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Judge Doesn't Care About Supreme Court GPS Case
nonprofiteer writes "The Supreme Court is currently deciding whether or not law enforcement needs a warrant before they put a GPS tracker on a person's car. A judge in St. Louis doesn't seem to care about that, though. He ruled last week (PDF) that the FBI didn't need a warrant to track the car of a state employee they suspected was collecting a paycheck without actually going to work. (Their suspicions were confirmed.) While in favor of corrupt government employees being caught, it's a bit disturbing that a federal judge would decide a warrant wasn't needed while the Supreme Court has said the issue is unclear."
unclear does not mean one way or the other, until then its the decision of the local law
The SC case is about the police. This is totally different. The FBI is the federal government. Silly things like laws don't matter to them.
Was this Judge Honey Badger, by any chance?
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
I'm pretty sure a lower court judge can't just throw out a case because the Supreme Court will probably make a decision sometime later in the year that MAY OR MAY NOT contradict his own. The author of this article makes it sound like, just because some Justices expressed some reservations in their questioning of the case, that it's a foregone conclusion they're going to rule GPS tracking unconstitutional. Personally, I find it highly doubtful that such a conservative court is going to do any such thing. I suspect they'll either come up with some dodge of the issue (overruling on some narrow technicality or something) or outright uphold United States v. Antoine Jones as constitutional.
The present-day SCOTUS is little more than a rubber stamp for the President and Congress. And even when they do make the rare controversial ruling, it's for some conservative political end (like the Citizen's United case), not in some noble defense of citizens' Constitutional rights. I would frankly be surprised if anyone in that chamber has even *glanced* at the U.S. Constitution since they took a required class on it once in law school. The fact that Barack Obama can all but abolish habeas corpus and due process with the stroke of a pen without them so much as raising an eyebrow should let you know where those nine stooges stand on the U.S. Constitution.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
..but isn't the judge free to interpret any way he deems appropriate and the decision stick until a higher court overrules him? Not that I agree with his decision, I am genuinely curious.
But from everything I've read, it was the suspect's own car. Which means that this case will almost certainly be appealed with the evidence suppressed if the Supreme Court decides in favor of needing a warrant.
At first I thought I read "government owned vehicle" but then I realized this was a government employee with a personally owned vehicle.
This is the WRONG APPROACH. These types of short-sighted rulings open doors for vary bad behavior on the part of government. There are other ways to confirm the behavior of a suspect... of course those ways are less lazy and I guess that's what we are trying to enable the government to be... is lazy... and to collect their pay checks for doing nothing... oh the irony.
So what's the problem?
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
So should judges to just sit on their hands and stall until the Supreme Court has told them how to decide the cases in front of them? Or should they do their job and decide those cases promptly, based on their understanding of the existing case law? If the Supreme Court later says that their interpretation is incorrect then it gets overturned, if not then it stays in force. I hate to break it to you, but there are countless legal questions where the Supreme Court has not yet ruled on them, such as one Court of Appeals ruling one way, and another ruling differently. Until a case makes its way to the Supreme Court to settle the question, judges are supposed to continue hear and decide cases; that's their job.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
It's a state-owned car, same as a state- or company-owned computer.
Everyone knows it's legal/Constitutional for companies to eavesdrop on their own networks to snoop emails, web surfing, etc.
The company car is the same. It's not your car; it's provided for your official use with restrictions.
Who cares what happens in dumbfuckistan anyway? 300 million people is a fraction of China and is only a generation away from being totally obsolete. You had your chance, and you blew it. So go ahead and spy on each other to see who has exceeded their burger quota.
In before GVR.
This post expresses my opinion, not that of my employer. And yes, IAAL.
Wouldn't it have been easier and more efficacious to sit at the guy's work and see if he showed up or not? People can get to work a variety of ways, and a variety of people can use cars.
From the ruling:
A person travelling in an automobile on public thoroughfares
has no reasonable expectation of privacy in his movements from
one place to another. When [the co-conspirator] travelled
over the public streets he voluntarily conveyed to anyone who
wanted to look the fact that he was travelling over particular
roads in a particular direction, the fact of whatever stops he
made, and the fact of his final destination when he exited
from public roads onto private property.
I hate the idea of GPS tracking, but the judge makes an excellent point.
