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Student Sues FBI For Planting GPS Tracker
GabriellaKat submits this snippet from Yahoo! news, writing "'Yasir Afifi, 20, says a mechanic doing an oil change on his car in October discovered the device stuck with magnets between his right rear wheel and exhaust. They weren't sure what it was, but Afifi had the mechanic remove it and a friend posted photos of it online to see whether anyone could identify it. Two days later, Afifi says, agents wearing bullet-proof vests pulled him over as he drove away from his apartment in San Jose, Calif., and demanded their property back.' Now he has decided to sue the FBI. This story was also covered last year when he found the tracking device."
If we're going to take people's freedom away and treat them like criminals, then why the fuck does America exist?
If we're going to act like some police state or other oppressive regimes, then America is dead.
And if you really think we need this kind of monitoring to be safe, I'd like to point out that even the most monitored states around the World aren't any safer - if anything they're LESS safe because it allows for the abuse by the watchers.
If the FBI gets away with this, I'll consider America and Her values to be completely dead as opposed to mostly dead because of the PATRIOT Act.
This guy would succeed in suing the absolute shit out of them, and the agents responsible would be fired (all the way up the chain). The FBI has repeatedly spit on the cornerstone of our legal system which supposedly guarantees a man to be innocent before proven guilty. They have turned it around once again and forced this man to prove his innocence.
Now let's see just how free this country really is.
The FBI wouldn't be tracking him if he was actually "a 20 year old community college student who has never done anything [wrong]",
Exactly! Government agencies never do anything wrong and never target innocent citizens! All hail our three lettered overlords!
To paraphrase: "All suspects are guilty. Otherwise they wouldn't be suspect, would they?"
People like you should never ever ever serve on a criminal jury.
I am officially gone from
The FBI wouldn't be tracking him if he was actually "a 20 year old community college student who has never done anything [wrong]", as the article says. Maybe he's Ahmadinejad's nephew or something. Can we have some actual reporting?
Republicans are a strange breed. When it comes to Education or Environment or Social welfare or financial regulation, "Govt is incompetent, Govt is the problem, Govt cant do anything right. Govt employees are useless slackers ...".
But when it comes to warrant-less wiretaps, surveillance, etc the very same government employees are paragons of virtue and epitome of ability.
Go figure.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
If it were me I would have called the bomb squad and made sure all the TV crews were there to see them pull the tracking device off. I think the government and friends have granted themselves far too many powers since 9/11 etc and all of which wouldnt make a damn difference had it all happen again. Its a convenient justification to make it easier for which ever department has the resposibilities to do something that could be a bit easier if they were able to spy on you, read your emails, listen to your calls, check your bank transactions, etc, etc and now track your every movements. None of which is going to stop a guy with a cash plane ticket and a box knife is it now? I think the balance between privacy and security has now long been broken and ever day it seems to be getting worse. Its only when people like this guy stand up and make a point that it shouldnt be happening that something might ever possibly change.
Those who can, do. Those who cannot, sue.
That sound just like the Westborrow Baptist Church!
It's easy for the FBI to show the legality of their surveillance operation: simply produce the warrant signed by a judge. Clearly it doesn't matter if the suspect knows about it or not, otherwise they wouldn't demand their device back. There is no logical reason at this point not to tell the suspect why he's monitored: if the suspect is guilty, he very well knows why he is monitored anyways, and if he is not, he can probably exactly tell the FBI why it's all a waste of time and money.
Dear FBI, if you have nothing to hide you can clearly show under what jurisdiction you are monitoring people, right?
Wow. Too much Fox News FTL. While I certainly agree that the Islamic religion is a particularly nefarious one (only marginally ahead of Christianity, mind you), the vast majority of Muslims are normal people that just happen to believe something differently than you do.
To the haters: You can't win. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
no.
you've got your facts wrong.
his friend made a comment on reddit about how insane it is to obsess about terrorists blowing up shopping malls.
"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 : /"
that in and of itself wouldn't be a big deal, half of slashdot would be under permanent surveillance.
but he did so while being brown which makes it far far more serious.
It's unconstitutional, in part because it's the FBI. FBI agents, like cops, have limits on what they can do without a warrant. The agents in this case had no warrant.
Let's look at your facts, shall we?
1) It was attached with magnets (ie: no damage to the car)
Totally irrelevant to whether the search is legal. If I'm stopped by an officer as part of a traffic stop, refuse the officer entry to my vehicle (which is totally legal to do), and he grabs the keys and searches my vehicle anyways, that doesn't make the search legal despite the fact that it didn't damage the car in the least.
2) The car was likely in public (i.e. government property) when they did so
Irrelevant for much the same reason as the last one. Cars on public streets are still considered "persons, houses, papers, and effects". Also, it's more likely the car was parked in his driveway (where he found the device), or a privately owned parking lot.
3) The device was readily removable and findable, though most definitely "hidden in plain sight"
So? If my phone is bugged without a warrant, just because it's an amateurish job does not mean that the wiretap was legal.
I am officially gone from
And blowing up clinics and shooting doctors, Oh wait no that is Christians.
>>>Muslims are normal people that just happen to believe something differently than you do.
"Wrongthought"
It's not just a 1984 idea - it dates all the way back to the ~1100 AD crusades. The only justification for those wars was because muslims thought the "wrong" ideas, and therefore they needed to die. No wonder they hate Europeans & Americans - they still desire revenge for the injustices done to Arabs long ago.
".....remove the heads from thy enemies....." - Qor'an
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
And some Americans electrocute or gas their own citizens - so what?
