Secret GPS Tracking Now Legal In Massachusetts 277
dr. fuzz writes "The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts has ruled in favor of John Law tracking you with secret GPS devices in Massachusetts provided a warrant is obtained. You've been warned. To the dissenters' credit, Justice Ralph Gants is quoted with 'Our constitutional analysis should focus on the privacy interest at risk from contemporaneous GPS monitoring, not simply the property interest.'"
Jammers (Score:5, Interesting)
What the hell is wrong with that state? (Score:1, Interesting)
So, so far, in Massachusetts, it's illegal to leave Lite Brites out [wikipedia.org], illegal to wear a shirt with LEDs on it [boston.com], illegal to do chemistry at home [slashdot.org], illegal to delete spam email(!!) [sys-con.com], and now it's legal to secretly track people with GPS systems?!
What the hell is wrong with that state?
No Suprise (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:To be fair... (Score:5, Interesting)
Exactly. The Massachusetts decision makes sense: If you can show probable cause, you can intrude upon a person's privacy, but *only* if you show probable cause. Wisconsin decided that privacy is subordinate to police effectiveness. Problem is, you follow that track too far and you end up with a police state and no rights to speak of. The police don't *intend* to violate your rights, they simply do whatever is allowable to uphold their mandate (keeping the peace). If you don't restrict the range of allowable activities, and they can use technology to supplement their numbers, upholding their mandate most effectively requires them to scan every phone call, track every car, open all mail, etc.
Technology allows quantitative differences to become qualitative differences: Police can already tail anyone on a public street. But limited numbers mean they are only able to do so for a small number of people, so they tend to have good reasons when they do tail. But if you can track every car effortlessly and keep a database of movements, you can go on fishing expeditions. Someone dumped a body on the side of a highway? Quick, pull up the logs and find every person who passed that stretch of highway recently. Then demand DNA and fingerprint samples from all of them (assuming you haven't already collected them). It's effective, at the cost of invading everyone's privacy.
The cops need a warrant... where is the problem? (Score:5, Interesting)
Slashdot News Flash! If the cops obtain a warrant, they can do stuff they can't do otherwise!
Personally, I don't even think a warrant should be necessary, but MA has gone above and beyond here and required one. If your house can be searched, your phone tapped, your DNA scanned, your financial records checked, etc., with a warrant, why not a tracking device on your car?
SirWired
Re:Where is the controversy? (Score:2, Interesting)
Every one knows it is the T between the W and O that is in charge.
Re:GPS Blocking (Score:3, Interesting)
Radar detectors aren't illegal except in Virginia, and even there, there's a case waiting to be made that federal law governing radio signals preempts the state restriction.
Re:Here's the problem (Score:1, Interesting)
As long as there is a scarcity of judges the answer to "why not" is "because I don't want to wait for hours the hearing only to get rejected anyway"
Re:Where is the controversy? (Score:1, Interesting)
It references Massachusetts in a negative light so someone can make a snide comment about...
You forgot the crackdown on people doing chemistry at home and the whole "Linux user equals computer criminal" thing.
Then someone else can link the actual articles
Oh, phew, I didn't want to have to go looking for that one, I hate Slashdot's search feature.
But seriously, the reason people keep on making snide comments about Massachusetts is because with every one of the incidents you mention, no one has ever apologized for them.
The bomb scare? The closest admission to an overreaction they ever made is that Massachusetts decided not to try them as terrorists.
The MIT student? They congratulated themselves on showing restraint and not immediately killing her.
The non-compete thing is still in full force, and Massachusetts is still suffering from it. (Go ahead. Name a Massachusetts tech company. Now name one that hasn't either moved someplace else or gone out of business.)
The chemistry crackdown? No apologies, and a press release stating how they're protecting the community against the dangers of science.
The Linux user who had his computers taken? Eventually thrown out by a judge, but even then, the police refused to admit any wrongdoing.
So, yeah. Massachusetts gets deservedly beat on because, despite making numerous missteps and mistakes, they've never once apologized for them, let alone admit wrongdoing.
Re:Where is the controversy? (Score:1, Interesting)
Not if it's covered under certain clauses of the PATRIOT Act. Then it's the same as when they do library record searches; not only do you not have to be there, it's illegal for someone to tell you that they were there if you don't know about it.
Re:Where is the controversy? (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe every time police acquire evidence through means the regular public could not do, they have to mention it to that person within six months. That person has the ability to file a complaint, not with the same police department (since people might worry about complaining to the same group of people that was watching them---quite understandably), but perhaps to an independent office whose actions have to be transparent by law (and are regularly checked up on by a significant and random (reappointed every 3 months, for example; not a long time period like some organizations are re-appointed) portion Congress, not by a commitee). Statistics about the complaints filed would, by law, be available to anyone by phone call, website, or snail-mail, so the public would be able to fully assess whether the random group of Congress members, studying the actions of police departments gathering substantial evidence, would be able to raise their voice if the group was ignoring complaints for some departments, etc.
This is something taxpayer dollars ought to be paying for; we pay for law enforcement, so we should pay for its oversight (not by raising tax dollars, though, since that would be arguably unfair).
If someone knows of a system that does this sort of thing already (besides the courts; it's ridiculous to expect someone to pay $500 for a lawyer's time just to raise a minor complaint), and has vast public oversight, I'd be happy to know...
Reasonable? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Where is the controversy? (Score:3, Interesting)
Will have to look into this more. I agree completely, as long as it is "With a court order", that means there is oversight. It also means they can't do it "Willy nilly" or wholesale. It also usually (and this is why I want to read a bit more) means that they eventually have to tell you that they did it (even if the case never goes to prosecution). It also means, that any evidence obtained could end up the root of a very big poisoned tree if the original order is invalidated. (it happens)
Though, I do wonder how that works. I mean, if GPS data is what puts them in the right place at the right time to catch you breaking the law, and the original order to GPS your car is later found to have been improper, does that impropriety extend to otherwise plain sight evidence that happened to be observed because they were checking a place out?
For example, they know Alice parks her car around the corner from the park every day for 2 hours. So they send an undercover to the park to watch her, and he observes her commit a crime. Is that fruit of the original tree?
It may be a moot point since the police could almost certainly arrest her on the spot, and never inform her that they were there watching her originally.
But overall, no. No real issue here. I always assumed they could.
-Steve