Supreme Court To Weigh In On Warrantless GPS Tracking 191
CWmike writes "In a move with far-reaching privacy implications, the U.S. Supreme Court has decided to hear a case involving the government's authority to conduct prolonged GPS tracking of suspects in criminal cases without first obtaining a court warrant. The government has argued that it has the authority to conduct such searches; privacy advocates have argued that such tracking violates Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure. The Supreme Court's decision in the case will be pivotal because lesser courts around the U.S. have appeared split on the issue in recent years, with some upholding warrantless GPS tracking and others rejecting it. Last August, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia circuit sided with the subject of the Supreme Court hearing, Antoine Jones, a Washington, D.C. man who was convicted in 2008 on charges of possessing and conspiring to distribute more than 50 kilograms of cocaine, and rejected claims by the government that federal agents have the right to conduct around-the-clock warrantless GPS tracking of suspects."
10 bucks (Score:2)
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The US Government has the right to do absolutely anything they want. I fully support them in doing whatever they want. And I should know! I just graduated first in class from my government re-education camp. First! Hah! In your face!
I see terrorists everywhere now! Its so obvious. I don't know how I didn't see it before. Now at my weekly meetings I get to report on the suspicious misdeeds of my friends, family, and neighbors. Amerika rules!
Re:10 bucks (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:10 bucks (Score:5, Insightful)
Successfully reading the court in advance requires a degree in divining, Harry Potter style. It could be just the opposite -- they want to make the point that it would have been easy to get a warrant, so forbidding warrantless tracking won't actually hurt the state's interest in catching criminals.
Re:Successfully reading the court in advance (Score:2)
Or study under Asimov's psychohistory.
We're seriously on a path to *someting*. I keep hoping it's a Privacy Rebellion rather than the Mayan's End of the World in Dec2012 (your month here.)
I just suk as a psychic so I can only read tier 3 trends.
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I'm still betting on "a boot stamping on a human face, forever".
Re:10 bucks (Score:5, Interesting)
"What sucks is that they are taking a case where the defendant is clearly someone that the government should have been tracking and just didn't go through the correct channels of authorization (warrants)."
Do we actually know that? Did they already have probable cause? If they did, why didn't they use it?
I think it's much more likely that they felt they "knew" what he was up to, and were on a fishing expedition to try to get some real evidence. But fishing expeditions are illegal; that's the point.
The problem with just letting them do this to somebody they "know" (or think) is guilty, is that surprisingly often, people "know" things that just aren't so. Further, as the Supreme Court has ruled in the past, fishing expeditions are not permissible because, among other reasons, "evidence" might be found that makes even innocent people appear guilty. Just like the guy who was picked up for arson because his local store's "club card" information said he had bought a fire starter. Later, the real guilty party confessed to the crime. The other guy just wanted to light his barbecue.
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I think it's much more likely that they felt they "knew" what he was up to, and were on a fishing expedition to try to get some real evidence. But fishing expeditions are illegal; that's the point.
But it would not be illegal for an undercover officer to follow him around, the police doesn't need probable cause for that. At least I've never heard of the police being charged with stalking and given a restraining order, no matter how long they've been watching as long as they don't step into 4th amendment territory. The question is if this should require a warrant or not. Because the general "let's just hang around / follow him a bit and see what he's up to" is pretty standard police work.
Re:10 bucks (Score:4, Insightful)
"But it would not be illegal for an undercover officer to follow him around, the police doesn't need probable cause for that. At least I've never heard of the police being charged with stalking and given a restraining order..."
But, as his defense attorney has already pointed out, that is different. Even a dedicated human "tail" is not likely to be following him 24 hours a day, everywhere he goes. There are some definite differences there.
It also involves tampering with private property, to attach and detach the device.
What it boils down to, is that this is somewhere between human surveillance, as you compared it to, and putting a radio collar on you to track your every movement. I think it is pretty obvious that a radio collar would come under the purview of the 4th Amendment.
