Court Rejects Warrantless GPS Tracking 226
The EFF is trumpeting a victory in a case in which it and the ACLU filed an amicus brief. "The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit today firmly rejected government claims that federal agents have an unfettered right to install Global Positioning System (GPS) location-tracking devices on anyone's car without a search warrant. ... The court agreed that such round-the-clock surveillance required a search warrant based on probable cause. ...the court noted: 'When it comes to privacy... the whole may be more revealing than its parts.'"
aw (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:So just use cops (Score:4, Insightful)
Thus increasing the cost, meaning they won't do it.
Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I'm still curious (Score:2, Insightful)
Most drivers I know in Chicago willfully place such devices in their windshields for paying tolls. I know they aren't GPS yet, but probably future versions will be and people will use them and sign away on whatever forms in the name of connivence.
Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans (Score:2, Insightful)
The bottom line is that for as "liberal" as Obama is coming off it makes me wonder how fucked we really are. the Tea Party has too much NeoCon blood in it to bring the GOP back around. The love affair continues on with the current idiot in the Whitehouse... Civil rights abuses are going to be winked at for generations if something isn't done in the next 2 or 3 election cycles.
We're really fucked.
Re:So just use cops (Score:5, Insightful)
And they'll just tail you night and day, just as if they had a GPS on your car, and they won't need a warrant.
How is this about my online rights, exactly?
That takes manpower. That's not something you can do willy nilly. They'll be damn sure the person is a suspect before doing that.
Tackers can put be on a bunch of cars and automatically monitored for viewing later at cops leisure.
Meaning the GPS trackers can be used as a dragnet - let's put one on a bunch of folks' cars and see what we find regardless if they're a suspect or not. Cops then see what they think is suspicious and create a story around it (intentional or not) and now innocent guy is a suspect for a crime in the imaginations of the cops. Or innocent guy just happens to be at the wrong place at the wrong time and innocent guy is now in a bunch a legal trouble.
Re:"government claims" (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:"government claims" (Score:1, Insightful)
Battery taxes...
Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans (Score:4, Insightful)
I think the point is that, during the Bush years, democrats were loading bemoaning Bush's wiretapping plans and whatnot, with the implicit idea that they wouldn't have done the same in his place. Now that it's happening, they're revealed as a bunch of hypocrits.
Not that this surprises me in the slightest mind you.
Re:I'm still curious (Score:3, Insightful)
>>>I know they aren't GPS yet, but probably future versions will be
How do you know that? The current gadgets are actually quite dumb, because it keeps them cheap to handout for free. Converting them to a GPS device would be about 20 times more costly, as well as requiring an external power plug, so I think your prognostication is wrong.
Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans (Score:4, Insightful)
What it really exposes is that partisans are hypocrites regardless of party or ideology.
Re:aw (Score:1, Insightful)
Actually, your GPS is in your pocket.
Re:So just use cops (Score:5, Insightful)
One of the assumptions we deal with, or rather fail to deal with, is we assume the government has "better things to do". We may be small fry, but there is an enabling going on. You're only small fry until you've pissed someone off for whatever lawful reason. (Disagreements happen even when both parties are being lawful).
Out west, they think "Washington is so far away" but really they aren't anymore.
We think GPS-tracking is based on public information....
But all these ideas are based on the assumption that the government has better people to go after. Having a limited resource like man power, assures the biggest offenders are handled first, and on down the line to the jay-walker. But as computers can work 24/7/365, and never forgets, and technology gets cheaper, the force of the law gets more prevalent.
Given enough information, you can identify a person at a crosswalk, using the intersection cameras and mail them a fine. If it gets in the mail soon enough, it'll be at their house before they get home.
So historically speaking there is a notion of "scope" or "reach" (as typified by "long arm of the law"). As we get more technology, it becomes easier to become a victim of government. Even if they don't act on what they know about you (cost-benefit) they can still use it at a later date. Most of us I am sure have some unflattering FBI files, collected opportunistically. Drunken Facebook postings and blog posts, its all there to be compiled and added to your dossier...
Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't confuse what Obama is doing with what Bush did.
Bush committed a crime by suborning those illegal wiretaps.
Obama is trying to avoid having to prosecute Bush and his administration for that crime, and to avoid having the government sued over what Bush did.
But when it comes right down to it, and he can't avoid it, that's what will happen. And it won't be Obama's fault.
Enjoy your healthcare.
Re:So just use cops (Score:5, Insightful)
A GPS would be able to track you while on private property, a ranch maybe, a couple of agents couldn't do that so in such a case a GPS is more invasive of a person privacy.
Another factor is if someone else drove the car that had the GPS attached, they would be tracked even though they are not "a person of interest". This would be problematic if you tried to use a GPS track of someones car to place a specific person at a location at any time.
