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Student Sues FBI For Planting GPS Tracker

Posted by timothy on from the jiffy-lube-should-check-for-these-things-by-default dept.

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."

17 of 586 comments (clear)

  1. Way to go! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Way to go! by Opportunist · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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!

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    2. Re:Way to go! by Yold · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

  2. In a free country by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:In a free country by mysidia · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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

    2. Re:In a free country by Jason+Levine · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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?)

      --
      My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
  3. The original Reddit post by Dayofswords · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.
  4. Re:So who is he really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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!

  5. Re:So who is he really? by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
  6. Re:Article not worth my time. by klingens · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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?

  7. Re:So who is he really? by thisnamestoolong · · Score: 5, Informative

    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
  8. Re:So who is he really? by HungryHobo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  9. Re:I would have just put in on a long distance sem by devent · · Score: 5, Informative

    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
  10. Re:So who is he really? by budgenator · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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
  11. Law Student Analysis by Thakandar2 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  12. An interesting quote by Drakkenmensch · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  13. Re:$200 fine by commandermonkey · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.