And if you ask my honest opinion, that situation resembles a radio collar a hell of a lot more than it does human surveillance.
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Unlike human surveillance, which is generally used to watch for the commission of a particular crime, a GPS tracker can actually give the police all kinds of private information about you that is not in any way connected with a crime, and which they have no business knowing. Remember that crime suspects don't lose all their rights just because they are suspects, nor should they.
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1. If you place a GPS tracker on someone, it can go places where you can not legally follow them. For example, if you are in a rural area, it is pretty hard to follow someone when there you and him are the only car around for miles. More importantly, if they turn on to a privately owned ranch, the police legally can NOT follow them without a warrant. In addition, the GPS will follow them if they leave the country a
Re:10 bucks (Score:5, Insightful)
The Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States are tenured; they don't care if they look like 'the good guys' or not. They don't have to compete with anyone else to keep their jobs for the rest of their useful lives, so there's simply no impetus to keep other people happy.
This is a good thing: It is, perhaps, the least political position of power in the justice system.
I look forward to seeing what they have to say about this case.
Re:tenured (Score:2)
What does it take to kick off a Supreme justice?
By not answering to anyone a justice can go on a rampage.
With the Repub/Conserv leaning court we could damage civil rights for decades.
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From the constitution:
This is really aimed at government officials that commit crimes. If you are asking if judges can be removed from office because their rulings don't "support this Constitution" the answer is probably no. A judge has discretion to interpret the co
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A judge has discretion to interpret the constitution. If congress disagrees with that interpretation they can amend the constitution.
Huh? Amending the constitution isn't necessary for that. Either something is constitutional or it isn't. The supreme court can't decide that for themselves (all they can do is interpret it, as you said, which does not involve altering its meaning). They can say something is constitutional (or that it isn't), but that does not mean that they are right.
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With the Supreme Court being the highest law of the land, their judgment as to whether a law is constitutional or not is effectively the last word on whether or not it is constitutional.
No, it isn't. When someone asks whether something is constitutional or not, they are likely asking if it follows the constitution, not if the supreme court thinks it follows the constitution.
"Interpretation" is just trying to figure out what something means (and quite a few sections of the constitution are clear-cut). That is clearly different than changing its meaning, is it not?
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The Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States are tenured; they don't care if they look like 'the good guys' or not. They don't have to compete with anyone else to keep their jobs for the rest of their useful lives, so there's simply no impetus to keep other people happy.
That you know of.
The way a couple of the judges toe the party line, even when it goes against previously spoken convictions, leads me to consider that the party that nominated them may have something on them - perhaps something in their past that they don't want to become public. A controllable SCOTUS judge or two wouldn't be unthinkable - the politicos and powerful lobbyists have done far worse than that in the past.
If there's a need for warrantless investigations of individual US citizens, I think we sho
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Ah, but the beauty of the law is that saying that he really was a bad guy is irrelevant.
There are rules and procedures ... cutting corners when tracking bad guys is just as wrong as using FBI resources to follow the guy you think is screwing your wife.
If you're not allowed to have round the clock GPS tr
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Exactly. I'd put money on it being a 5-4 split along ideological lines.
The thing is, I can see it both ways. The police don't need a warrant to follow a suspect. This isn't much different. The big difference is that police manpower is inherently limited, whereas GPS tracking is effectively unlimited. What needs to be decided is whether or not unlimited tracking is within the bounds of the Constitution.
Of course, there are other issues. Affixing a GPS to someone's car requires either breaking in (which
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Is it too late to get Amazon to do express delivery of nine copies of the book 1984 to:
Supreme Court of the United States
One First Street N.E.
Washington, DC 20543
Just saying. Every single thing in that book can easily be argued to be "a simple extension of police tracking that is enabled through the use of new
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I will quibble, though, that rights are not based on available manpower. It either is a right (to not be tracked without a warrant) or it isn't. I believe the spirit of the constitution and the spirit of justice says that the police should be required to get a warrant for any investigative "tools" that target an individual and which aren't emergencies.
