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College Student Finds GPS On Car, FBI Retrieves It
mngdih writes with this excerpt from Wired:
"A California student got a visit from the FBI this week after he found a secret GPS tracking device on his car, and a friend posted photos of it online. The post prompted wide speculation about whether the device was real, whether the young Arab-American was being targeted in a terrorism investigation and what the authorities would do. It took just 48 hours to find out: The device was real, the student was being secretly tracked and the FBI wanted their expensive device back ... His discovery comes in the wake of a recent ruling by the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals saying it's legal for law enforcement to secretly place a tracking device on a suspect's car without getting a warrant, even if the car is parked in a private driveway. ... 'We have all the information we needed,' they told him. 'You don't need to call your lawyer. Don't worry, you're boring.'"
How about a bit of "finders keepers" and disassemble and report of the technology. Followed up by a "Does it Blend" episode !
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Apparently it is powered by batteries, but I always wondered if you could power one by attaching a peltier module to the exhaust...
If you just find one of these and don't realize that it belongs to the FBI, and think "doesn't belong" and destory it (or just toss it in a dumpster), are you liable to pay for it when the FBI comes to get it back?
Not saying it's right, but "Afifi said he often travels for business and has two teenage brothers in Egypt whom he supports financially." Frequent traveling along with sending (presumably) large amounts of cash to the middle-east has to raise some red flags.
"Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much." - Oscar Wilde
It would be really interesting to see what would have happened had he disposed of it in a lake before the FBI showed up. There's nothing in the photo to indicate that it belongs to the government; it could have been placed by a private detective. As far as I'm concerned, if you attach something to my car without my permission, it's mine.
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." -- George Orwell
Or drop it off at the police station or mail it to the FBI. An unmarked box containing electronics that sends out transmissions? They'll get the bomb squad to deal with it. Then it ends up on the news, and people will actually hear about it.
grandstanding.
99.9% of us are boring.
so what? people just want to live their lives. terror is over-rated and over-reported.
how much is wasted chasing boogeymen? how many of these chases end up bothing innocent people under a dragnet?
sickening. I hate this aspect of how my country is now acting. its like a child who has not learned from the past and keeps repeating the same 'wolf!' call over and over again.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
This guy missed a golden opportunity to mess with the FBI. Like maybe taking the thing up in a plane and throwing it out the window. Or tie it to a giant helium balloon.
Interstate truck? That's far too easy. I'm thinking something like slip it in some meat and feed it to a gator in the Everglades.
So, is it okay for a "civvie" (ordinary citizen) to place a tracking device on a car belonging to The Authorities? You know, "watching the watchers"....
it might have been smarter to call the bomb squad when you find an unexpected device attached to your car than to touch it or remove it yourself.
Someone doing that in my neck of the woods would be greeted by a shotgun-toting homeowner and held for trespassing until the Sheriff showed up.
The Fourth Amendment reads:
``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.''
If there's no warrant or probable cause or justifiable reason to be there, they had better stay off my property.
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
Six months ago, a former roommate of his was visited by FBI agents who said they wanted to speak with Afifi. Afifi contacted one agent and was told the agency received an anonymous tip from someone saying he might be a threat to national security. Afifi told the agent he was willing to answer questions if his lawyer approved. But after Afifi's lawyer contacted the agency, he never heard from the feds again until he found their tracking device.
Fits the profile of someone you want to keep an eye on pretty well, actually.
What: having a dad and brothers is bad? David Kaczynski turned in his brother, the Unabomber; should he also be on a watch list for having suspicious relatives?
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
someone want to comment on the effectiveness of GPS jammers?
Most likely prohibited by the FCC.
These are definitely prohibited by the FCC / FAA. Even a GPS re-radiation system (for bringing GPS indoors) must be registered with the authorities. I have personally been witness to this situation when a company that makes re-rad devices was not checking that its customers were authorized to use the equipment. The FCC / FAA tracked them down and made them contact all their customers to register their equipment.
Dewey, you fool! Your decimal system has played right into my hands!
Freedom must include freedom to be in a government, or any other organization. If freedom only exists when there is no government, we have a paradox. You cannot be free to be in a government if you cannot have a government.
Secondly, you're only defining personal freedom, not collective freedom or any other kind of freedom. Freedom is not a thing, it is an attribute of a thing. Freedom in the abstract has no meaning, you can only have a freedom of.
Let us say that you are correct that totally free individuals have no government. Then the government, by definition, has no freedom at all. Nor does any other collective. But if you have a dictatorship (the government has total freedom), then neither individuals nor any other collective has freedom. In a total corporate state, it is the collectives that have freedom, not individuals nor government.
This leads to something I stated in a discussion a while back: The sum of all freedoms is a constant. The question is only how you divide the freedom up. There will be some optimal balance. I suspect this is going to work out at something like a 40:40:20 divide of freedom between people:collectives:government. Political scientists have tried to define the "perfect" system for millenia and failed, so I doubt I'll succeed any time soon. Equally, I doubt anyone else will, either.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I don't understand why this doesn't seem to compute. You *cannot* have it both ways - it cannot be a "lost item" and a "malicious device planted on my car by some shadowy third party who is out to do me harm." Either somebody misplaced it, or somebody knows *exactly* where it is and why it's there, and then the only question is whether or not they have the legal authority to place it there -if they do, then you're just destroying government property and extending the list of crimes you're under investigation for; if they don't, then the role of the police is to protect you from these violations, and so you should be putting them to work doing exactly that.
If you want to consider it "lost" property, you must treat it as such - which means you can't destroy it, or do whatever else you want with it, without facing legal consequences. I'll say it one more time: "FINDERS KEEPERS" IS NOT THE LAW, and never has been.
If you want to consider it a "malicious device," then you call the police and report what you've found, and turn the device over for them to investigate what the device is, what its purpose is, and who attached it to your car.
As a third option, only to be chosen if you want to continue to be a complete blithering idiot, keep claiming it's "lost property," and that its status as "found" property somehow allows you to dispose of it as you see fit, or destroy it if you feel like it. This option is completely indefensible from a legal standpoint, but it seems to be oddly comforting to a lot of armchair lawyers here.