Slashdot Log In
Police Secretly Planting GPS Devices On Cars
Posted by
samzenpus
on Wed Aug 13, 2008 06:15 PM
from the spiderman-does-it-all-the-time dept.
from the spiderman-does-it-all-the-time dept.
bfwebster writes "The Washington Post has a long investigative article on how more and more police departments are secretly planting GPS tracking devices on the cars of people they are investigating — usually without a warrant. After-the-fact court challenges on this technique have largely upheld such use of a GPS device, though the Washington State Supreme Court has ruled that a warrant is required."
Related Stories
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
Do the police... (Score:5, Insightful)
Do the police require a warrant if they want to follow me around for the day? If yes then I believe this should require a warrant. Else, what's the diff except it costs much less and is more discrete.
Grump
Re:Do the police... (Score:5, Interesting)
Do the police require a warrant if they want to follow me around for the day? If yes then I believe this should require a warrant. Else, what's the diff except it costs much less and is more discrete.
Grump
Let's try a better analogy:
Do the police need a warrant to overhear my conversations while I'm on my cell phone in a public place? No, but they are legally required to have one if they're going to bug my phone.
Parent
Re:Do the police... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Do the police... (Score:5, Funny)
It depends, is it an African midget or a European midget?
Parent
Re:Do the police... (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:Do the police... (Score:5, Funny)
Do the police require warrants to bug my house? YES! The difference between my house and my car is very little so yes they need warrants too.
Yes, but do the police need a warrant to put a GPS tracker on your house?
Parent
Re:Do the police... (Score:5, Interesting)
A GPS tracker will track exactly where the car is no matter what.
Given the limitations of GPS, except for when it's in a garage or building ;)
Seriously, though, if the police put a tracker on my car, and are unable to produce documentation demonstrating that they have done so, is the tracker mine if I discover it before they remove it?
Parent
Re:Do the police... (Score:5, Insightful)
Else, what's the diff except it costs much less and is more discrete.
Good argument. Then you'd also agree that I can put a GPS on anyones car without permission, including the police, elected officials, or you?
Parent
Re:Do the police... (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Do the police... (Score:5, Interesting)
an example today: New Orleans cops who shot and killed civilians. Dismissed.
as to "If you do it"; a while ago in Portland OR the Mayor and chief of police (now the new mayor) said it was ok to look through the trash of a person of interest so... a local paper looked through the MAYOR's trash and published the results. Sure were a lot of wine bottles.....
Parent
Re:Do the police... (Score:5, Informative)
Would you trust /.?
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/09/05/1730239 [slashdot.org]
"According to this article at CNN: Police arrested a man they said tracked his ex-girlfriend's whereabouts by attaching a global positioning system to her car. Police said Gabrielyan attached a cellular phone to the woman's car on August 16 with a motion switch that turned on when the car moved, transmitting a signal each minute to a satellite. Information was then sent to a Web site that allowed Gabrielyan to monitor the woman's location." A ruling last year stated that police need a warrant to track individuals in a similar fashion.
found this too: http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2334039 [go.com]
Parent
Re:Do the police... (Score:5, Informative)
Do the police require a warrant if they want to follow me around for the day? If yes then I believe this should require a warrant. Else, what's the diff except it costs much less and is more discrete.
The problem is twofold:
1. If they damage your car, that is vandalism/destruction of private property.
2. If they find some sort of incriminating evidence and are on private property without a warrant then that evidence is inadmissible in court.
Therefore it's prudent and not trespassing when they do this. Until then, those pricks in the van otside can waste all the gas they want.
Parent
Re:Do the police... (Score:4, Insightful)
"Quantity has a quality all its own".
It would take 5 officers to tail someone 24/7. That is enough to stop almost all frivolous or abusive tracking. Without that deterrent, the only thing that could block abuse would be judicial oversight.
Parent
The difference between "following" and "tracking" (Score:5, Interesting)
An easy way to answer your question, and countless others like it:
"What would happen to me, as a private citizen, if I did this to a cop?"
If the answer is "Nothing," then it's probably a reasonable thing for the cops to do to you. If the answer is "Waal, I believe that there'd be a tasin', boy," then it is not.
So, you tell me. What do you think would happen if you were caught placing tracking devices on police cars?
