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NJ Judge Rules GPS Tracking of Spouse Legal
Endoflow2010 writes "The use of a GPS device to track your whereabouts is not an invasion of privacy in New Jersey, a state appellate court panel ruled today. Based on the battle of a divorcing Gloucester County couple, the decision helps clarify the rules governing a technology increasingly employed by suspicious spouses — many of whom hire private investigators. No state law governs the use of GPS tracking devices, and the ruling, which does not affect police officers, is the first to address the issue, said Jimmie Mesis, past president of the New Jersey Licensed Private Investigators Association. 'We only use it when we are sure we have the appropriate conditions,' [private investigator Lisa Reed] said, noting that investigators make sure GPS devices are installed in cars on public streets and not private areas, and that the spouse must have some legal or financial connection to the car."
..is to use a GPS jammer.
mobile phone would make more sense ;)
So since us citizens have financial connections to government cars (we pay for them) we can track them?
No comment
... track it.
Oddly enough, BMW has a program called BMW Assist with includes gps tracking for theft recovery. But BMW will NOT provide the location to the owner of the vehicle, only to the police, after you fill out a police report.
When they were trying to sell me on this system, I said, you won't tell ME where MY car is even though I pay for this "service"? F. U.
If I'm ever married to someone who doesn't have any moral or ethical problems with putting a GPS tracker on my vehicle just to get dirt on me, and they want a divorce .. they can have it with my blessings.
;)
Not that they're hard to find or disable if you know what you're looking for. (Or if you, say, "accidentally" lose it on the highway somewhere.) (And it's not like we need that many excuses to crawl under our vehicles looking for interesting things to see..
So you can put a GPS on an object that you have a financial interest in... How exactly is this violating anything?
..is to use a GPS jammer.
Then, you can't use a GPS navigator to get to where you're going.
Anything that follows this form usually doesn't: It will only be used when ________.
I'm assuming, regardless of their personal position on privacy, they simply don't want to find themselves in the middle of domestic disputes like divorce proceedings.
Rules of Conduct:
#1 - The DM is always right.
#2 - If the DM is wrong, see rule #1
If a relationship is to the point of a person needing to track their significant other's movements with a GPS device, why do people even bother continuing the relationship? Seems to me that suspicion of that magnitude is pretty much in itself a sign of a failed relationship. I mean, if there's no trust, what's the point of the relationship at all? Why not just end the relationship and go your own way? People get divorced or break up every single day...it's not the end of the world.
That's the gist of it. And in this country, where you can't simply kill a cheating spouse, you need everything you can to avoid paying alimony and child support when the other spouse fucks everything to hell. The child should default to the non-cheating spouse (or the one that doesn't have evidence of cheating against them).
Hence, allowing GPS trackers on spouses is a good thing.
I wouldn't bother with all of this high-tech electronic-tracking-device-attachment-to-a-vehicle thing. If you want to know where your wife is or has been, just watch your online bank/credit-card statement.
This ruling makes sense from a pure law perspective: If I own or have a legal connection to the car, I'm basically choosing to track my own vehicle's movements, whether it happens to be myself or my spouse or anyone else driving it. In fact, most people here would probably be outraged if told they couldn't do this with their own vehicle.
To clarify, the article doesn't state that you can arbitrarily track your spouse wherever he/she goes (the court's full decision isn't linked, though). The person who installed the tracking device owned the car.
If I track the Judge with GPS, would that be legal?
This ruling is very backwards IMO. This is the part that bothers me the most:
"many of whom hire private investigators" AND "investigators make sure GPS devices are installed in cars on public streets and not private areas"
I don't have a problem with a wife installing one on her husband's car while it's on their private property. I don't even have a problem with an investigator installing it there as long as the wife is present at the time. If you're married, the car is partially hers anyway. If you can't stand the thought of something like that happening, don't get married (or live together), and your stuff will never be partially hers.
However, I have a big problem with anyone messing with someone else's car while the car is on public streets. Does anyone else think this is completely backwards?