In regards to Police, in their minds EVERYONE is guilty of something and its their job to catch you, and they feel its alright to use every trick in the book to get you to say something they can use against you.
Remember its "Anything you say can and will be used used against you".
Interesting to Watch. [youtube.com]
Re:So far so good. (Score:3, Insightful)
If it really is a national security issue, all bets are off.
But it probably isn't. It's the Bush administration's legal stink-bombs gumming up the future, just as they were planned to do.
We waste our time and money and attention trying to remove the rotting fish from the walls, while he and his buddies are laundering the money they looted from our safe.
Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think you understand what the gas tax is used for. It is there to help pay for the maintenance of the roads and highway system, electric cars do not obviate the need for road maintenance. Hijacking it to push a public policy agenda is a mistake I'm not going to get into here (too far off topic). Increasing the registration tax to cover the maintenance needs places a greater portion of the burden on those who don't drive very far compared to the current method, the gas tax is not perfect for this either but those who use the roads more do pay more on average.
As far as the government holding information about you, remember that knowledge can just as easily be used to your detriment as it can to your benefit. As history shows us, trusting the government to always do the right thing doesn't tend to work out so well.
Re:GPS tracking may be off limits all together. (Score:1, Insightful)
A GPS tracker is is unlikely to be able to uncover evidence about something that already happened. You might be able to make a stretch if you already had some probable cause to think that a person, for instance, committed a murder, and wanted to see if they returned to the murder site. Maybe. But the sort of "Lets see where the drug dealer goes so we can see who he's talking to" is intellegence, not evidence gathering of a specific, specified instance of a crime.
Wow (Score:1, Insightful)
An intelligent decision coming from our "Justice" system, I'm shocked. Heres hoping that some higher/appeals court doesn't screw it up. Really, I'm having trouble fathoming how anyone though this was legal by any stretch of the imagination. Trespassing, Stalking, illegal wiretapping (a stretch I know, but if the police can stretch that law to cover up their illegal acts, citizens can use it to protect themselves from overreaching government) are just a few charges I can name off the top of my head. And for the idiots who might say "You're in a public place, you have no right to privacy" I say this, What do you think would happen to a person who started tagging POLICE cars with these devices? That should give you an Idea as to how illegal this is.
Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans (Score:3, Insightful)
This isn't hard to do with existing technology, GPS not required. Just require drivers to purchase those transmitters and put up readers along the road. Like a toll, it will tell you who drove by what.
In Maine, it was called TransPass for a while now EasyPass which works all the way down to Florida, with some pockets of resistance here and there.
Yes, as alternative fuel cars proliferate, the gas tax won't work. I predict that the government will increasingly tax truckers first, for various reasons. Then the excise tax on alt fuel cars will skyrocket, and eventually you will report your odometer reading and calculate a tax based on that. If you underreport the odometer, you will pay for it when you sell the vehicle. If you scrap the vehicle, you will pay then, or when you buy a replacement. Makes sense, as gas tax is essentially a tax on mileage, though I pay more for my Explorer than you do for your Prius, and I'm not sure the 'damage' I do to the roads is proportionally worse than what you do. Truckers have always paid higher fuel taxes on that premise alone.
Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans (Score:4, Insightful)
And Obama's policy on wiretaps and surveillance is left-wing? There's not a nickel's worth difference between them. this is not Left v Right, Republicans v Democrats, it is Us v Them.
You're losing this argument.
Re:"government claims" (Score:3, Insightful)
When was the last time you saw a toll road go away after the 10/15/20 years period where the road was to be "paid off"? Same reason why the states will find a way to replace the revenue generated by a fuel tax for "roads".
Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans (Score:3, Insightful)
New Defcon contest: odometer hacks. Plug into the little interface jack under your dash, and viola! Abatement!
Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans (Score:3, Insightful)
Right now we have no viable alternative. The Teabaggers aren't it. Most of those people are just Republican activists trying to push us even further to the right.
Sadly, I have to agree. My local tea party has remained loyal to the original concept of the modern tea parties, which is just to protest government intrusion in general, but many of the larger ones have become extensions of the neocons. Basically, if they create a formal organization or elect a leadership, they're in opposition to the spirit of tea parties. Without any formal leadership, the opportunity for corruption is practically nil; with leadership, practically guaranteed.
Re:So just use cops (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Way to block Bush and the Republicans (Score:3, Insightful)
No, it didn't. It wasn't about what the government could do with the info, it was about what it could legally do with the info.
And I don't mind law enforcement knocking on the door of people who atypically amass explosive components. Those are the people they should be asking questions. And the more times it's unnecessary the better.
I would mind a lot if they knocked-IN my door for that. But to do that they need a warrant. Which moots all of these arguments, since with a warrant they can tap your phones, bug your car, install cameras in your bathroom, etc., etc. And to get a warrant they need a little more than a couple of receipts; they need to show probable cause, and just possessing those things isn't probable cause.