And as for the courts permitting this kind of crap to occur: remember the most important lesson of the Gulag Archipelago. The judicial system is your last defense. When they fail to protect your rights, the time for peaceful reckoning is past.
Parent
Re:The difference between "following" and "trackin (Score:5, Insightful)
For you, a private citizen, following a police officer or other official while in performance of their duties is illegal.
It begs to be asked: why?
Parent
Re:Do the police... (Score:5, Interesting)
Do the police require a warrant if they want to follow me around for the day?
No.
If yes then I believe this should require a warrant.
But its no.
Else, what's the diff except it costs much less and is more discrete.
Good point. I wonder if the police would object if I went up to their patrol cars, ghost cars, and other vehicles and slapped my own gps transmitters on them, and then published their whearabouts in realtime on google maps. I mean, I could do all this legally if I just had a bunch of people follow their cars around all day and post their whearabouts, right?
So whats the diff except that it costs much less and is more discrete?
Yet, something tells me the police would object strenuously to this.
Parent
Analogies Not Sufficient (Score:5, Informative)
Do the police require a warrant if they want to follow me around for the day? If yes then I believe this should require a warrant. Else, what's the diff except it costs much less and is more discrete.
No, they don't need a warrant to tail you, your whereabouts in public places isn't considered a search, but public information. However...
The Sixth Circuit held [wislawjournal.com] in the Baily case, of attaching a beeper (rather than GPS, c.1980), that merely analogizing with tailing isn't sufficient to decide the issue, it's one of reasonable expectation of privacy.
The judge in the 7th circuit Garcia case wrote :
Personally, I read that as a warning, not a suggestion, but it's what he feels the law allows for. I'm slowly being persuaded by Moore's Law that perhaps a Constitutional Amendment clarifying the right to privacy (which many of us feels already exists in the 4th amendment) would be an OK thing. Now, to get Congress to pass that (ha!).
Bruce Schneier argues [schneier.com] for the requirements of warrants for these kinds of tracking, to prevent rampant growth and abuse of the police state.
Fortunately for the police state, citizens are voluntarily loading up their cars with tracking devices (EZ Pass, Tire Pressure Monitors, OnStar), so they don't have to even bother installing a GPS device in some cases. Sure, everybody knows that cell phones can be tracked, but how many people know that federally-mandated tire pressure monitoring systems send out a unique 'MAC' for every wheel?
What's gotten people burned in several cases I've read about is that they were driving vehicles they didn't own, and the courts make a distinction there. Does the car you regularly drive have your name on the title or your wife's? That's exactly what got one guy's 4th amendment defense thrown out - his wife 'owned' the car he used, so they weren't tracking his property and he didn't have standing.
Parent
Re:Do the police... (Score:5, Informative)
Do the police require a warrant if they want to follow me around for the day?
If they do it for very long I'm betting you'd have a harassment case.
what's the diff except it costs much less and is more discrete.
Well, at the risk of repeating you, it costs less, which means there is no natural inhibition to them doing it on a large scale, and it's more discrete, which means the public is unable to connect with it as an issue for discussion.
The cost / large scale surveillance issue is ultimately an extension of reasonable expectation of privacy. While a person does not have a reasonable expectation to never be seen when out driving around, they do (at least IMO) have a reasonable expectation to not have their entire route history recorded.
The public awareness issue is a simple matter of who is watching the watchers. The public should know how many of these things are in use and (after a blackout period to allow temporary covert surveillance) who they are being used on. The reason is accountability; if the people decide they don't want this, their wishes must be obeyed. But the people cannot express an informed opinion about that which they cannot see.
A black & white following a car around is a public statement, "We are watching you." A GPS device with no warrant is also a statement, "We don't want you to know how much we're watching you." I don't trust a "Democracy" that doesn't want me to know what it is doing (after a reasonable black-op period of course, maybe maxing out at something like a year or two) in my name.
"The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted." - James Madison
I figure Madison was a pretty sharp guy, and he spent literally years discussing and forming his concepts with other heroes of our history. You can study the causes for his views in such pieces as Common Sense and The Federalist Papers, or you can just respect his credentials. But if you haven't spent a few years studying the topic, you should beware that the risks he wanted to avoid are not just hypothetical.
Parent
Re:Do the police... (Score:5, Informative)
They don't need a warrant.
