Slashdot Mirror
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.
Reddit post:
http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/dmh5s/does_this_mean_the_fbi_is_after_us/
Images of device:
http://imgur.com/OM6nE.jpg
http://imgur.com/sspLU.jpg
http://imgur.com/f4V2T.jpg
http://imgur.com/srhrK.jpg
Someday we'll hit the human carrying capacity. And the band will just play on.
So you're saying the thing he's done was being a dictator's nephew...?
All your 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 are belong to us
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
There hasn't been actual reporting since Franklins press. 99% of news is spun propaganda, the rest is gossip
You're joking right?
The "phamplet press" of colonial time was 100% biased to whatever side of the political fence the editors sat on, and would print rumors and innuendo in ways that would make the editors of the weekly world news blanch
They did occasionally get things right, like when they busted Thomas Jefferson for impregnating Sally Hemmings (vindicatated 200+ years later), but they also printed stuff that would easily get you sued for libel and slander today.
Considering the founding fathers went out of their way NOT to put limits on it, and considering the state of the press at the time of the constitution really illustrates just how far-reaching freedom of the press should be...
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.
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?
He did not do that -- it was a friend of his. This means that if you say something stupid, but clearly non-threatening, on the Internet, that the FBI has a right to spy on everyone you know. That, to me, is an extremely troubling precedent to set.
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.
I mean, what are they going to do to you?
I don't know, like say you are a terrorist and a Unlawful combatant, as such you don't have any rights and put you in to Guatemala Bay prison, torture you there and release you after a few months. If he tries to sue, the Obama administration will pressure the courts to not hear the case and to drop the charges. Oh wait, that was the CIA, o.k. never mind.
http://www.mueller-public.de - My site http://www.anr-institute.com/ - Advanced Natural Research Institute
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 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?
From the article: "The Obama administration asked the court to change its ruling, calling the decision "vague and unworkable" and arguing that investigators will lose access to a tool they now use "with great frequency." -This is not a reassuring trend. If the objection was that it was vague and unworkable, that'd be fine. But their objection seems to be that it disallows them from using the GPS without a warrant - which is not fine. Voting for change wasn't supposed to mean "Change my ideals back to what the previous people did."
Also: ". . . the agents who showed up to collect the device were "hostile," threatening to charge Afifi if he didn't immediately cooperate and refusing his request to have a lawyer present" and earlier stated, the agents "demanded their property back." I might just be a first year law student, but if you leave your property in my car, and make no claims to it and abandon it, then it could be mine. Also, the agents only "pulled him over as he drove away from his apartment" probably to avoid the whole warrant issue of collecting it from his apartment. Yet, any time law enforcement shows up, it is my understanding that you don't have to give them any information besides the identify statutes require, like name and maybe ID if your state says so. So I'd sit in the parking lot, and not invite them into my home and tell them I don't want them to search my car without some kind of pretense. Also, I'd turn my smart phone recorder on since we were having the discussions in public.
Perhaps they could have just followed him with a tail to get all the GPS type info, or put a drone over him. I don't think there's an expectation of privacy for the outside of your car, but if it was found in the engine compartment, that might be different. I don't like adding to the car with a device... that seems like some kind of alteration, or trespass to chattels (personal property). Government tort exemptions probably apply for this kind of thing, whether it's constitutional or not.
I'm much more concerned with the adding a device to the personal property than I am the expectation of privacy claim. IF I wanted to follow someone all day, I could collect all the information about their whereabouts.
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.
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.
From Wikipedia's page on the Crusades:
The immediate cause of the First Crusade was the Byzantine emperor Alexios I's appeal to Pope Urban II for mercenaries to help him resist Muslim advances into territory of the Byzantine Empire. In 1071, at the Battle of Manzikert, the Byzantine Empire was defeated, which led to the loss of all of Asia Minor (modern Turkey) save the coastlands.
So, Muslims attacked the Byzantine empire and the Byzantine emperor asks for and receives help from Europe. So, it's Europe's fault for not telling the Byzantine emperor Alexios I to simply give up and die in place?