The government can plant devices in public places (e.g. a listening device with double-sided tape on the seat of your chair) that can then be transported by you (and not the government) into a private place.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Where people in power no longer feel the letter of the law needs to be obeyed,
people are no longer entitled to a lawyer or trial and can be held indefinitely.
From the linked story, there are two issues before the Supreme Court:
1. Does using a GPS device to follow you around without a warrant violate your Fourth Amendment rights? There's extra language in there, too: A key point seems to be that when they're following you around, they're doing so on the public streets. The argument could be made that following your car is different from a wiretap in this respect, in that you have a reasonable expectation of privacy when you're talking on the phone at home, but you have no such expectation when you leave the house and go out in public. Is following you via GPS really any different than tailing your car visually?
2. Does planting the GPS device without a warrant, in and of itself, violate your Fourth Amendment rights? Maybe -- but one could argue that by planting the device, they have no more "searched" you than they would have had they driven past your house and seen the car in the driveway. They haven't done much more than a parking cop does when he puts chalk on the tire of your car. And they've haven't "seized" anything -- in fact, you now have something that you didn't have before.
These seem like complicated issues and I'm interested to hear what the Supremes think about them.
Breakfast served all day!
Send the judge to Guantanamo without a warrant or injunction on account of being anti-constitution and thus by default pro al-quada. Till then the same exact people work in law enforcement as myself (we are both human), so I should be able to gps their cars warrantlessly and see them coming if they try to gps mine is what would make sense. Criminals subverting this system? Fix society so people don't have to commit crime for bread.
Ah justice, where have you gone?
So should judges to just sit on their hands and stall until the Supreme Court has told them how to decide the cases in front of them
No, judges should have a brain and not create laws where they don't exist. Government needs to be specifically allowed by law to do anything. If there is no law to specifically support an action, the government is barred from doing it. On the other hand people are allowed by birth to do anything provided there is no law to disallow it. A judge who doesn't understand this basic concept of FREEDOM should not be anywhere near a bench. Of course the above only applies to civilized countries. In the US however the government seems to be able to do whatever it wants, and if it gets in trouble it just creates laws for itself after the fact.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Truth, thankfully, is that a warrant is required to do a search, if a judge has a hard time understanding this, you can always go to a jury trial.
Respect the Constitution
Put it in the employee contract that they can be tracked by GPS.
They could have asked his boss if he was present, or if he punched in. Was his boss, umm... never there?
OK, so maybe it was something like construction or inspection where he was supposed to visit job sites. There woulud still be a foreman or some person in charge on site. If he was the foreman, there would be workers who had some question or assignment that had to come from the foreman and... he was never there?
Anyway, you shouldn't have to track the car to prove somebody is not there.
Just because a warranty is required it doesn't mean it's not possible to do. GET THE WARRANT.
Since the defense bill was just signed there is no need for any warrants any more.
Thank you for that heartfelt - but completely off-topic - rant.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Property ownership does not include the right to control what happens to that property. Is that what I am hearing this judge say? TFA does not specifically say it is or isn't a govt vehicle but I suspect it would say so if it were. What in the Hell have we become...
1) Court rules it legal to install GPS trackers on cars you don't own, as long as they're publicly accessible.
2) Install 3G-connected GPS trackers on any unattended police cruisers.
3) Incorporate current live location of police vehicles into iPhone/Android app.
4) Profit!
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
Without reading anything:
Couldn't the employee used a different car to go to work?
Could they not have gone or called the office to see if "Phil" was in? Called a supervisor?
Asked for their calendar and make surprise visits?
Wouldn't any of these have been cheaper and more efficient then a GPS system?
The summary of this article is just wrong. The Supreme Court has not said that the issue is unclear - it has merely agreed to hear a case about whether a specific decision made by the U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Columbia conflicts with existing Supreme Court precedent.
To the extent that you can infer anything from the Supreme Court's grant of certiorari, it is equally likely to conclude that they took the case in order to slap down the D.C. Circuit's novel approach to the 4th Amendment.
The existing precedent, by the way, is that we have no reasonable expectation of privacy in our cars. As a result, it is not an "unreasonable" search or seizure to attach beepers or other devices to our cars in order to monitor our movements.
In fact, the judge in this case does an excellent job summarizing and applying the relevant case law. He points to a case from the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals (which is the relevant circuit for St. Louis) clearly stating that putting a tracker on a car and then later retreiving it is not a constitutionally prohibited search or seizure.