Essentially, the police can make any observations they want, provided they do it from a vantage point they have a right to be. They can, for example, make aerial observations of your home provided they don't fly lower than is normal or prudent.
A cop can watch you walk across a public square. He can even note this down if he wants to. Technology adds the wrinkle that he doesn't necessarily have to be in the square to do this. He can use surveillance cameras. Or a computer with face recognition software.
This is a bug in the Bill of Rights. It was hacked together all too hastily, therefore it isn't very good about laying out actual rights. It's more focused on curbing specific abuses. Well times change, and technology changes, and with it the kinds of abuses that are possible.
The law as we inherited it from our forbears assumes that surveillance is too costly to employ frivolously, and that therefore the government has a strong disincentive to use it; and if it is used there is an assumption the government has a strong incentive to stop. And this was true for a long time. As a consequence, suspicion is viewed from a legal standpoint as something more benign than it really is. Suspicion leads to investigation which either leads to exoneration or an indictment. Failing either of these results probably meant that there just wasn't enough investigation possible given the resources and time available.
Anyhow, that's how you can fall onto a terrorist watch list and the onus is on you to get yourself off and if the system keeps dropping you on it, tough luck for you. The possibility of cheap, automated suspicion is something that would never have occurred to the founders.
The new frontier of tyranny is the use of widespread, unpredictable surveillance, not for gathering information, but for exerting social control. The Chinese are masters of this. Under this form of tyranny, you end up internalizing whatever rules the masters want.
There is nothing specific in the Constitution that keeps the government from using technology to watch, catalog and cross reference every movement of every member of the population, provided that the information is obtained legally. Legally would include any observations they make from a public place, or can buy from a private source. And since surveillance is clearly one of the things the government is empowered to do, and such uses of surveillance aren't expressly forbidden, there is a school of Constitutional thought that says this is allowable.
Fortunately, this kind of literalist reading of the Constitution is not yet the prevailing one.
With respect to the GPS on the car -- that could be an interesting Constitutional case, although not one I'd like to see before this court. But then, you never know. It reminds me of a case a few years back in which the police used thermal imaging of a suspect's home walls as probable cause to support a (successful) search for a marijuana garden. The arguments were all over the place as you might imagine, but Scalia, if I recall, was one of those who thought this was probably not allowable.
Parent
Re:Do the police... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is ok, but with a warrant, IMHO.
Parent
Re:Do the police... (Score:4, Insightful)
And once those gps units are small enough, they'll be able to plant them on your person and track you everywhere.
Parent
Re:Do the police... (Score:4, Interesting)
Logan's Run had this concept.
Runner!
Parent
Re:Do the police... (Score:5, Insightful)
Probably because in some cases that is exactly what is happening. Speed limits in some areas are set unrealistically low. Local traffic is basically ignored at any speed. Out of state plates will be pulled over and ticketed, even though to be safe they should be flowing with traffic.
Traffic laws are also subject to politics. We don't get safety all the time. Sometimes it is just the perception of safety. Speed variance is a bigger killer than raw speed, but our speed limits are generally set lower than most drivers can handle. This results in one subset of the population doing the speed limit and the other subset of the population driving at a reasonable rate of speed for the road. So you'll get a spread of, say, 15 mph. A car going 75 is much more likely to hit a car doing 60 than it is to hit another car going 75. But we blame the speeders because they are speeding, rather than seeing that the system is stupid and dangerous.
Parent
Re:Do the police... (Score:5, Funny)
If you really think about this statement, I think you'll find it to be demonstrably false.
No he was spot on.
It is the speed variance that kills.
The ditch on that corner he failed to negotiate was only going zero miles per hour. The total variance was probably in excess of 70mph.
Same for that 2mph pedestrian he killed last week.
Parent
Re:Do the police... (Score:5, Informative)
If you really think about this statement, I think you'll find it to be demonstrably false.
If you actually research this statement instead of taking a knee jerk reaction, I know you'll find that speed variance IS the culprit, established by many studies. You might also find that the recommended speed limits are at a speed such that 85% of the cars will be under it, that raising and lowering speed limits away from that 85% level has very little effect on speeds, and that jurisdictions set speed limits away from the 85% level as a response to lack of revenue or to give residents a false sense of something being done.
