in the country.

Re:"government claims"

[bsDaemon]

Stan: Oh my God! They killed Kenny!
Kyle: You BASTARDS!

Re:"government claims"

[blair1q]

http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1746238&cid=33167504

Re:"government claims"

[ducomputergeek]

When was the last time you saw a toll road go away after the 10/15/20 years period where the road was to be "paid off"? Same reason why the states will find a way to replace the revenue generated by a fuel tax for "roads".

Re:"government claims"

[robot256]

What I don't understand is why states can't close their budget gaps by increasing taxes to "save the children". Seems to be a good excuse for everything else. (Heck, it's even true, just look at public school budgets this year).

Re:"government claims"

[h4rr4r]

All the tolls on the I-90 going through Buffalo were removed a few years ago.

Re:"government claims"

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Eventually it will be *DOT (with the * being your state). Got to come up with some way of taxing electric car users to use the road if they aren't paying for it in fuel taxes.

Because the obvious method of levying taxes based on odometer readings doesn't put big bucks into the pocket of a contractor who will kick it back to the politicians.

And for those of you ready to point out that not all miles driven are on public roads - big deal, no tax system has ever been perfectly fair. It isn't like all those miles are driven with tax-free fuel today either. I'll take a sloppy but cheap and minimally intrusive taxation over an expensive and freedom-killing implementation every day of the week.

GPS tracking may be off limits all together.

[Anonymous Coward]

IANAL, but I keep an eye on this stuff. In many jurisdictions you can't get a search warrant in order to put a GPS on a car, because a search warrant typically requires "probable cause" to think that a specific, specified crime has been committed, and that evidence of that crime is probable to be found in a search. The warrant then specifically must list what the police are searching for, and where they are allowed to search. There are few cases where the GPS is likely to turn up proof of a specific crime.

The problem with GPS tracking is that it's typically used more for intellegence/surveilance type stuff. You do this before you get a warrant, in order to get enough probable cause to do a search.

In many jurisdictions police use GPS at their own discrection because they see it as equivalent to tailing, but also because they can't get a warrant. Most police are actually pretty good about getting warrants before doing stuff when they can; there's no reason not to, and it makes a case stronger.

Re:GPS tracking may be off limits all together.

[Nadaka]

GPS tracking is more akin to wiretapping or planting bugs. It also requires probable cause and a warrant.

Re:GPS tracking may be off limits all together.

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference is that wiretapping or planting bugs can be used to collect evidence about a crime that has already happened. That's exactly what search warrants are for. You can catch a subject on tape talking about what they did. Therefore, it's reasonable to grant probable cause in some cases.

A GPS tracker is is unlikely to be able to uncover evidence about something that already happened. You might be able to make a stretch if you already had some probable cause to think that a person, for instance, committed a murder, and wanted to see if they returned to the murder site. Maybe. But the sort of "Lets see where the drug dealer goes so we can see who he's talking to" is intellegence, not evidence gathering of a specific, specified instance of a crime.

Re:GPS tracking may be off limits all together.

[sjames]

Not all warrants are search warrants. In this case, there would have to be probable cause to believe there are ongoing crimes involving your car (such as drug smuggling).

Re:GPS tracking may be off limits all together.

[DVD9]

No it does not. A warrant for a phone tap is only required in order to use what is recorded. Nine out of ten phone taps have no warrant. It only requires a phone call to the phone company by the police. The Los Angles Times did a long article about this back in the 1990's.

Re:GPS tracking may be off limits all together.

[Chowderbags]

It's not equivalent to tailing. It follows you onto private land. It follows you if you go outside their jurisdiction. It follows you even if the cops wouldn't normally bother with or have the resources to tail. (Some of the murkier areas of the 4th amendment aren't as worrying, purely because there isn't the manpower to actually look inside every car or peer inside every open window. If there were that level of staffing, I'd be pretty pissed.)

NO Need for Warrantless GPS Tracking +1, PatRIOTic

[Anonymous Coward]

Because YOUR CELL PHONE can be tracked !!!!!

Yours In Astrakhan,
K. Trout

Four Freedoms ... updated

[clyde_cadiddlehopper]

Freedom of speech and expression ... unless what you have to say is politically incorrect

Freedom of religion ... unless it is within walking distance of 'ground zero'.

Freedom from want ... unless you want your job to stay in this hemisphere.

Freedom from fear ... unless you are afraid of surveillance by those who are swarn to protect your freedom.

Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

An intelligent decision coming from our "Justice" system, I'm shocked. Heres hoping that some higher/appeals court doesn't screw it up. Really, I'm having trouble fathoming how anyone though this was legal by any stretch of the imagination. Trespassing, Stalking, illegal wiretapping (a stretch I know, but if the police can stretch that law to cover up their illegal acts, citizens can use it to protect themselves from overreaching government) are just a few charges I can name off the top of my head. And for the idiots who might say "You're in a public place, you have no right to privacy" I say this, What do you think would happen to a person who started tagging POLICE cars with these devices? That should give you an Idea as to how illegal this is.

Cell Phone GPS?

[Anonymous Coward]

So the feds need a warrant to put a GPS tracker on a person's car but why bother with the trouble if they could just get your location info from your cell phone company without needing a warrant?

My question

[LihTox]

I wonder if it is illegal for a private citizen to plant a GPS tracker on my car. If so, are there specific laws prohibiting tracking devices, or does it fall under some broader statute like trespassing or vandalism or the like.

Re:My question

[achurch]

From TFOpinion (page 33):

We note without surprise, therefore, that the Legislature of California, in making it unlawful for anyone but a law enforcement agency to "use an electronic tracking device to determine the location or movement of a person," specifically declared "electronic tracking of a person's location without that person's knowledge violates that person's reasonable expectation of privacy," and implicitly but necessarily thereby required a warrant for police use of a GPS, California Penal Code section 637.7, Stats. 1998 c. 449 (S.B. 1667) 2. Several other states have enacted legislation imposing civil and criminal penalties for the use of electronic tracking devices and expressly requiring exclusion of evidence produced by such a device unless obtained by the police acting pursuant to a warrant. See, e.g., Utah Code Ann. 77-23a-4, 77-23a-7, 77-23a-15.5; Minn Stat 626A.37, 626A.35; Fla Stat 934.06, 934.42; S.C. Code Ann 17-30- 140; Okla. Stat, tit 13, 176.6, 177.6; Haw. Rev. Stat 803-42, 803-44.7; 18 Pa. Cons. Stat 5761.

So if you're in one of those states, it looks like the answer is yes, it's illegal to plant a GPS tracker if you're not law enforcement (and sometimes even if you are law enforcement).

(And why does Slashdot still not support Unicode?)

Re:My question

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn. I wanted to put one of these on my probation officers car.

If you're not doing anything wrong.

[Anonymous Coward]

You have nothing to worry about.

So...

[fyngyrz]

He has not been charged, tried or convicted for illegal wiretaps, so it can't be said that he "committed a crime".

So... your definition of "commit a crime" is, you have to be caught and tried? Not convicted (Clinton wasn't convicted, see below), but just put on trial?

So if some creep shows up at your house and sinks a knife into your wife, ending her life, then disappears into the night... never to be put on trial... he hasn't committed a crime?

I dunno, I've really got some problems with that. What is said knife-wielding miscreant's status, then, in your view? I would have said "wanted criminal" prior to your post, but am waiting for enlightenment. :)

The only president since 1975 to stand trial was Bill Clinton.

Do you understand that presidential impeachment is a two-stage process? First, the house indicts the individual, then the senate convicts, or not.

In Clinton's case, the house indicted him; the senate did not convict him.

Re:So...

[Wyatt Earp]

In 2000 the Arkansas Supreme Court's Committee on Professional Conduct called for Clinton's disbarment, saying he lied about his affair with Monica Lewinsky.

In January 2001 Clinton reached an agreement under which he was ordered to pay $25,000 in fines to Arkansas state's bar officials and his Arkansas law license was suspended for five years.

The agreement came on the condition that Whitewater prosecutors would not pursue federal perjury charges against him.

So he took a plea and in effect admitted guilt and was fined.

Re:So...

[fyngyrz]

In 2000 the Arkansas Supreme Court's Committee on Professional Conduct called for Clinton's disbarment, saying he lied about his affair with Monica Lewinsky.

This is not impeachment; nor, in fact, neither do I consider it in any way an indication of criminality on the part of Clinton (or Lewinsky.) The second someone starts trying to coerce people to reveal adult, consensual sexual behavior, the person doing the asking is in the wrong.

If it is the legal system doing the asking, then the system is acting criminally in the sense that it is operating under laws created by legislators who have violated their oaths to uphold the constitution. And yes, that means I consider the government thoroughly criminal in some aspects of its actions. Clinton, however, is no more tarred as a criminal by this than you would be if I asked you if you had consensual sex with another adult and you lied. Some questions, no right can be found to ask. Doesn't matter who is doing the asking.

Even if you are clueless enough to buy the idea that the state has some imaginary right to knowledge of your personal, consensual choices -- this was a disciplinary action of a regulatory committee; not a criminal conviction of any kind. So he's still "all good", with the bonus of not having the stigma of being a lawyer for a while.

None of this, of course, addresses the question I asked the GP, which seems to assert that someone can only be considered a criminal if they've been through an official process. I'm still waiting for an explanation of that one.

So he took a plea and in effect admitted guilt and was fined.

No. He didn't "take a plea." There is neither a conviction or an "adjudication withheld" on his record. This all occurred outside the justice system. You my not like that, but it's a fact. You can, of course, call it anything you want. But it won't change it any. :)

Not to get off topic or anything, but

[Anonymous Coward]

what's your problem with duct tape? Seriously, for something that's generally quite effective, it gets a bad rap.

Police want their trackers back

[Anonymous Coward]

This happened in New Zealand. The target found the GPS and tried to sell it on an online auction site. The cops pulled the auction. Story at The Register

The other risk of police installing trackers is sometimes the targets don't know they are police and get very angry. A policeman was killed in NZ after being shot with an airgun while installing a tracking device. The crims thought he was trying to steal the car! NZ Herald story

Re:

[clint999]

Odometer tampering would be far more valuable for the purpose of selling a used car. Yet, it seems it rarely occurs.

So what?

[KlausBreuer]

Since the court will allow such a device installed on your vehicle in 99% of all cases anyway, this doesn't really change anything...

I've been bugged and found it

[BenEnglishAtHome]

The last time I knew that I was bugged was years ago, at a US Treasury office. The device was built into a wall AC socket multiplier. There was simply no reason for the device to have appeared at that particular location. There was no desk nearby. There was no need for more power plugs.

I pulled it out of the wall and immediately knew it was a bug because it was too heavy. I took off the backplate and, sure enough, there were enough electronics in there to walk the dog.

I then walked into the office of my boss 3 levels up (the secretary was a bit upset that I didn't knock; I just barged in), tossed it on her desk, and said "The next time we're going to be bugged, you might tell the Inspectors to use something a little less obvious." (Those of you in the know can roughly figure out the age of this story from the use of the title "Inspector." They've been "Special Agents" for a very long time, now.)

The look on her face was priceless.

The thing about it, though, is that they couldn't touch me. If they disciplined me, they'd have to admit they were bugging employees.

So if you find a bug, just find something creative to do with it. Sell it to a web site that will turn it into hits. Put it in a motor freight package to Albania. Something fun.