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GPS Tracking Without a Warrant Declared Legal
jnaujok writes "The Ninth Circuit court has declared that attaching a GPS tracker to your car, as it sits in your driveway, or by extension on a public street, and then using it to monitor every one of your movements, is totally legal, and can be performed by the police without needing a warrant. So, if you live in the Western United States, big brother has arrived."
So then, it must also be legal for me to put one of these devices on my wife's car, or on the local squad cars, without their knowledge? Why do different rules apply to government employees than apply to the rest of us?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Where I grew up, a person's driveway is most definitely within the domain of "reasonable expectation of privacy." And it's backed up with "git offa ma propertie! "
What really bothers me about stories like this is that the general public seems to not care.
I'm sure it's awful to live in a country where protesting the government will get you arrested or worse.
But it's a different kind of awful to have friends and neighbors who just can't be bothered to stick up for the civil rights of their fellow citizens.
I can walk through the parking lot at the police station and attach GPS transmitters to all the squad cars and publish that information to the internet because they have no expectation of privacy, right?
Woo Hoo ... now I can finally keep track of which Strip Clubs to go to when I want to have a word with my Congressman.
I guess that is free as in beer? Having said that, here in the Netherlands it isn't much better. At least you guys are allowed to insult politicians.
Clearly, you've missed the whole "Liberal Fascism" meme that's been positively sweeping the country. Lucky bastard.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
In Texas I can use deadly force to protect myself, my Property, and others.
If I see a person, in my drive way, F**King with my Car or Truck, I will shoot them.
So, They have the right to put it there and I have the right to shoot them to protect my property. Sounds fair.
The real question comes in not the legality of the placement but in the legality of trespassing to place it, and if your car is in a locked garage can they break in to place it?
Yet another reason to take the bus or train.
WALSTIB!
Can anyone link me to the actual decision, particularly the apparently barnburning dissent? Why why why can't mainstream media link to primary documents occasionally?
If I find such a device on my car, I will either: 1. Smash it into little tiny bits. 2. Attach it to another car at random. 3. Call the bomb squad an tell them that there is something suspicious on my car that I did not put there. 4. Ignore it. 5. Ebay, baby! Track that mother fuckers!
Why is it that most of the people that I encounter seem to have been shat from the Sphincter of Mediocrity?
If I find one of these on my car, it's mine! I can take a hammer to it; or better yet, I can stick it onto a taxicab and laugh out loud while I'm imagining the police scratching their heads and muttering "What the fuck?".
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
Aside from using a technological tracker, this doesn't seem like it's any more an infringement of privacy than simply having the police follow you everywhere you go. Which they also do not need a warrant to do. Now, to attach a tracker to a car sitting in a driveway would be trespassing... unless the car was parked on a public street, or inside a garage.
Damn Obama lag!
You missed the finer points. Like the fact that they tresspassed on him driveway to plant the device...
Personally if driveways are public space, then I want to go setup a cookout on the driveway of one of these judges...
"THEY CAME FIRST for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.
THEN THEY CAME for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.
THEN THEY CAME for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
THEN THEY CAME for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up."
You are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts.
There's an important distinction here which isn't mentioned above.
From the look of it, they didn't declare that it's explicitly allowed by law, they only declared that it's not prohibited by law under the fourth amendment. IANAL, but that sounds like we're in a much better situation in terms of fighting this than we could be.
This is the WORST possible argument one can give regarding the erosion of our rights.
It is never acceptable to give away our rights...regardless of whether we ever perceive we may need them. SHould I take away your right to free speech, because you don't speak about controversial topics? How about taking away your right to the free pratice of your religion? How about taking away your right to be secure in person & property...the government doesn't want my stuff, why should I care if they take away Joe's house?
For the love of god people...this shit is important to everyone. I can't believe anyone would say "Who cares?" when it comes to our rights & freedoms.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
Why do Republicans equate limited government with civil rights. Arguably the largest civil rights movements in the last century (sufferage, civil rights movement, gay rights, creation vs evolution in schoold, brown vs board of educaiton, etc) have ALL come to fruition from larger government involvement, not less.
The question is not whether Kagan wants bigger government, but whether she puts the needs of law enforcement/government above the individual. Im guessing from her time at harvard that she will lean to the individual.
What irony? I've long feared my own government far more than any foreign government or terrorist organization, and I'm just an average American and don't even wear a tin-foil hat. And please be sure and notice that after the Bush administration rushed to take away more of my rights with the Patriot Act the Obama administration has done nothing to remove those restrictions. So it makes no difference which party is actually in office...meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
How do you distinguish "defeatist" from "realistic"? I'd say it's based on the probability that enough people feel the same way but are just being silent about it, right?
In my experience, the people I talk to about this just aren't interested enough to participate in effecting change. So I reckon I'm being realistic.
Oh, I'm sorry, is this Abuse? I was here for an Argument.