Go ahead. Look it up. Here's a clue: FHWA-RD-92-084
Parent
Re:Do the police... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is only my observation and not a scientific study!
Parent
Re:Do the police... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Do the police... (Score:5, Insightful)
They're just quite a bit more difficult to spot.
Bull Shit, with a capital BS. How hard is it to watch the average prick driver in your town change 4 lines at a time, with no blinker, cutting off one car in each lane? How hard is it to spot some 90 year-old fart in a Buick pull out in front of me from a side street, when there isn't a car within 2 minutes BEHIND me? How hard is it for a cop to sit at an intersection and spot people making illegal left turns against the red, because they don't want to have to wait another light cycle? I could write more tickets for tail-gating in ONE day on the beat than I could write speeding tickets in an entire month, which brings me back to the main point. Why do the freakin' cops sit at a "speed-trap" for 20 minutes, one or two times a month (mind you, not at an intersection, where the majority of collision accidents happen) if they are out there to protect us from evil speeders? If speeding at the particular (cough, convenient, cough) spot is such a public danger, then why the hell aren't they out there EVERY day? Why do the sit in conveniently unoccupied construction zones? To protect the absent workers and their precious gear? No, because fines are "doubled", meaning twice the profit.
Parent
Re:Do the police... (Score:5, Interesting)
Otherwise they'd ticket people who fail to yield, make illegal lane changes and tailgate...
Each of those is a ticketable offense, as is the catch-all "reckless driving". They're just quite a bit more difficult to spot.
The point is that the police departments make no effort to enforce them. They enforce two things: Speed and Intoxication.
It is hard to argue with drunk driving. Having a moving object that ways 3000+ lbs cruising with no brains in control is a good use of traffic enforcement.
But speed?
Everyone "Knows" that speed is dangerous. The problem is that the facts don't support what you think you "Know". Lets try hard statistics (that they don't tell you because they aren't sexy).
- 80% of fatal traffic accidents happen at 45mph or less. (We spend most of our time in SoCal a 5mph on the freeway)
- The California Highway Patrol used to have a list of the top 20 root causes of accidents.
#4 on the list with 16 percent was driving too slow!
#16 on the list with a fraction of one percent was driving to fast.
- In the mid 80s the NHTSA commissioned a report to show how many lives 55mph saved. The report was delayed 18 months because they didn't get the results they wanted. After massaging/spinning the statistics for a year and a half the best they could come up with is if they ignored the vast improvements in auto safety each life that they saved cost 150 man/years of extra time on the road. An analysis of the data showed that the safest speed to travel was 10 to 15 mph faster then the flow of traffic. (Car and Driver had a great analysis of it)
Now if you consider the vast improvements in auto and tire safety it becomes obvious that the actual risk from driving went UP because of the 55mph limit. The 1st obvious reason is because if you are crawling along at a speed that doesn't require that you pay attention people won't pay attention. (Refer back to the bit about moving objects with no brains controlling them...) A second reason is they had bred a generation of drivers that were unsafe a 55 because they had learned "aiming skills" instead of "driving skills".
Traffic enforcement is about revenue. Fear a government that has become so disconnected that it thinks you are its source of income instead of thinking that it is supposed to serve you.
Oh and back to the original point of this thread...
Ben Franklin would have a conniption. The United States was the land of freedom. If it wants to become that again then it needs to ALWAYS error on the side of freedom. You think these things make you safer? More secure? Security is a FEELING. They are protecting you from things that aren't a credible threat. The government can NEVER make you safe unless they lock you in a closet. You are mortal!!! Life has a 100% mortality rate. Being safe is never the point unless your eyes are closed. LIVING is the point. Go out and live and don't worry. You might experience some things that have a little risk involved with them. If you do you will probably smile because you are LIVING!
Parent
Re:Do the police... (Score:5, Informative)
60 residents, 14 police officers, almost 3000 tickets issued a year.
So many in fact that AAA put up a billboard outside of town warning drivers about it.
Granted, an extreme example, but don't pretend it doesn't happen.
Parent
Re:Do the police... (Score:5, Informative)
Let's suppose that an officer on the street can observe me in my house by looking through the window. Is the police officer then justified in mounting a camera to the side of my house and pointing it in the window without first obtaining a warrant?
