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Two New Fed GPS Trackers Found On SUV

jcombel writes with this excerpt: "As the Supreme Court gets ready to hear oral arguments in a case Tuesday that could determine if authorities can track U.S. citizens with GPS vehicle trackers without a warrant, a young man in California has come forward to Wired to reveal that he found not one but two different devices on his vehicle recently. The 25-year-old resident of San Jose, California, says he found the first one about three weeks ago on his Volvo SUV while visiting his mother in Modesto, about 80 miles northeast of San Jose. After contacting Wired and allowing a photographer to snap pictures of the device, it was swapped out and replaced with a second tracking device. A witness also reported seeing a strange man looking beneath the vehicle of the young man’s girlfriend while her car was parked at work, suggesting that a tracking device may have been retrieved from her car. Then things got really weird when police showed up during a Wired interview with the man."

12 of 761 comments (clear)

  1. You wish you were this guy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What does a citizen have to do to get this kind of personalized attention from the government? Most of the time they just ignore you unless it's time for them to steal money from your wallet.

    1. Re:You wish you were this guy by bmo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      >What does a citizen have to do to get this kind of personalized attention from the government?

      Nothing.

      --
      BMO

    2. Re:You wish you were this guy by canadian_right · · Score: 4, Insightful

      He may have a drug dealing cousin, but the police should need a warrant for this type of intrusive tracking.

      Papers please.

      --
      Anarchists never rule
  2. Re:Police Ssurveillance by Riceballsan · · Score: 4, Insightful

    24/7 Surveillance on both public and private property perhaps? Traditional surveillance has limits of where and when they can monitor you. A GPS on the other hand is monitoring you 24/7 regardless of district, private/public property etc...

  3. Re:Police Ssurveillance by elrous0 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If you were in front of the US Supreme Court and they asked you how this is fundamentally different than tracking your car through traditional police surveillance, how would you answer?

    In the same way that listening to a conversation by bugging a person is considered different from listening in on their conversation from a nearby table in a restaurant. One involves the compromise of someone's personal property and effects (protected by the 4th amendment) and the other doesn't.

    --
    SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
  4. Re:Welcome to the world of police intimidation by elrous0 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If you don't get that the point of this was to intimidate the reporter and discourage him from pursuing the story, you're either incredibly naive or you're being deliberately dense.

    --
    SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
  5. Re:Americans fear their government by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Americans fear their government more now than at any time in history. Kind of funny if your from foreignland.

    Well, the american government fucked over entire nations in the course of the last 50 years, it is poetic justice that in the last years they have turned their attention to fucking over their own citizens instead.
    Whats good for the goose is good for the gander no ?

  6. Re:RTA by royallthefourth · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The question here isn't whether the police ought to investigate criminal behavior, but whether they can use these tactics without a warrant. Big difference. If this guy really is so damn shady, they should have no trouble at all getting a warrant. If there's not even enough suspicion to get a warrant, he certainly deserves to be left alone.

  7. Re:Police Ssurveillance by Amouth · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Isn't there a limit where it becomes harassment? It's one thing if they have enough evidence to get a warrant - it's another if they are fishing blindly.

    --
    '...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
  8. Re:Police Ssurveillance by h4rr4r · · Score: 4, Insightful

    There should be such a law. You show me an efficient government and I will show you an oppressive one.

    I was just following that logic to its inevitable conclusion.

    A better answer would be the police could not follow him across state lines, nor onto private property. This device might. This device also is consuming the victims fuel to be transported and may be wired into his car risking damage to the electrical system.

  9. So if Driving Citizens by Phoenix666 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    have no expectation of privacy and can be tracked at will by the police, do police therefore have no expectation of privacy and can be tracked at will by citizens? Sounds like a great argument. Think I'll run out, buy a bunch of these trackers, and stick them to the undercarriages of cop cars and then set up a web site that reports the position of every cop car in the city at all times in case you, um, need to call the cops.

    Either that must be the case, or cops must get a warrant to do this.

    If neither is the case, then the only option left to Americans is to fire every single person in every level of government with extreme prejudice, convene a constitutional convention, and start all over again from scratch.

    --
    Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
  10. Re:Simple solution to dealign with these trackers by IMightB · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How do you know it's gov property? There's no identification on it. It's stuck to your property. I'd say you own it and are free to do with it as you please.