Agree or disagree on whether we have a reasonable expectation of privacy in our cars - the judge in this case acted properly. It would have violated another constitutional right - the one to a speedy trial - if he had simply delayed the issuance of his opinion until after the Supreme Court issues its (entirely discretionary) opinion.
What a silly article.
... mostly because it's all meaningless. There is nothing that is going to stop the totalitarian regime. You can attempt to delay it beyond your lifetime, or you can stop fighting the Change(tm) and wait for the violence to begin.
If it is attached to the person's private property, I think it should require a warrant. If it was a company car, no mercy.
But would it have been SOOO hard to simply keep track of when the person actually was at their workplace and/or working? Either he walked into the Treasurer's Office and did work, or he didn't. Until the Supreme Court rules on the matter, do it another way. At the very least it would be prudent to do it another way so you have a backup plan if the Supreme Court rules that it is unconstitutional to attach a GPS tracker without a warrant. Or, hell, call me crazy, but maybe the FBI could, oh, I don't know, actually GET a warrant?
Also, whoever was this guy's boss/manager should be fired unless they were the one reporting the fraud.
From what I understand, the common action is to wait until te decision is made, so that as another /.'er said, the case doesn't have to be reviewed or appealed wasting even more time and money.
Slashdot has so many comments boiling down to "Judges don't understand technology, and they look foolish when they rule on it anyways."
Then we have this article and it's responses, which basically boil down to "A bunch of technologists don't understand the law and the mechanism of precedence, and they look foolish when they comment anyways."
They should be allowed to. If the person complains that their privacy would be violated when they are running errands or making personal trips, then they should use their own car or shut up about it. There are probably already rules against misuse of the vehicle, but not well enforced. Now if they actually broke into his/her property or trespassed in order to install it, then that is NOT ok. They should have called him/her in for service and installed the tracker or had it in the car to begin with, or swapped cars with one that has the tracker. And if this was not a company/government car at all, then it's NOT ok in any circumstance.
Was the vehicle a government car or personal?
I'm believe in privacy, but being supplied a company car, it is owned by the complainant they should be able to okay a tracker being attached.
If a personal vehicle and used for transportation to and from work then a court order should be required.
The gray area to me would be if a personal vehicle that employee is being compensated to use for work.
No where did it say the Judge didn't care about SCOTUS. He is not ignored a previous ruling. When a ruling comes out it will obviously take precident. However until then, the judge should interpret the law and rule accordingly. Decisions can take until early July, and if someone is stealing money, thats a long time to wait.
Ask questions later..
So if there is no law specifically authorizing breathing on the part of Republicans in Congress, we can sue to have it stopped?
So "I was using public transportation" is no longer a valid defense?
Why not
a) ask X, "Are you going to work? If so where? Who is your supervisor?"
b) ask supervisor, "Has X been into work the last M days?"
c) ask accounting, "Has X been getting paid?"
the car doesn't matter.
"A record check indicated that this vehicle was registered to
Robinson."
This judge ruled that publicly accessible private vehicles can be covertly fitted with GPS tracking devices. So....when is someone going to create a Judge and police tracking website, whereby people can attach GPS trackers to police and judge vehicles and track their movements via a website. After all, according to this ruling, they're publicly accessible vehicles and the Judge and police have no right to privacy.
Go ahead,make my day!
I suggest putting a GPS tracker on St. Louis judge's car and posting any questionable locations he frequents for the world to see. Think he would care then?
Oh, wait, AC above just suggested the same thing... oh well, I already typed this up.
Bow before me, for I am root.
VOTE: Ron Paul!!! he will set them all straight
The Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection Clause applies only to state governments. For the judicial system your looking at the due process clause in the Fifth Amendement. Having each circuit have its own limited common law doesn't violate due process. You still have a process that is formalized and the same across the country.
By injecting malicious data into the vehicle using the GPS device, the car lands in the correct yard.
Sergeant Sousa of the San Jose, California Police Department rang me up at work then shouted at me for a solid hour about how he would arrest me for making terrorist threats, when in reality I had but pointed out to the opposing counsel in a civil lawsuit that I was bound to prevail, and further, that I would work to overturn the law behind IRS Section 1706 as being in violation of our constitutional guarantee of equal protection under the law.