It's not a problem, in the same way that it's not a problem to have cameras recording everything that goes on within the sight of a public street at all times, easy to search in a database. How is it different than having a cop walking around the city taking notes?
The difference is price and magnitude. The cost of tailing someone, and the risks of detection, prevent a police department from doing so indiscriminately. When you make it cheap and easy, you increase the use of that practice by orders of magnitude. With such an increase in capabilities, a similar increase in oversight is needed.
How far till we are 'chipped' at birth?
It is somewhat unnerving when evil things mentioned in books and old TV shows become reality.
I don't think it will be illegal to detect or remove them or to destroy them.
There have been cases in the past where rights of ownership and possession become issues. So, if you happen to have a radio transmitter detector, or some other sort of detection device to determine that you have been bugged, you are pretty much free to remove it, sell it on ebay, whatever you like. SMART criminals (I know, there are way few of those) will know to check for them... but will probably also keep their vehicles secure.
People really don't know what is going on here and more significantly, don't WANT to know. Too often we use words like "conspiracy theory" to mean "obsessive and/or paranoid nutbag." And every time we hear something scary like this about our government, most people simply don't want to believe it and label anyone who speaks of it as a "conspiracy theorist." The psychology is the same for anyone who speaks for the truth about the holocaust. (The very fact that I said the word already has more than 50% of the people here ready to mod me down. I don't care, you are only showing who and what you really are by making presumptions without hearing what anyone has to say.)
We have "blank check laws" being passed without the people voting for them knowing what they really are. We have unconstitutional money seizure laws. We have secret rules and laws just for the DHL. (I know that's a fact because there was and still is a lot that TSA screeners cannot say or advise the public about... and I was actually a screener for a while) We have erosions and in some cases complete disregard for the constitution that was designed SPECIFICALLY to protect the people from "government." A constitution only works when the government follows it.
Some of us still know how to read a map....
Ah, libertarians, the very definition of misplaced idealism. Always insistent that the invisible hand of the free market can solve everything and makes everything better. Even though limited federal involvement (herp derp don't want to violate states' rights) made pretty much every single civil issue WORSE in this country. Remember slavery? Or segregation? Or how about all those southern states that wanna teach kids that the world isn't billions of years old?
Don't you have a Ron Paul convention to go to or something?
Not likely. With the number of little-known and little-enforced laws on the books, pretty much everyone is guilty of plenty of things.
SIGSEGV caught, terminating
wait... not that kind of sig.
If you look more closely at those groups today, you'll see that none of them are about civil rights. Maybe they were at one point, I don't know as I wasn't there, but I'm talking about now. They're about amassing voter blocks and power structures. what's the difference between the KKK and the NAACP these days? not much once all the pomp and circumstance the latter has gained from its heyday is stripped away. One has gained political acceptance and the other has not. Neither want equality. sure, they throw the term around but it's newspeak definition. they want dominance and special status. This message appeals to those who have been or just feel disenfranchised, so they join. Others, who are not in the demographic, but hear the message, may feel a form of survivor-guilt, so they support the movement too, and the monster grows.
the real proof is in the actions of those groups who have already achieved their stated goals (legal equality in some context) but do not disband. Instead they keep the fires burning just enough to maintain their political relevance. I have nothing against non-whites, gays, or women, but I do have a big problem with the way PACs like the NAACP, the womens' groups, and more recently, even the gay activist groups are abusing these people for political power. It's great that NARAL fights for abortion rights, but yet it has no problem with supporting the demonization of males. It's great that the NAACP supports the building of schools in poor non-white communities, but then why does it rail against any attempt for white people to support their poor? When that happens, they break out the racism plackards. ..but who cares when it allows a 2 minute press conference about abortion or gay marriage to trigger mass vote herding? that's a gravy train that's too good for the democrats to pass up I guess. the irony is that it's the government which limits these two examples in the first place. So, in the name of freedom, the curtain of government is expanded, and the next time some PAC claims victim status over some issue, even more peoples' rights can be trampled when the rope around the edges is pulled tight. this has been the cycle for the last 30 years at least.
Im guessing from her time at harvard that she will lean to the individual.
..not if the current democratic party is any indication of what happens to all those anti-establishment, pro-people types once they graduate and have 30-40 years to simmer in their own juices. they become jaded, then hardened, then desperate. Once that happens, they dont care anymore who they have to trample to achieve their goals. thus they become what it was they started out to fight in the first place. perhaps this is why the activist groups mentioned above have become what they are now.
Don't be obtuse. Forbidding private business owners from discriminating based on race, color, religion, or national origin (and enforcing this prohibition) was an expansion of government powers. A valid one, in my view.
-I
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
Apparently that's the same thing Martin Niemöller thought right up until the point Hitler sent him to the camps. We have become so used to the government or other people doing everything for us in this country that now when we wish someone would stand up against the government's injustices we don't even think of doing it ourselves. It may be safer to allow others to fight our battles for us, but it's not healthy to rely on that.