The US is singularly unable to assert any "moral highground" arguments.
I'm funny this way, but I refuse to accept responsibility for events that happened 900 years ago. Besides it's not like there isn't enough blame for both sides either.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
So if he drives his vehicle onto private property where he can't simply be visually seen from a road, is this tracking now illegal?
This is why we must have laws which prevent warrantless tracking of any kind.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
You don't know. Maybe the reason was a tip from somebody who might have had a grudge. Maybe the reason was something the suspect said at a political meeting. maybe somebody misspelled a name on a form. There are lots of possible reasons, some good, some bad, and some borderline cases that might call for closer oversight of Homeland Security, and the real questions here all depend on those reasons.
You mentioned his travel. If he travelled frequently, always to locations that are considered hotbeds of terrorism, at times that were suspiciously coincidental with some known terrorists, also visiting those locations, that's a pretty good indicator to probe further. If his travel isn't that clear cut an indicator, then maybe what needs to happen here is the FBI needs to refine their process to avoid spending a lot of money and time following up on bad intelligence. But, you don't know that one way or another.
Who is John Cabal?
He made a comment on Reddit about how easy it actually is to bomb shopping malls
And he's right, which is why so many Americans are complete morons. To live in ANY free society, you risk being murdered, or worse, at any time of day or night. Period. The fact that so many idiots now suddenly believe they can be free, and have no risk while being free, means they are ignorantly demanding the removal of everyone's freedoms. Only these same people are too stupid to realize what they are really demanding - a non-free society. And guess what, that's exactly what we see; the destruction, well serious erosion, of liberty and freedom.
Sadly, those who are demanding the absolute protection of America are the most un-American of them all. These people are the real terrorists and all too often are openly embraced by the American public. Sadly, our forefathers are well established about warning us of these tyrants among us.
The reality is, its trivially easy to mass murder people in any free society. And what you linked to is exactly what he's saying. If terrorism is really such a threat, why don't see see mass murders on a daily basis? The commenter's point, which is completely accurate, is since we don't see terroristic mass murders on a daily basis here in the US, the propaganda is full of shit. The public is being mislead and lied to on a daily basis. The people "saving us" from tyranny are the real tyrants.
To be absolutely clear, I absolutely am NOT advocating violence. I'm only pointing out that in a free society, just as people have the freedom to go to work or store, some crazy has the freedom to kill them. And the only way to prevent that crazy from having his freedom is to prevent the rest of us from having ours.
As a side note, with very few exceptions, when you find people saying the US Constitution and our forefather's well known historical positions on life and liberty no longer apply, you've identified either an idiot or a tyrant.
They demanded it back? So that's an admission that it's theirs. Idiot move #1. They need to write that sort of stuff off.
The proper answer should be: "My attorney has it. He's having it analyzed by experts."
Next time, have some fun. Stick it to a police car parked at the doughnut shop. Then, make an anonymous call to the cops and report a rumor that some gang members in a couple of black SUVs are looking to knock off a cop to make their rep in the neighborhood.
Have gnu, will travel.
Here's a better idea. Rather than track all the cars, let's track the cars of people with red flags like sending lots of money to the Middle East, having a father with political connections in the Middle East,
Are either of these things illegal ? Are either of these things indicative of illegal behavior ? If you think so, I sure hope you never get racially profiled in the same way. It's bullshit. Unless you want to do the same to people who send money to Sweden and a father with political connections in Sweden. Or Mexico. Or Belgium. Or Japan. But then you are still just a xenophobe.
and having friends who make online posts about bombing malls.
Like in computer games ? Or as a hyperbolic way to point out the idiocy of security theatre ? Point out the idiocy of what the TSA is doing would be enough to get you "flagged" ? And what is a "flag" ? Who oversees these "flags" ? Is a judge ever involved ? We are infringing on an individual's liberties here; there better be judicial oversight. Alternatively, get rid of judges altogether and have the FBI carry out executions at will. Policestates are not that bad if you have nothing to hide.
And as a result of having red flags, the FBI decides to get a little more information about these people, not harassing them, damaging their property, or interfering with their lives in any way.
Other than infringing on their civil liberties and rights, sure. In that case, let's record every phone call ever made and keep it archived for a couple of years. This does not inconvenience people at all, they would not even notice it, nobody would be harassing them about it either. Better keep a log of all internet activity too. This is easily feasible. And it'll help with getting a little more information about people who get flagged in the future. Surely this is an idea we can all get behind ! Nobody would ever abuse this data or these privileges, not at the FBI. The FBI does not make mistakes, of course. And if they do, they can cover it up easily enough.
Yeah, I really have no problem with that. Why are you making a false equivalence between that totally reasonable activity and putting trackers "on all cars in the country" -- suggesting the FBI is just fishing randomly and harassing anybody they see fit.
Because the only reason the latter is not happening is that there are supposedly safeguards like judicial oversight. The FBI will conduct its operations the way it is most efficient and easiest for them to do. If they are allowed to use a tool, they will use it -- doing anything other than that would mean they are not doing their jobs efficiently or well.
Now an argument could be made that what they did here is reasonable. And if that argument can be made, why did they not make it to a judge and get a warrant ? We, as a society, infringe on people's liberties and rights all the time, balancing them against the interests of the society. To make sure this does not get abused by the executive, independent judicial oversight is necessary. That way we all get a fair shake and don't end up in a policestate. In an ideal world, anyway. We are far from an ideal world, and getting farther and farther away.