If you wanted to track your spouse's location, it would be easy enough to give him or her a cell phone that has some form of Family Locator service or install an app on an iPhone or Android. Really it's not that hard. You could give them the phone and call it a gift. If you're that paranoid, I must say, it's probably already time to get a divorce and hire a psychologist. Remember, distrust in a relationship is more often a sign of what you're willing to do than what they are.
Most ignorance is vincible ignorance. We don't know because we don't want to know. --Aldous Huxley
The system they were trying to sell you was for theft recovery. If a car is stolen it is normally reported to the police. The system you apparently wanted was the 'BMW Vigilante Assist Program.'
translates to "for no particular reason"
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Being a tax payer I have a financial connection to each Police Car. I can now place GPS devices on the local Police cars and track their whereabouts. This will help justify the need for more or less Police officers. This will help financially strapped counties.
Barwick, you just got smacked the fuck up for trying to be a smart ass.
Love it when slashbots get owned.
Is it ok if I "accidentally" try to stick it in my wife's pooper while doing her doggy-style?
The use of a GPS device to track your whereabouts is not an invasion of privacy in New Jersey, a state appellate court panel ruled today.
No, that is not what the panel ruled. The panel ruled that someone with at least partial ownership of a vehicle may install, or cause to be installed, a GPS tracking device even if said person is not the primary user of said vehicle.
This ruling is very narrow and does not address placing a GPS tracking device in a car one does not own.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
The titles of both the /. post and the original article imply it's okay to track your spouse, as if you own them and can follow them around, which is not true without their consent. The summary clarifies this as does the original article body. #1 vehicles are in public places and #2 the person who hired the investigator owns or partially owns the car.
Essentially you are asking a private investigator to put a GPS tag on your private property. Also, if the car needs to be tagged, they want to make sure they are in a public place so they don't get slapped with trespassing on private property for any reason. Seems to me like a clear cut case. It's all about the spin.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
GPS wouldn't be there very long. From what I've seen New Jersey residents are used to looking under their cars before they start them.
When you're at the point of hiring me to follow your spouse, your marriage is already over.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
I use a cellphone which I gave to our child during a divorce. The carrier tracking service by Verizon notifies me anytime they entered of left designated zones. I know when she leaves the city, the state, visits her boyfriend, and when she lies about her whereabouts. But I'm not actually tracking her. I am tracking my young toddler child. She had disappeared for weeks with our child which started the divorce process. A lawyer was able to force her back.
Since then I bought my child a cellphone which is kept in the diaper bag for what I've called "emergencies" since she can't afford a cellphone. It is locked to only call myself or my parents and to only take incoming calls from the same. It cannot text. But it does have GPS which I pay $10 extra a month for with real time updates anytime I want. I usually don't look just because I don't want the battery to go dead because she doesn't charge it, and it could be gone for a week at a time.
If the cell tower changes it checks GPS. If GPS crosses a zone then I get an email alert with a map picture of the location and a logged date and time. I don't hide the phone, but have given it out openly. I haven't told her it is running GPS, but the phone is for my child, not her. I have even made clear that if she leaves our child somwhere and goes elsewhere, then the phone is to stay with whoever is watching our child, not her.
I won't let her go running off with my child in the middle of the night again. Too many parents lose their children to a parental abduction and never see them again for 20 years. She might ditch the cellphone and run. But I will know when and where my child was when it was last moved. Is this legal? My lawyer says that I have nothing to worry about.
People start seeing guys put devices under cars on public roads and start calling the bomb squad in, laws will change this ruling when to much money is spent on false positives.
WTF happened to the 4th ammendment to the Constitution.
"The right of the people to be secure in their PERSONS, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated..."
Thanks for making sure all private citizens have the right to use gps jamming devices.
