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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.
When the FBI tells you that you are boring...just WOW!
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
Land of the free*
* Some conditions apply. See in-country for details. Void where prohibited. No cash value. Offer expires September 11, 2001.
When the FBI tells you "Not to worry" and "Don't call your lawyer", do you want to guess who the very next person you should call is?
Hint: It's not your mom.
What a wasted opportunity to attach it to a bus.
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
Now that we have pictures we can identify future devices.
When you find one, wander over to a freeway gas station and replant it on an interstate truck. At least make them work to recover it.
...hidden GPS device tracks you!
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
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
someone want to comment on the effectiveness of GPS jammers?
Most likely prohibited by the FCC.
Your TomTom is a GPS receiver not a GPS tracker.
A GPS receiver knows where the GPS receiver is but doesn't have a mechanism to send that information to a remote location.
It doesn't do the FBI any good.
A GPS tracker contains a GPS receiver but also some communication method (cellular, sat, other wireless technology) to periodically or continually send location information to a remote location.
I think if I found someone crawling under my car in my unfenced, ungated driveway, placing some device on my car, I'd be cueing up the track of a shotgun being pumped on my MP3 player, then playing it real loud for the perp under my car.
If you look further in the article, you can reconstruct a hypothetical scenario which, from the FBI's point of view, looks completely normal:
It's of course a bit scary to have people tracking you when you didn't do anything wrong; and it sounds like there was some annoying bullying (TFA: "[The FBI agent] told Afifi, “We’re going to make this much more difficult for you if you don’t cooperate.”) But it sounds like there's an explanation of how this could have happened by-the-book, and the FBI is doing their job.
TCP: Why the Internet is full of SYN.
A large radio station had a badly-tuned transmitter that jammed the lower half of the FM band in a major city for years, affecting radio reception in the (poor) quarter of the city badly, and making those low-power personal FM transmitters (for use with ipods) useless within 30 miles.
The residents of that neighborhood heard (shitty) gospel music over their land lines, the signal leakage was so bad.
It took the FCC repeated complaints and 10 years to do anything.
Or better, call in the police bomb squad because someone has "attached an electronic device to your car", get the government to blow it up for you :)
...
Imagine further if you as a citizen had planted the device on the car of a US Senator. Imagine the trouble you'd be in.
This kind of invasive aggressive action against citizens who have done nothing (no court order) should not be tolerated.
Why are you letting these clowns ruin our country?
Imagine if an FBI agent shows up to your house and hold you responsible for a missing tracking device you didn't know was on your car.
did you forget to take your meds?
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.
(1) When a cop investigating you acts friendly toward you, don't assume that means he's your friend.
(2) [corollary] When a cop who's been investigating you tells you that you don't need to talk to your lawyer, *talk to your lawyer*.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
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!
After reading the TFA (yeah, I know) the FBI actions seem warranted, even though they didn't have a warrant.
Score 1 for the FBI. Epic fail for the 9th circuit. Even though they were right, they still should have gone through the proper procedure.
I don't know about you, but I'm willing to pay an extra $1/year in taxes so the FBI follows proper procedure and gets a warrant. If everybody pays that, it's about $300 million. I doubt it would even cost that much to actually do what the Constitution requires. You know, that document that you SWORE TO UPHOLD AND DEFEND?
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
10. Place it on your ex-girlfriend's car.
9. Place it on a train.
8. Place it on a freighter carrying electronics to be recycled in China.
7 Place it in your carry-on luggage and watch the fun at airport security.
6. Dial 911 and tell them you've found a bomb on your car. Invite TV news crews to come watch the fun.
5. Give it to your local ACLU and tell them to make the FBI prove it's theirs before handing it back.
4. Pretend you don't know it's there, and drive to as many Tea Party events as possible.
3. Build an autonomous flying drone capable of carrying it and program it to fly around in circles all day.
2. Hack its logic to input arbitrary coordinates and make virtual visits to places you've always wanted to see.
1. Pretend it's not there and go on a tour of the most patriotic American landmarks to demonstrate your loyalty to the United States.
WTF are you talking about?
1. GP was quoting from the Declaration of Independence, not the Bill of Rights.
2. The Bill of Rights are the first 10 *AMENDMENTS TO THE CONSTITUTION*. By definition, they are part of it.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Fits the profile of someone you want to keep an eye on pretty well, actually.
In which case, getting a warrant should be a piece of cake.
Sure I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
A serious question to any lawyer-type people out there:
When I first read about this court ruling I was left wondering how this applies to citizens using these devices on police, government officials, candidates, etc. I had just read a different article about iPhone apps that let people know where speed traps and DUI checkpoints are set up. The cynic in me thought this ruling must mean that citizens can now GPS bug police cars and the whole process of collecting data for speed traps and stuff would be automated instead of world-of-mouth. Is that a logical conclusion? Or are police and government officials somehow different from citizens in this regard?
..its different because a cop following you doesnt typically lead to the question "Can we have our cop back now, please?"
"His name was James Damore."
Let's all call the FBI and ask if this thingamadgig or that thingamabob on our autos is the FBI's device.
"Hello, Police? Yes, my mechanic has found what appears to be a pipe bomb attached to the underside of my car. Could you please send some units, and bomb disposal, here immediately, I am concerned for my life."
It's a long black pipe, sealed at both ends, with an antenna wire hanging out of it, and magnets to secure it in place. While it may be a GPS tracker, it could just as likely been a pipe bomb with a remote trigger. Best let the authorities blow that sucker up. And if the FBI come by asking for their tracker back, you can have them arrested for instigating an act of terror on American soil by planting their "pipe-bomb" on your car.
And then the legal system disappears up it's own fundamental orifice.
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.