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College Student Finds GPS On Car, FBI Retrieves It

Posted by Soulskill on from the everybody-gets-one-in-the-tailpipe dept.

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.'"

31 of 851 comments (clear)

  1. Finders Keepers? by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.
    1. Re:Finders Keepers? by X0563511 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      ... and how about they kiss his ass, seeing as they left their property inside his for surveillance?

      He's got every right (IMO) to do what he damn well pleased with it.

      --
      For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
    2. Re:Finders Keepers? by powerlord · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yes, but how does he know that it is actually theirs?

      Perhaps they are just trying to get their hands on other people's property.

      Are they prepared to provide a receipt for returning the item, or some proof of ownership that he can retain a copy of to protect himself from liability.

      -- Menachem

      --
      This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
    3. Re:Finders Keepers? by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 5, Insightful

      So what you're saying is that we've gone from "give me liberty or give me death" to "don't throw me in jail because it will make me uncomfortable".

      As to your last question. YES IT IS WORTH IT. Liberty is always worth the penalty for it, the other option is to acquiesce to slavery. This is no different. Tyranny must be fought with everything we have, because the other options aren't pretty.

      --
      Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
    4. Re:Finders Keepers? by Abstrackt · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Not that I disagree with you, but there is a pretty wide gap between saying something like this on the Internet and actually following through with it in the real world.

      There's obviously no way for me to know your level of life-experience but if a person is not normally subjected to direct pain and suffering or is blissfully unaware of it the amount of effort required to force them into acquiescence is minimal. Withstanding that kind of pressure isn't as simple as you make it sound.

      --
      They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it's not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance. - Terry Pratchett
    5. Re:Finders Keepers? by poetmatt · · Score: 5, Insightful

      actually, I would define subversive activities such as putting a GPS device in someone's car to track them without their consent as terrorism.

    6. Re:Finders Keepers? by cmiller173 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      1776: "Then it's agreed, gentlemen, in order to secure our rights as a free people, we will risk embarrassment, imprisonment, expropriation, bankruptcy, bodily harm, exile and hanging." 2010: "Of course I'll waive my rights. I don't want to miss my connecting flight."

    7. Re:Finders Keepers? by Defenestrar · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Especially if you have a family you are taking care of. You have that extra drive to make sure your daughter will grow up in a free country, but that's tempered by the knowledge that certain acts of civil disobedience (or extrapolating to an illegally oppressive government - those may be acts of constitutional obedience) may place you in custody/court for a sufficient amount of time to lose your job. That could result in failure to pay mortgage, inability to obtain another job within your career, etc...

      I like to think that my daughter will still think of me as her hero and role model when she grows up, and I know my wife would support me (we'd probably be in trouble together actually) if it were one of the Big freedom issues. So what do you do when it's things like back scatter screening on a field-trip to the courthouse or driving through a DUI checkpoint in the coldest form of sobriety?

      This is the insidious danger inherent in the erosion of freedom: not enough to die for, not even enough to make you homeless or hungry or inconvenienced over, but enough, over time, to leave you with a shallow shadow of what our ancestors died for.

    8. Re:Finders Keepers? by Duradin · · Score: 5, Insightful

      1776: "We lack representation in government and have no other recourse."
      2010: "We are the government and have recourse to change laws."

    9. Re:Finders Keepers? by kurokame · · Score: 5, Insightful

      1776: "The government is across an ocean."
      2010: "The government habitually plays big brother (and just did)."

  2. America by InsertWittyNameHere · · Score: 5, Funny

    Land of the free*




    * Some conditions apply. See in-country for details. Void where prohibited. No cash value. Offer expires September 11, 2001.

  3. Dont' call your lawyer? by chad.koehler · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Dont' call your lawyer? by Mazzie · · Score: 5, Funny

      Unless your mom is your lawyer... and if that is the case, you have bigger problems than the FBI like having to sign a 12 page lease for the basement, and getting sued for leaving the seat up.

      --
      Having a bookmark to Google does not make you an expert on everything.
    2. Re:Dont' call your lawyer? by daid303 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Ghostbusters?

  4. What happens if you destroy it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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?

    1. Re:What happens if you destroy it? by Grizzley9 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      B/C they found the one they wanted him to find...

    2. Re:What happens if you destroy it? by larry+bagina · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The article is a good read and a little creepy. We're here to recover the device you found on your vehicle. It's federal property. It's an expensive piece, and we need it right now...We.re going to make this much more difficult for you if you don't cooperate"

      Summary: not illegal/unconstitutional for the government to track your car, probably a crime if you find tracker and do anything with it.

