Court Rules GPS Tracking Legal For Law Officers 293
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.
Public Road vs. Privacy of one's home (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Officer Safety (Score:2, Interesting)
There are two separate issues here:
- Whether the suspect has to be alerted.
- Whether there should be a requirement for a search warrant (judicial oversight).
When police obtain a search warrant to bug a phone line they are not required to alert the suspect.GPS jammer? (Score:3, Interesting)
comparison with red-light cameras (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:It ok'd the WARRANTLESS use of GPS (Score:3, Interesting)
1. Suspected bad guy with a warrant for tracking, just like the warrant required to tap his phone and get his bank records. Limited battery time and or limited data storage onboard for scope requirement of the warrant. Provision in the warrant for realtime or just storage of location.
2. Vehicle evading police. One tag shot at the car to trace it and all the high speed accidents would be avoided. They can fall back and video tape the suspect while other cars block off the area and fence them in. This would meet the probable cause requirement in an emergency to avoid getting a warrant. Limit the tracer to 24hrs battery life sending the live signal and recording the information.
Everybody has rights in a civil society. the rights of the police to try and get the ones who voilate others rights included. It's the judges responsibility to restrain the eagerness of law inforcement to catch people and ballance that need with the requirement of the people to fear an invasion of privacy when they have done nothing wrong.
And for all you people out there with that "If you have nothing to hide you shouldn't be worried." BS...
Why don't you just give the police the right to take you outside the country and torture you without trial or explination or representation?
Oh yeah, you did.
Re:It ok'd the WARRANTLESS use of GPS (Score:3, Interesting)
Can GM/On*Star give up the data voluntarily even if no warrant is shown? What's in the customer contract regarding data protection?
-b.
Re:It ok'd the WARRANTLESS use of GPS (Score:4, Interesting)
I wonder if you were to jam a police GPS you'd be obstructing justice [washingtonpost.com]
Steve
Free citizen (Score:3, Interesting)
Slap!
This GPS receiver will let us know exactly when you do. Your ticket will come in the mail. Thank you for supporting our county!
Please do not remove the device, as you will be charged with destruction of government property.
checking tapes is a lot of work ... cops hate work (Score:1, Interesting)
Imagine it were a McBain movie (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe the way to look at it, is imagine if this were a McBain movie.
McBain's partner, just a week before retirement, has just been shot by Columbian cocaine dealers. McBain runs out into the parking lot, sees his police car is on fire, and a car speeding away. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a magnetized tracker (presumably there's some backstory about how it ended up in his pocket), and throws it at the fleeing car. It hits the roof of the car, but at a bad angle, and rolls down the side, dramatically slides, and miraculously takes hold.
Maybe that car has the crooks in it, and maybe it doesn't. But he's just taken his best guess. As the fleeing car speeds off over the horizon, McBain goes back to his bleeding partner.
"Get Mendoza, and .. *cough* .. and tell .. my wife .. I .. *cough* love he--*gurgle*. [dies]" McBain gets a determined look in his eye, walks back outside, where a guy has just dismounted a motorcycle.
"Police business, I am commandeering this vehicle," he says in a heavy Austrian accent, and he mounts up and peels off with a powerful screech. It is a very "cool" motorcycle, despite the prominant Kawasaki logo.
He pulls another electronic gizmo out of his pocket. We get to see the brand name very clearly: it's an HP Pocket PC with a MS Windows CE logo. He pushes a button, and there's an amazingly beautiful 3D movie (took 2 weeks to render on the Opteron cluster) on the little screen, showing just where the car of interest is.
At this point in the movie, I have to ask you something. Are you thinking, "Whoa, that's not cool! Total abuse of power and violation of the 4th!" Or are you thinking, "Go McBain!" Well, what are you thinking, punk?