I think most people would agree that the police do not have the right to mount a camera to my house, building, or any other structure without my consent or a court issued warrant.
If mounting the camera to my house is not allowed, why are they allowed to mount other foreign objects (GPS) to my moveable property (car) without a warrant?
Whether reasonably measurable or not, they are, without my express authorization or compensation, using energy from my vehicle and causing additional wear and tear on my vehicle. This could be construed as theft of service (transportation fees).
Parent
Re:Do the police... (Score:5, Insightful)
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Parent
Yes, but... (Score:5, Interesting)
If they attach it to my car without my permission, doesn't it become MINE to do whatever I want with? Seriously, how many of these do they really expect to recover and download data from? Plus, doesn't it become "theft of services" the minute they hook it up to my car's electrical system?
Re:Yes, but... (Score:4, Interesting)
If they attach it to my car without my permission, doesn't it become MINE to do whatever I want with?
Good question. I'd think you could take it off and toss it in a dumpster if you found it.
Seriously, how many of these do they really expect to recover and download data from? Plus, doesn't it become "theft of services" the minute they hook it up to my car's electrical system?
I doubt they wire it in. Its probably just battery operated and attached magnetically, probably lasts 5-10 days, before they go pick it up/swap it out.
Parent
Re:Yes, but... (Score:5, Funny)
I'd think you could take it off and toss it in a dumpster if you found it.
Wouldn't it be more fun to attach it to a random taxicab instead? If you really want to screw with someone, you could always go to a gas station near a freeway, look for someone towing a boat and obviously on their way to some vacation hotspot, and then attach the device to the boat when its owner isn't looking...
Parent
Re:Yes, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
How do you post at +2 with trolls like that?
They may not dispense justice, but they can arrest and imprison you for days without filing charges. You get to be packed into a room full of real criminals for 72 hours while they figure out if you should even be charged or not.
But I guess since there are no crooked cops this is not a problem.
Parent
If you have nothing to hide (Score:4, Funny)
I don't see the problem.
Re:If you have nothing to hide (Score:5, Insightful)
The police and FBI have a long, sordid history of intimidation, harassment and disruption of dissident groups and activists (up to and including murder [wikipedia.org]). Any state surveillance of people should require a warrant—both to provide some oversight (which isn't much, considering the way some courts like to rubber-stamp these requests [commondreams.org]) and make a record of the state's activities against its own citizens.
Parent
Scarier still... (Score:5, Informative)
If you RTFA, you'll see a poll asking if people approve this tactic. As of right now, 55% do.
Re:Scarier still... (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Big Brother Reversi-Reversi? (Score:4, Interesting)
It is to be wondered how the cops would react if a citizen group began to secretly bug cop cars with GPS devices and tiny cameras intended to capture what they do to people in remote or isolated areas or late at night when the cops think no one can or is likely to see them.
free directions? (Score:4, Insightful)
One Page Version (Score:4, Informative)
This is illegal search, requires warrant (Score:4, Insightful)
It is quite clear that this tracking indeed is search for which a warrant is required under the constitution. This is a type search which was not envisioned at the time the founders wrote the constitution and far more more dangerous and frightening than they likely imagined. They are spinning in their graves for certain. We are seeing grave risks to the very threat to our freedom by tyranny, worse than what the founders of the US had feared. The way everything people can do can be monitored tracked and then data mined would have shocked and deeply disturbed them if they were alive to see this. We should be very concerned about these dangerous trends.
Tracking Devices and the Fourth Amendment (Score:5, Interesting)
Alright, having just written a legal brief on the subject, I'll explain the legal rationale behind these rulings so that we can actually have an intelligent debate on this subject.
The Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures, only applies when a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy in the item or information searched or seized.
Here, the information about the person's location is what is being "seized." Thus, the way the debate is framed centers around the question: Does a person have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their location?
Now, the law is pretty clear in some respects. For example, you have a reasonable expectation of privacy in your home. Thus, the Fourth Amendment applies, and police need a warrant to track your movements in your home.
On the other hand, you have no expectation of privacy when you travel out in public. This is rather obvious because when you travel in public, everyone around you can see you and knows where you are. Thus, the Fourth Amendment does not apply, and it has been long established law that police can conduct surveillance on anyone in a public area without a warrant. (Note: This is the same basic rationale by which placing cameras on street corners does not violate the Fourth Amendment.)
The Supreme Court has further extended this rationale to apply to electronic tracking devices (e.g., GPS, Triangulation Beacons) used for tracking people in public. The rationale is that as long as the subject is in public, he has no reasonable expectation of privacy in his location.
Thus, the Fourth Amendment does not apply and you have no constitutional protection against police attaching a GPS device to your car. Police can track your car with a GPS locator, provided they break no laws with respect to installing the locator (A non-constitutional issue).
That said, the Supreme Court has left the door open to regulating this type of behavior by police. The majority opinion in U.S. v. Knotts left open the possibility of using "different constitutional principles" to regulate police use of tracking devices if "dragnet type law enforcement practices" developed. Dragnet in this context refers to systematic and coordinated measures for apprehending criminals or suspects.
Thus, presumably one could argue that if the police started using GPS devices in our cell phones to track everyone in a systematic manner, another constitutional principle, like for example the right of privacy, could be applied to find a constitutional ground to prevent it. Whether the Supreme Court chooses to use the dicta in Knotts is of course up to it.
Anyway, that's it, have fun debating.
Re:Tracking Devices and the Fourth Amendment (Score:5, Interesting)
If a police officer is patrolling in a marked police car, do they have a "reasonable expectation of privacy" or would it be ok to tag that police car with a GPS tracker and display the location real time in a Google Maps mashup? Is there some other law that would prevent this apart from the constitution?
If the above is ok, what about if the police office is parked behind some bushes/a billboard in a "Dukes of Hazard" style speed trap. Does that officer have a "reasonable expectation of privacy"?
What about if said officer is patrolling in an unmarked car (but one which was ID'd as a police car earlier), do they now have a "reasonable expectation of privacy"?
Well the Fourth Amendment only applies to the actions of the States and the Federal Government (i.e., federal and local governments plus their agents), so all of these questions are irrelevant.
The whole point of the Fourth Amendment is to govern when the government needs a warrant to search or seize something. If it's just an individual citizen acting in this manner, there is no Fourth Amendment issue.
I'm not going to speculate on your other questions because they are a little more complicated and frankly I don't have the time to analyze them.
Parent
Turnabout is Fair Play? (Score:4, Insightful)
hehehe - here's a thought; I'm guessing I'm not the only circuit hacker here. I figure with $50 worth of parts from Mouser I can make one of these that will store to an SD card. If you have a cop that stops at the local coffee shop regularly, and drives the same car, stick on on his car and pick it up a couple days later. It's no different than trailing the officer around all day, after all.
Who's with me?
OK, now here's the real question; if we are afraid to track the government - even just the local public enforcement officials - at the same level as they are tracking us, do we not have a very serious problem?
"Does the government fear us? Or do we fear the government? When the people fear the government, tyranny has found victory. The federal government is our servant, not our master!" -Thomas Jefferson
Jefferson spent years contemplating these issues, and debating them with many of the period's other great minds. Have you spent enough time researching it to disagree? If not, you should not blindly accept his statement - but you should spend the time studying. This great experiment is worth it. See Common Sense and The Federalist Papers if you need a starting point.
Couple this (Score:5, Interesting)
They have a crime problem there and the government imposed a "curfew" that eventually ended up becoming what is practically all out martial law [youtube.com]. It started out as a teen curfew and now people are reporting that they're being told to not come out of their houses by the police. They're not simply advising it, but ordering it by punishment of law. Enforcing it via men with guns. Now with the ability to know where you go and what you do there is absolutely nothing stopping a situation where an entire population is under constant monitor.
It's beginning. No, scratch that, it's began. I wouldn't be surprised if a full force take over of the government occurred before the next president is sworn in. Before the end of the year, even. Normally, I'd question myself for saying such outlandish things, what with my active, run-away imagination and all, but this time it's all adding up. I gotta get my family out of here.
Re:Nothing to see here... (Score:4, Informative)
If they have a warrant
They're doing it without a warrant.
Parent
Re:Nothing to see here... (Score:4, Insightful)
Innocent until proven guilty.
The cops don't get to assume guilt and violate anyones 4th amendment rights based on a hunch. That's what warrants are for. They have to present probable cause, based upon sound information and reasoning, satisfactory to a court, prior to violating someone's rights.
Parent