Bet its not legal though.
so... were they cheating or not
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
If the wife has an ownership interest, it's just fine. It's no different from breaking down, hitching a ride home, and calling a tow truck to tell them where to find it so they can take it to the shop. Why does it matter if the wife is present or not? If her name is on the title, she can remotely give others permission to do whatever with the car, (short of selling it, that usually requires a notary.)
http://www.statutes.legis.state.tx.us/Docs/PE/htm/PE.16.htm#16.06
Sec. 16.06. UNLAWFUL INSTALLATION OF TRACKING DEVICE. (a) In this section:
(1) "Electronic or mechanical tracking device" means a device capable of emitting an electronic frequency or other signal that may be used by a person to identify, monitor, or record the location of another person or object.
(2) "Motor vehicle" has the meaning assigned by Section 501.002, Transportation Code.
(b) A person commits an offense if the person knowingly installs an electronic or mechanical tracking device on a motor vehicle owned or leased by another person.
(c) An offense under this section is a Class A misdemeanor.
(d) It is an affirmative defense to prosecution under this section that the person:
(1) obtained the effective consent of the owner or lessee of the motor vehicle before the electronic or mechanical tracking device was installed;
(2) assisted another whom the person reasonably believed to be a peace officer authorized to install the device in the course of a criminal investigation or pursuant to an order of a court to gather information for a law enforcement agency; or
(3) was a private investigator licensed under Chapter 1702, Occupations Code, who installed the device:
(A) with written consent:
(i) to install the device given by the owner or lessee of the motor vehicle; and
(ii) to enter private residential property, if that entry was necessary to install the device, given by the owner or lessee of the property; or
(B) pursuant to an order of or other authorization from a court to gather information.
(e) This section does not apply to a peace officer who installed the device in the course of a criminal investigation or pursuant to an order of a court to gather information for a law enforcement agency.
Added by Acts 1999, 76th Leg., ch. 728, Sec. 1, eff. Sept. 1, 1999. Amended by Acts 2001, 77th Leg., ch. 1420, Sec. 14.828, eff. Sept. 1, 2001.
Amended by:
Acts 2009, 81st Leg., R.S., Ch. 1122, Sec. 1, eff. September 1, 2009.
> owned or leased by another person
sorry, coward, but it was her car, too.
Time for me to patent the gps-enabled wedding ring.
If it's my computer, I can install a keylogger to record all keystrokes, or spying software to determine what places were visited; it's not illegal and any evidence collected is legally admissible. Even the police do not need a warrant to install such things on their own computers. If it's my car - or I'm co-owner - I can install a 'bumper beeper', a tattler to determine where the vehicle went, or a GPS tracking device; it's not illegal and any evidence collected is legally admissible. Even when car rental companies did something similar to this a while ago, the only thing that was illegal about it was they couldn't use the information to impose a 'fine' on renters who drove vehicles faster than the speed limit.
The lessons of history teach us - if they teach us anything - that nobody learns the lessons that history teaches us.
http://www.statutes.legis.state.tx.us/Docs/PE/htm/PE.16.htm#16.06
Sec. 16.06. UNLAWFUL INSTALLATION OF TRACKING DEVICE. (a) In this section:
(1) "Electronic or mechanical tracking device" means a device capable of emitting an electronic frequency or other signal that may be used by a person to identify, monitor, or record the location of another person or object.
(2) "Motor vehicle" has the meaning assigned by Section 501.002, Transportation Code.
(b) A person commits an offense if the person knowingly installs an electronic or mechanical tracking device on a motor vehicle owned or leased by another person.
The car was owned by the person who installed the device, ergo this statute does not apply and it's legal in Texas. You can always put tracking equipment on vehicles you own. This was humorously treated in the cartoon King of the Hill (which coincidentally takes place in Texas) where the drivers got mad because Mr. Strickland, the owner of the propane company, had installed 'tattlers' on the trucks he owned to see where the drivers were taking the vehicles. Drivers didn't like it and complained, but the practice is perfectly legal. They're his trucks, he has every right to monitor them. If it's my car, I can monitor it if I choose to do so.
The lessons of history teach us - if they teach us anything - that nobody learns the lessons that history teaches us.