He threateningly pointed out that our call was being recorded, so anything I said could be used against me in a court of law. but I had a hard time incriminating myself because every time I tried to speak he angrily shouted at me to shut up and would not let me speak.
I grew weary of his abuse as I had a lot on my plate, so whenever he would pause for breath I would demand that he tell me whether I had committed a crime. if I had, he need not send someone after me as I would drop what I was doing RIGHT NOW so I could drive to his station and have him arrest me.
Despite that it is my right as an American to represent in both civil and criminal court, he threatened to arrest me if I did not retain counsel with the week, then hung up on me.
I continued to represent myself but never heard from him again.
now I'm not so stupid as to actually do without counsel, but I wasn't born yesterday. our dispute simply had not reached the point that I required a lawyer.
It has been about 22 months so even if he could be prosecuted, the statute of limitations may apply. even so, if he would do that to me he would do it to others, so I'm going to find some way to obtain that recording, post it on my site then blast it's link all over Creation.
I do not yet provide full details but you can read more at
http://www.softwareproblem.net/social/color-of-authority/sgt-sousa-can-kiss-my-fat-hairy-ass.html
I'll be posting another essay soon that discusses this in more depth.
if you'd like to drop Sgt Sousa a dime the SJPD nonemergency number is 408 277 8900. from outside the US our country code is 1.
Be sure to let my dear friend now that if my new gig works out I'll be making a generous donation in his name to the Silicon Valley Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
An undercover policeman was installing a covert GPS tracker on the car of a suspected criminal; the suspect saw him doing it and shot him dead.
The legal status of this is unclear here too, it hasn't either been ruled legal or illegal.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10669854
Actually, you can claim due process is met everywhere--it's just that what it means varies somewhat from place to place. While on the one hand this does seem facially to be a violation of equal protection, it does have significant advantages in that it allows the Supreme Court, when it considers what law should be for the whole country, to see what other intelligent courts have done in the same situation and what the consequences of that have been. (Sort of an analog to the "States as laboratories" argument). The alternative is to divide the circuits according to jurisprudence. That has some advantages (which is why they do it with the Federal Circuit), but it also has major disadvantages (positions become more ideologically and precedentially entrenched, judges have more power, and SCOTUS no longer has the benefit of looking to see how different legal standards have worked before it makes a decision about what policy should be for the country as a whole).
It is also worth noting that true equal protection is impossible without massive cross-subsidization and radical policy change throughout government. But the ideals of equal protection as conceived in the Fourteenth Amendment are far exceeded today.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
The United States is a Common Law country. That means simply that precedent is in fact law. If you don't like the idea of courts establishing law through precedent, then move to a Statutory Law country.
Federal Judges are IDIOTS. This one is no exception. He COULD wait for a precedent (he didn't). He could AUTHOR ONE (he's too stupid to do that). Or he could WRITE a decision that doesn't take anything into account like the asshat that he is (he did). What? US Federal Judge is an asshat? Yeah. This one also. Am I calling him a moron? NO, I think he's a total asshat chickenshit idiot.
If I am legally allowed to put a GPS tracker on judges, prosecutors, senators, and representatives cars then they should be allowed to put a tracker on anyone they like.
Somehow, however, I believe that I would be put into prison for a very long time if I tried to track the elites in this country.
Main problem with US law is that justice is a low priority according to law.
First you must look if the evidence was obtained legally.
In modern countries with law and order,evidence is evidence. If it is tainted or collected using entrapment, the judge must take that into account when evaluating it. But if the act of putting a GPS tracker on the car is not legal, the evidence still stands. Then a case can be brought against the police officer for doing this illegal action. But is does not invalidate the evidence. Why would it ? In the US, justice is put aside every so often, just because of small mistakes, errors,because evidence was found in some special way.
The US needs to get law and order back.
These are two different issues, and there are often provisions for state employees. Is the state employee driving a state owned or leased vehicle? or is there a provision in that state that requires all state employees to cooperate with law enforcement without a warrant? There are a lot of possible caviats.
If you cant tell if a person is doing their job without a tracking beacon, then of what significance is the job itself ?
Where do i apply ?
It wasn't the guy's own car, it was a government car. Don't you have the right to track your own property?
If it were the guy's own car it would be different, and I'd bet that in that case the judge would have waited for the SCOTUS to act.
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