Court Rules Probable-Cause Warrant Required For GPS Trackers

schwit1 tips this news from Wired: "An appellate court has finally supplied an answer to an open question left dangling by the Supreme Court in 2012: Do law enforcement agencies need a probable-cause warrant to affix a GPS tracker to a target's vehicle? The justices said the government's statement 'wags the dog rather vigorously,' noting that the primary reason for a search cannot be to generate evidence for law enforcement purposes. They also noted that 'Generally speaking, a warrantless search is not rendered reasonable merely because probable cause existed that would have justified the issuance of a warrant.' The justices also rejected the government's argument that obtaining a warrant would impede the ability of law enforcement to investigate crimes."

Comments

More importantly...

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if it would impede law enforcement's ability to investigate crimes, we must recognize that freedom is simply more important.

Re:More importantly...

[Anonymous Coward]

Astonishing isn't it? Warrantless searches are, themselves crimes. LEO are saying that they need to commit crimes in order to investigate crimes. I hate Law Enforcement Officers. I respect Police Officers. There is a fundamental difference between the two. One who identifies as a Police Officer recognizes that they are to serve the public by helping to keep the peace. One who identifies as a Law Enforcement Officers proclaims himself to be a tool of the state, to enforce any dictate of the state, no matter how offensive to the concept of a free people. Law Enforcement Officers (I'm Law Enforcement, we need to get Law Enforcement here, don't defend yourself - wait for Law Enforcement) need to be publicly shamed.

Let's see if I got this

[HangingChad]

the primary reason for a search cannot be to generate evidence for law enforcement purposes.

So, we don't have any evidence now so we'll attach this GPS tracker to their car and then we'll have evidence that justifies tracking their car!

Law enforcement logic.

Re:Let's see if I got this

[gstoddart]

Yes, that's exactly what they've been saying.

"If we can't monitor you to prove you're doing something bad, we'll never be able to know".

Law enforcement and governments have decided it's too inconvenient to follow the procedural rules which have been established, and more or less started trying to make the case for just bypassing them out of convenience.

And, sadly, some of the courts seem stacked with people inclined to just say "well, if you're law enforcement, go ahead".

Re:Let's see if I got this

[Somebody Is Using My]

And - as importantly - let's hope NSA and the other Three-Letter-Agencies actually obey these laws.

Unfortunately, because they so often operate in secret, it's very hard to monitor their compliance. And as we've seen repeatedly throughout the last century, they are quite willing to bend or break the law to achieve their goals.

So while it's great that a judge has smacked down local police's ability to tag innocent civilians with warrentless-GPS trackers (whose activities have to be revealed in court), it likely does little or nothing to stop the Federal agencies from continuing to do the same.

Can you climb into the backseat and hide?

[Anonymous Coward]

As a GPS tracker is simply a proxy for a person hiding in the car and tagging along for the ride, writing down everyplace you go, the answer to this question has always been pretty self-evident to me. You need a warrant.

"impede the ability of law enforcement"

[Sockatume]

All oversight impedes the one's ability to do one's job. The whole point is that it's a trade-off against the costs of the lack of oversight. Other things that impede law enforcement:

1) Need to actually prove someone committed a crime
2) Restrictions on tasering people "because they look a bit crimey"
3) Not permitted to use seized drugs to hold a "pot brownie fundraiser"

To little to late

[DarkOx]

They now have cameras, character recognition and databases that can track you pretty much anywhere.

What we NEED is a court to rule that data-mining constitutes an ersatz search and is protected.

Thank Goodnesss some sense....

[realsilly]

.... has returned to someone in the Judicial system.

It's ridiculous that the government bitches about getting a warrant. GPS is more invasive in my opinion. Because if you are a person of interest and the Govt, feels that you should be tracked, then they slap that GPS unit on your vehicle and they will step onto your property to do it in many cases. So in the event that they're not parked outside your house watching your every move, they don't always know who's driving that vehicle. So in essence, if you lent your car to someone that is NOT a person of interest the government is now tracking the wrong person and violating his/her rights.

As least with a warrant, the request is on papers and the government could back up their tracking with that warrant should the 'person not of interest' have balls big enough to go after the government.