Re:^BumP (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm sorry but that is extremely naive. People in general are not by and large decent and no sub-group of them is. If people by and large were good and decent then Communism would be the most effective economic system. People are greedy, mean, and cruel people driven by sugar-coated base instincts for which they have come up with extremely elaborate justifications over several thousand years.
The position of police officer is an easily obtained position of ever increasing power with very little day to day oversight. For instance, a police officer could pull you over tonight for no reason at all and require you to walk 20 ft off the side of a low traffic road. If you refuse that officer can beat you with a baton and point a gun at you. Once he has you off the road he can sodomize you with the baton because he has a whim. Should you resist at any point the situation will basically degrade into a case of it being your word against his and believe me nobody takes the word of the offender over the word of the good police officer.
Now you claim that they wouldn't do this because they are by and large good and decent people. After all, the people who are drawn to a position with that sort of power would never be the same kind of people who would want that sort of power. They would be the people who wouldn't want that kind of power, right? I mean really, there are more people who wouldn't suffer from typical human weakness and abuse great power than typical people right?
The scenerio I listed would be an extreme but the kind of sadistic sexual pervert who would desire a scenerio like that isn't even uncommon let alone unheard of. It would stand to reason that those want to abuse power are more likely to seek out positions of power than those who do not want to abuse it. Even those with honest intentions will take on group behaviors and probably end up breaking rules to catch those they believe are bad guys.
I have a unique perspective. I am now a business owner in a good neighborhood. I am well connected and highly respected in the community. The police do not usually pull me over because they do not believe I am 'up to something'. Recently a police officer did pull me over to courteously let me know my tags had expired and that I should get it taken care of as soon as possible. He called me sir and addressed me with respect.
As a teen I was a rebellious youth to who smoked pot and listened to heavy metal. I dressed accordingly. The police questioned, searched, and harassed me and my friends regularly. The searches usually didn't have probable cause and if the police found something they would just lie about the circumstances. Now, usually an 'incident' would involve several police officers but any other officers would just back up whatever was in the report (no matter what really happened). In one case a friend was out past curfew on a bike, he also had a bench warrant for a pipe the police had previously found when stopping him for speeding some time before. The police checked his ID, saw he was of age, and sent him on his way. Just a few moments later the car started to come after him so he fled on the bike, figuring he could get away and carry on with his life since he lived in another state. The police officer chased him a couple blocks and then actually hit him with the car. They refused to let him be examined by the hospital and held him in a choke hold while strip searching him (he did not resist before they began choking him).
Several officers 'witnessed' him wreck the bike on his own. All his bruises, scraps, and other marks were from that incident. It was also made clear to him that should he speak with a lawyer they would hear of it and his life would not be pleasant after that.
I'm sure those police think of themselves as being by and large decent people trying to do a job. In their minds those kids are troublemakers and hoodlems and they are doing a good thing
Important key word here: Reasonable Suspicion (Score:4, Interesting)
I am a law enforcement officer in Florida. If I have reasonable suspicion that you are actively engaged in a crime, I have the right to detain you, without arresting you or charging you, for up to 24 hours.
While detained, I cannot search your person or your vehicle. You cannot give consent to be searched either, as you would be under duress and not free to go.
What I can do is a cursory pat-down of your person for safety reason (see Terry Stop case law). I can also observe your vehicle from the outside, and if I see any weapons or contraband in plain view I can immediately arrest you and do a full search of both your person and your vehicle.
Reasonable suspicion gives a police officer an enormous number of tools to work with. People need to learn what it means, and once they understand what it means, lobby for change if they do not like it. Most police officers stick to the letter of the law, and to the letter of the case law to the best of their abilities. If you change the law to restrict cops, all *good* cops will abide by it whether they like it or not.
The key limit of what we can do under reasonable suspicion is "an unreasonable violation of a reasonable expectation of privacy." The judge probably believed that a GPS tracker placed on the exterior of a vehicle was no more invasive than an officer following the vehicle around to see where it went. We already do that when we do undercover surveillance ops.