More:
While the Reconquista was the most prominent example of European reactions against Muslim conquests, it is not the only such example. The Norman adventurer Robert Guiscard had conquered Calabria in 1057 and was holding what had traditionally been Byzantine territory against the Muslims of Sicily. The maritime states of Pisa, Genoa and Catalonia were all actively fighting Islamic strongholds in Majorca, freeing the coasts of Italy and Catalonia from Muslim raids. Much earlier, the Christian homelands of Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Egypt, and so on had been conquered by Muslim armies. This long history of losing territories to a religious enemy created a powerful motive to respond to Byzantine Emperor Alexius I's call for holy war to defend Christendom, and to recapture the lost lands starting with Jerusalem.
Someone is wrong here. You say the Crusades were "because muslims thought the "wrong" ideas" and Wikipedia states that it was because of Muslim aggression into the Byzantine empire. Hmmm. I wonder who's wrong?
".....remove the heads from thy enemies....." - Qor'an
"....turn the other cheek...." - The Holy Bible
And Christians are the bad guys.
And as for your sig... you think that those that hold a different view from you should be "BANNED"? Kinda goes against the whole "free exchange of ideas" thing doesn't it? How many tyrannical dictators gained power by people who felt the same way you do about people they disagreed with?
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
The federal appeals court in the Washington circuit where Afifi's case was filed ruled in August that the collection of GPS data amounts to a government "search" that required a warrant. The Obama administration asked the court to change its ruling, calling the decision "vague and unworkable" and arguing that investigators will lose access to a tool they now use "with great frequency."
So the FBI admits they're doing a lot of GPS tracking without warrants.
Silly rabbit, laws are only for plebs, not people/goverment with money/power.
The government will either go with:
A) State secret and demand that its dismissed.
B) State that the people who could defend it are too busy to go to court and their for it needs to be dismissed
C) Get a retroactive FISA warrant.
The problem with your source is that it confirms what the OP said. From EB - "Crusades, military expeditions, beginning in the late 11th century, that were organized by Western Christians in response to centuries of Muslim wars of expansion."
Thank you for proving two things - 1) that the OP was telling the truth about Muslims provoking the Crusades and 2) that you're not too bright and have no clue what you're talking about, merely parroting what the TV tells you to say.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
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.
The difference is that they actually had to access a person's private property (his car) and place an unmarked device in it. Any such devices should be clearly marked as government property _and_ matched up w/ a search warrant # which is on file in the same locale as the vehicle is registered in.
I think it would have been far more interesting if instead of removing it, the mechanic had instead:
- rolled the car out into the public street
- called the local police department to report a suspicious, possibly explosive device in a vehicle
- notified the owner of the car and asked for him to coordinate things with the bomb squad
Moreover, the biggest problem w/ warrant-less placement of such devices is that it fails the equal protection under the law test. Poor people park their cars out on public streets or on driveways --- which can apparently be accessed w/o a search-warrant, while rich people live in gated communities and have their cars stored off the street, often in garages which are pretty much inaccessible w/o a search-warrant.
William
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
ah the great slashdot dissapearance of 2010... it all makes sense now.
it's deeper than we thought!
Yes, if someone deliberately places a pamphlet on your car, you can claim it as yours. (It's also littering for them to have done that, but whatever.)
You do have to actually claim it, though, it's not automatically yours. You can refuse to claim it as yours and just move it to the trash or something. (Sorta moot WRT a pamphlet, but might be relevant if it was $10,000, and you didn't want to ever 'own' it because you'd have to pay income taxes on it. Yes, silly example, but whatever.)
All laws concerning lost (aka, dropped) or mislaid (aka, set down but you forget to pick it up) property have one overriding rules: They require the property to have been left accidentally.
Leaving something on purpose means it is, by definition, neither lost nor mislaid. There's really no way to argue that a GPS tracker was accidentally left attached to his car, as that was its entire purpose.
So unless it's part of the few specific exceptions in the law, like packages delivered to the wrong address, it's now abandoned property. Property that someone deliberately left on someone else's property.
You can basically treat abandoned property as your own. While some states do let the original owners demand it back within a certain amount of time, they have no recourse if it cannot be returned or is broken.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
I mean seriously -- if this had happened to me, I'd have gotten rid of the thing, and claim I never knew about it, and it must have fallen off the car.
Keep in mind that they didn't know what it was (hence why they took a picture and posted it). Then the FBI descended (and at that point it's a bad idea to claim that the item you were so curious about was thrown out and destroyed - not to mention the bloody thing was probably still broadcasting).
Now, the *next* time someone finds one of these things on their car - there's no limit to the wackery that can ensue. Off the top of my head: