Court Rules GPS Tracking Legal For Law Officers

Via Engadget (which does a good job of explaining the case), an anonymous reader passed us a link to a GPS Tracking Systems Blog post. The site, which reports regularly on GPS-related news, has word that on-the-sly GPS tracking is legal for officers of the law. A 7th circuit court of appeals ok'd the use of a GPS device in apprehending a criminal. Though the defendant's lawyers argued on fourth amendment grounds, the judge found GPS tracking did not warrant an 'unlawful search and seizure'. The judge did warn against 'wholesale surveillance' of the population, though, so ... that's some comfort.

Re:It ok'd the WARRANTLESS use of GPS

[krotkruton]

What's even worse than that, is that a lot of cars come with a black box or other GPS device. If you already have OnStar or other GPS systems installed, then it's pretty clear that you can be tracked. However, many cars are coming with pre-installed GPS tracking in the form of theft protection. I can't find a good link at the moment, but I remember seeing a video (for some reason I think it was on a Penn and Teller: Bullshit! episode) where a guy with a laptop tracked an employee's car as he went to do some errands. I can see how you would want to track your car if it gets stolen, but that really isn't what we are talking about here. The problem is that you can be tracked without your knowledge or consent if your car has such a black box. I'm not sure how that should play out in the legal world if tracking is done without a warrant, and this case didn't seem to take that into consideration.

Re:It ok'd the WARRANTLESS use of GPS

[anthony_dipierro]

However, I have a major issue with the police, with no reason to think I might be doing something wrong and no warrant to back it up, putting a GPS receiver on my car just in case I do do something wrong.

Now you're the one leaving out information. In this case the police did have reasonable suspicion that the person in question was doing something wrong. In fact, the judge feels that the police had probable cause.

That said, I don't see why the police shouldn't have been required to get a warrant first.

Whoa! Next stop Supreme Court

[mschuyler]

This was not "some judge" who "was an idiot" in some Traffic Court meeting in a double-wide out behind the courthouse of Whoville, TN. This is the Federal Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. (I mean, this makes it worse!) The only appeal from these guys is the Supreme Court. Further, it is precedent setting and can be used in further cases. The best way to get it to the Supreme Court would be to get another circuit court (like the ninth) to rule the opposite way. That way the Supreme Court would be more compelled to get into it.

The legal reasoning

[coscarart]

There are two parts to 4th amendment law applicable here. The first is "search or seizure". The second is the warrant requirement. This case said that planting a gps tracking device on your car is not a "search" and therefore there is a lesser police suspicion required. Because it is not a "search" within the constitutional perspective, a warrant is not required. This is similar to a previous case where a beeper was placed inside a barrel that was used to track drugs. In both cases, as long as it was possible to track the items WITH THE NAKED EYE, it was constitutional to track them with technological methods. The general rule is that if you can do it without technology or technology that is widely available, the police can do it with technology that is NOT widely available. Unfortunately this lowers the cost of police surveillance, which allows more surveillance and some fear the eventual creation of widespread "dragnet" surveillance which the court has warned it would not allow. The supreme court has not ruled on this specific issue, but it will eventually because there is a conflict between the various circuits of the federal system

Another cluess judge

[mastershake_phd]

From the article: But if police follow a car around, or observe its route by means of cameras mounted on lampposts or of satellite imaging as in Google Earth, there is no search.

Someone watches too much 24.

Re:It ok'd the WARRANTLESS use of GPS

[Qzukk]

Obviously I agree that they should be required to get a warrant, so that they can be held accountable for watching people for the hell of it.

You forgot the most important part:

So that they can be held accountable for watching people for the hell of it WITH MY MONEY.

Re:It ok'd the WARRANTLESS use of GPS

[Dragonslicer]

If the need is that immediate, police don't need to get a warrant ahead of time. If they can't prove the urgency in court, though, the judge will most likely throw out any of the evidence. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exigent_circumstance [wikipedia.org]

At the risk of going somewhat off topic, this is one of the biggest problems a lot of people had with the federal government's wiretap program. The government could get a warrant the next day if they needed to do an immediate wiretap, and the court almost never (something like 1 in 1000, I think) refused warrants.

A Legal Analysis

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's my 2 cents as a law student currently studying criminal procedure.

The terms "search" and "seizure" are terms of art. First, there are levels of cause / suspicion: probable cause and reasonable suspicion. When the police is conducting a search or seizure, the police must have probable cause, and in general a warrant as well. The second and lower level is reasonable suspicion, which is required when the police stops someone to ask them questions and pats them down for weapons. This stop and frisk is not called a "search" or "seizure".

The opinion, itself is unclear about whether attaching a GPS requires probable cause or reasonable suspicion, but the opinion supports the District Court's decision, which held that attaching a GPS device, requires reasonable suspicion, not probable cause. This means that the police still had suspicion. Reasonable suspicion is a decision by the police, but judges can review it. Reasonable suspicion can be satisfied by facts like, the person was really nervous, wearing a thick jacket in the middle of summer, walking through an area known for drug dealing. Probable cause requires more, for example seeing the actual drugs.

Several of posters so far are concerned about the potential for abuse where the police place attach these devices to the cars of people that they want to target, or even blanket everyone, rather than choosing the people that are suspicious. This opinion certainly does not support this proposition, noting the problems of reduction in privacy with all the new technologies, and the potential for a law requiring the installation of these devices. The judge's response is that the limited use of a GPS device in this case, is not a great leap over having a police cruiser tail the car, and the question of mass tracking is left to a future case.

In addition, he makes the argument (or perhaps just cites precedent), that the police should not be bound to the efficiency they were despite new technologies. This argument has merit in so much as we do want the police to be efficient, and it seems odd that what the police can do inefficiently, we won't let them do efficiently. If the police started doing large scale operations because it became so much cheaper, then that is another issue, but in the present case there is no such abuse.

Lastly, a lot of people take offense to the lose of privacy. It is important to remember, that that the Constitution does not mention privacy anywhere, and in this case, the privacy stems only from freedom from illegal search and seizure in the 4th Amendment. There was no seizure: the car wasn't seized, the device was self-powered, et cetera. There was no search: there was no searching of the car itself, the police tracked a car presumably going on public roads.

Some of the posters have grave concerns about their privacy, that I also share, but it needs to be addressed through other means like a statue or Constitutional Amendment. It's wrong for us to scream at a judge because we are too lazy to get the law changed, or too unconvincing to sway the rest of the country. Having a judge create some broad right of privacy will only make it susceptible to erosion as the judges change -- like Roe v. Wade. This is a democracy, learn to use it.

Re:A Legal Analysis

[PhxBlue]

Go back to the books, bub. Just because the Constitution doesn't spell it out, doesn't mean it isn't there.

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

It's the Ninth Amendment. Read it and remember it.