--Forest C. Adcock--
No I've not.
So where are the GULAG for political prisoners in Arizona?
http://maps.google.com/
Point them out.
Where is the law making agitation or propaganda or circulating materials or literature that defamed the state and social system a crime in Arizona?
Where is Arizona's internal passport system?
google.com or bing.com, I want some links.
Why was the parent modded up? It's clever rhetoric, but it's obviously absurd. It might even be a troll (but people get more and more serious with their absurdity these days, so you never know).
Your argument is that murder and torture are "rights" that were taken away? And because there are some legal restrictions on behavior, we have no rights at all? Obviously you are joking. I hope it's a joke. It's as absurd as claiming absolute rights.
In the Fourth Amendment, where it says The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.. So yes, police need probable cause before they search your person, house, paper, and effects. For some reason the founding fathers didn't explicitly specify automobiles.
If my Fourth Amendment rights apply only in my house, they're almost useless, a mere technicality. I have to leave my house to live my life. Everything I do and own is at some point external to my house (e.g., books I read, phone calls I make, visitors, etc.), except for the things I build from scratch from the dirt under the basement and never take outside, and the thoughts in my head. Is that all that's protected?
Here's the new issue and challenging part. We can't ignore the effect of technology. For example, the right to bear arms was established before there technology advanced and we created missiles; the technology changed things. The legality of police following someone was established before advances in information technology; that changes things too. We can't pretend that the old law applies just as before.
Using IT, the state could track record all movements of all citizens outside their homes, and even record them on video, monitor their heart rate, record their speech, etc (not now, but it's not far off). Many think that that would be a great invasion of privacy, create the tools of oppression (imagine McCarthy, Nixon, or J Edgar Hoover with that information), and effectively eliminate most of the rights in the Fourth Amendment.
So we need to find a new balance, but I think the general principle is that, however we interpret those rights in the era of information technology, the Fourth Amendment wasn't written in jest.
Honorable [sec] Alex Kozinski
125 S Grand Ave,
Pasadena, CA 91105.
"Unpublished 626-229-1300. 626) 229-1300
(626) 229-7150
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If an individual were to follow me around all day tracking my movements, we could call it stalking. If the police do so by attaching a device to my car, it is called justice?
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
You know your government has tanks, missiles, stealth bombers and is on its way to warships with laser cannons right?
And those tanks, missiles, stealth bombers and other weapons are manned by citizens. I used to be one. While we were joking about it a number of us, including me, argued we'd frag someone giving us a bad order. While I'm no longer in the Army my nephew is in the Marines and I could see him doing it.
Heck even the Chinese had difficulty having it's army fire on civilians during the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. Commanders for the local army units refused to order soldiers to fire on civilians. Protesters were even cheered on by the police. Communist party bosses were scared the local military units were going to revolt so Beijing called in units from other parts of China. Even then there were reports of sporadic gunfire and interfactional fighting among PLA units.
It's not as easy to get a nation's military to fire on its own citizens as you seem to think. Heck in the Israeli military there are even refuseniks who refuse to take part in the occupation.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
I am a law abiding citizen
Until they decide you aren't.
Quite probably the most insightful thing anybody will post in this entire thread, because it is the whole point. Frightening how many people just don't (or refuse to) understand this, and are perfectly willing to let every little freedom slip away one at a time because "that doesn't affect me right now".
You may be the favored demographic today, but as political leaders change, and, more importantly, laws change, you may find a bulls-eye on your back tomorrow when someone in power doesn't like something you say or do that was, yesterday, considered perfectly harmless.
How's that working out for them in Iraq?
Imagine how much worse it would go if the people manning those weapons realized it could be family members and friends they're shooting at.
It still takes boots on the ground with rifles to actually control an area.
Why would you feel comfortable living in a society where the police watch everyone 24/7, particularly when the potential for corruption is so large?
Once this is in place its only a short step to using that data for corporations or governments to decide that some people aren't doing/going what/where they want them to do/go. Suddenly, your life becomes a constant challenge to follow the same pattern day in day out so as not to run afoul of the authorities. Yes, I want the police to have the tools they need to catch criminals, but society must be attentive enough to draw careful limits on such activities, lest it slip into an opportunity for abuse or worse a police state. You say its only a difference of price and magnitude. While that may be true, with both society becomes qualitatively as well as quantitatively different. Once we go down that road, there's a good change that we won't be coming back.
Except that removing the device would be interfering with law enforcement and therefore obstructing justice. Regardless, once anyone destroys one of these devices, they'll quickly pass a law making the destruction or removal of the device illegal.
As for the constitution. It's not a matter of "the constitution only works when the government follows it". It's a matter of "the constitution only works when the people FORCE the government to follow it". Yes, FORCE the government to follow it. Force, as in armed rebellion.
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.