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."

Comments

Way to go!

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Way to go!

[Opportunist]

We're so friggin' afraid to die that we don't mind living in a golden cage. Even if it's just spray paint. Everyone's crying for more protection, more safety, no matter the cost. It's not just the whole police state thing running rampart. When was the last time you have seen kids play outside, climbing trees and skinning knees? Everything has to be "safe and sane", cotton-wrapped from cradle to grave. And that's what people want, it seems! That's what you get in a sue-happy environment, where people refuse to think for themselves and instead blame everything happening to them on everyone else. If you're stupid, someone else is to blame for your accidents. You used a rotating chair as a makeshift ladder and broke your leg? Sue the manufacturer, he didn't tell you that it's a STUPID idea.

People seem to think that they are not responsible for anything, at any time. We're just far too happy to delegate every kind of responsibility to ... well, anyone! And here's someone who promises to keep us safe from terrrrrists? Great, here, have my freedom! I'm far too scared to die to worry about that petty little thing!

9/11 was traumatic for the US. For the first time, in decades, if not centuries, the US were attacked by someone on their own home ground. And so suddenly too. Unprepared you get hit in your own home. It's about as traumatic as a sudden burglar breaking in and beating you up. Now multiply that by a few 100 million. This is how the US population felt after this event. And much like people who survive such a burglar situation, they start calling for more security. You can see alarm systems sales skyrocket when a burglary series runs rampart across town. But not with people who want to prepare and protect against it, it's usually people who HAVE already had a "visit" who are buying, despite the fact that the horse left the barn, it's not that they'd expect the burglar to return, it's simply a psychological reaction to it. It's this traumatic experience that leads to this behaviour.

And the fact that you cannot protect from such attacks is no deterrent from trying either. It is impossible to make the US "secure". Are you kidding? Yes, you can monitor everything that gets in and out of the US, but how do you want to avoid people mixing up bombs? We're talking about some 200 million people, do you think NONE of them has the ability AND the willingness AND access to the materials to bomb something? The odds are slightly against you there.

But, people, it's been a decade. It's time to shake it off. Yes, remember and never forget, but you have to live again. The US were the epitome of freedom, liberty and the ability to make your own way without interference from state or government, for almost all of its existence. People went there from countries that suppressed their strive for self-realization and happiness. This US of today is not anymore what we saw in it. I want my US back!

Read your anthem, people. Read those last lines. "Land of the free. Home of the brave". It's time you act like it again!

Re:Way to go!

[Yold]

Do you know how the FBI has operated since its inception? Google the FBI and MLK Jr. , the FBI and communists, the FBI and 1960s radicals. I don't know why people don't realize this is business as usual.

why the does America exist?

For the same reason as always, to line the pockets of the richest 5% while subduing the people with fantastic lies about "Freedom". The easiest early example would be The Sedition Act of 1798, which effectively made anti-government speech treasonous. We are a nation of hypocrites; our leaders rule under the principle of doublethink, whereby "Freedom" enjoy supreme lip-service, but truly must it exist only to keep the masses docile and in servitude.

American "Freedom" as you are taught in school is A LIE; it is pandering and idealistic. It ignores the fact that our founding fathers decreed that "All men shall be created equal" while holding slaves. It glances over the MANY instances of genocide of American Indians. You'll never read about the times that people have been imprisoned or worse for practicing freedom of speech. America is a great country, but you must understand that the common notion of a worsening state of affairs is a product of ignorance.

In a free country

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:In a free country

[mysidia]

To be the devil's advocate - gathering evidence IS the attempt of proving guilt.

No... gathering evidence is the attempt to establish guilt.

It is a well known fact that everyone is guilty of something. Especially due to the vast vague laws on the books. If an officer searches you enough they will be able to find some law you have broken, even if you are an upstanding citizen. There are a massive enough obscure laws on the books to do so.

Hell, 95% of the population can be jailed on the streets at will for the so-called crime of "disorderly conduct". You ever take a quiet stroll in the park? Disorderly conduct!
You ever take a walk in the woods? Disorderly conduct!
You ever use the bushes outdoors as a bathroom? Disorderly conduct, public indecency, littering.

We live in a country, where you have liberties. Even if you are guilty of something, the government is not allowed by the constitution to harass you or go on a fishing expedition to figure out what laws you have broken, obscure laws or not

Re:In a free country

[Jason Levine]

Yes and infringing on your freedoms while gathering evidence is inevitable. To prevent abuse, though, law enforcement is traditionally required to obtain a warrant. This means they've gone in front of a judge, argued why infringing on this person's rights is so important and got the judge to agree. In practice, it is a rubber-stamp in many cases, but at least it is some form of a check and balance system. Recently, however, law enforcement has been whining that getting warrants are too hard and take too long and we'd all be safer if we'd just let them do whatever they want to do whenever they want to do it. After all, like the old saying goes: Absolute power guarantees absolute safety doesn't corrupt at all. (That *is* the saying, right?)

Re:So who is he really?

[Anonymous Coward]

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!

Re:So who is he really?

[dkleinsc]

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.

Re:So who is he really?

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

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?

• Or could have the same name as OBL's second cousin.
• Or some FBI agent misspelt OBL's second cousin while punching in the "suspect" database.
• Or OBL's second cousin has grudge against this guy over some girlfriend (that would be OBL's third cousin) and ratted on this guy to FBI.
• Or OBL's second cousin is having a side business of ratting out five suspects per month to FBI at the rate of 1000$ per named suspect.
• Or Al Que`da has a counter intelligence operation where its operatives name so many innocent people to FBI to dilute and scatter FBI's resources.

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.

Re:Article not worth my time.

[klingens]

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?

Re:So who is he really?

[HungryHobo]

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.

Re:So who is he really?

[nosferatu1001]

And some Americans electrocute or gas their own citizens - so what?

The US is singularly unable to assert any "moral highground" arguments.

Re:So who is he really?

[budgenator]

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.

Re:So who is he really?

[GooberToo]

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.