      --
      Do you even lift?

      These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.

    3. Re:What happens if you destroy it? by Geek_Cop · · Score: 5, Informative

      You would hope that they would charge you for it, meaning they will just put an entry into the US Treasury to withhold your next 10 tax returns until the unit is paid for. Otherwise they can simply put you on the "No Fly List" ..that is what they mean by "making it difficult for you". They will simply label you a terrorist or send your name to ICE..the world is their oyster, and you are nothing but a pawn. As a (former) cop, I've watched other cops label innocent people as "Scumbags" and their life was hell in this jurisdiction from then on. A cop just has to "say" you did something to cause you irreparable grief. He doesn't have to prove anything until you go to court. I could only imagine an FBI agent and what his ego could do. Anybody in law enforcement, at every level, is an infantile egomaniac.

    4. Re:What happens if you destroy it? by JAZ · · Score: 5, Informative

      Redditors are guessing that it had to do with this post that he made. So slightly more than race, but not by much.

      --


      "Karma can only be portioned out by the cosmos." -- Homer Simpson
  5. Re:Wasted opportunity by Tablizer · · Score: 5, Funny

    What a wasted opportunity to attach it to a bus.

    Or to the chief's car

    --
    Table-ized A.I.
  6. Could have been interesting by OhHellWithIt · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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
    1. Re:Could have been interesting by hedwards · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Or, better yet, call 911 and report a suspicious device attached to your car. Given what I saw in the picture, that would've been my first step. The device itself isn't easily distinguishable from a bomb. It's clearly got at least 3 of the components necessary, and I personally wouldn't go screwing around with something that has that many components without a robot to do it for me.

  7. Re:Replant the device by literaldeluxe · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  8. Your TomTom is a GPS receiver not a GPS tracker. by anUnhandledException · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  9. Re:OUCH by dcollins · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Also: Don't believe it. Call the fucking lawyer.

    --
    We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
  10. Friend "wrote something stupid" by martyros · · Score: 5, Informative

    If you look further in the article, you can reconstruct a hypothetical scenario which, from the FBI's point of view, looks completely normal:

    • Young Arab American named Khaled writes a blog post hinting at something violent: (TFA: "When he later asked Khaled about the post, his friend recalled “writing something stupid,” but said he wasn’t involved in any wrongdoing.")
    • FBI gets warrants to track whereabouts of Khalid and his friends, one of whom is Afifi (TFA: "[A former FBI agent] said he was certain that agents who installed it would have obtained a 30-day warrant for its use.")
    • FBI plants device on Afifi's car.
    • Afifi finds the device during a routine check-up
    • FBI notices the thing isn't moving, and/or notice the photos online, and decide to show their cards; especially since they're convinced he's not important anyway.

    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.

    1. Re:Friend "wrote something stupid" by mdarksbane · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I have no problem with the FBI putting tracking devices on people on whom they are conducting a legitimate investigation. I have a huge problem with the fact that they can do it now on minimum suspicion and without a warrant.

    2. Re:Friend "wrote something stupid" by SoTerrified · · Score: 5, Informative

      Just for interests sake, here's the "something stupid" that his buddy Khaled wrote on a 'blog'.

      http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/ciiag/so_if_my_deodorant_could_be_a_bomb_why_are_you/c0sve5q

      bombing a mall seems so easy to do. i mean all you really need is a bomb, a regular outfit so you arent the crazy guy in a trench coat trying to blow up a mall and a shopping bag. i mean if terrorism were actually a legitimate threat, think about how many fucking malls would have blown up already.. you can put a bag in a million different places, there would be no way to foresee the next target, and really no way to prevent it unless CTU gets some intel at the last minute in which case every city but LA is fucked...so...yea...now i'm surely bugged : /

      If that post gets you FBI monitoring... The FBI has WAYYYY too much time on their hands. But one has to laugh at the irony of the "I'm surely bugged"...

    3. Re:Friend "wrote something stupid" by Chowderbags · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Oh crap, I've said pretty much that same thing. Maybe I should check my car... oh wait, I'm not brown, the FBI won't care.

  11. Re:Wasted opportunity by chad.koehler · · Score: 5, Funny

    Or mail it to Pakistan via Fedex.

  12. Re:Tailing your car? by Rockoon · · Score: 5, Funny

    ..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."