In general, I think that police should be able to follow a suspect around public areas without a warrant. I think there are reasonable parameters you would put on such tailing. The person should be the subject of an ongoing investigation. The police should not interfere or harass the subject. The police should not go anywhere where the subject would have a reasonable expectation of privacy, or on private land (discounting privately owned areas that are public--e.g. the police should be able to go into W
Fait accompli (Score:3, Funny)
If it were up to this court the government would be able to quarter troops in our homes. It's no question how it will rule when it comes to what protections the Fourth Amendment provides (none at all). That it is hearing this case is bad news by itself.
Why don't you support or troops?! (Score:5, Funny)
If it were up to this court the government would be able to quarter troops in our homes.
You should be HONORED to have one of our brave troops set foot in your home, you dope-smoking Liberal. If it wasn't for our troops, you wouldn't have a home, you Sharia-loving socialist! You should take a trip down to the local VA hospital to get a close look at the blood and limbs that have been lost to save your freedom. My wife and I moved into the garage so the fine young hero in our care could sleep in a decent bed after the rock mattresses he got in Afghanistan.
Sure, they were good enough to fight for you in Iraq, but now you think our troops should be homeless. You make me sick, you Jon Stewart acolyte.
[I defy you to work through Poe's Law on this one. :-) ]
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Does it count if I quarter myself in my own home?
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I don't want to know what you do with your consenting self in the privacy of your own home. Now, if you haven't given yourself consent, then yes, it becomes a police matter.
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You say "dope-smoking Liberal" like it's a bad thing...
Missing Bill Hicks... (Score:2)
Smoke this! It's the law!
Wow, sorry man, started taking myself just a little too seriously there for a second...
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I thought it said "pope smoking" and I thought, damn, that's too liberal for me.
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You either need to become a better writer or better educated.
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When the Founding Fathers wrote that amendment, clearly they intended to require the owner's permission before a soldier may enter someone's home to draw and quarter another soldier who is living there. If the amendment had prohibited forcible housing of troops, it would have said so explicitly.
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You could argue that the that the 3rd amendment, rather than the fourth [ssrn.com] is more applicable to unwarranted wiretapping. (This argument proved more entertaining than prescient.)
Because (Score:2)
Getting a warrant is too damn hard!
Yeah, not going to buy that excuse, not with the number of no-knock search warrants issued every day with no probable cause. Its pretty bad the people we want to protect our rights are fighting to remove them. What's next, my Doctor giving me a prescription for dorritos and beer?!
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What's next, my Doctor giving me a prescription for dorritos and beer?!
If he does tell me his name!
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It's tricky to remember the 800 number to call when you want a rubber stamped warrant.
What will be interesting... (Score:2)
Is their reasons behind the outcome.
I mean, they do have to understand that if they allow the government to do this, it basically cuts out the Judiciary branch in regards to oversight. They could spy on ANYONE at ALL TIMES without a single warrant being filed. It also means that the FBI could start attaching these devices to THEIR cars.
(Of course there is no reason why the FBI would want to track judges now is there...)
Why should we follow the law... (Score:2)
if they won't even follow the most basic law we have: the Constitution.
They expect us to obey every dipshit law that they pass on whatever whim they have on that particular day, but God forbid that they have to get a [gasp] warrant to conduct a search or track somebody.
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Magna Carta and the Rule of Law (Score:4, Insightful)
SuperDave80 could have made his argument with a little more rigor, but what's he reaching for is "Not even the King is above the Law."
The Government cannot expect us to follow the Law if it will not follow the Law itself. This was the whole point of the Magna Carta, one of the founding documents of modern law.
The 1215 Charter required King John of England to proclaim certain liberties, and accept that his will was not arbitrary, for example by explicitly accepting that no "freeman" (in the sense of non-serf) could be punished except through the law of the land, a right which is still in existence today.
If the Rule of Law does not apply to all, including and especially the Executive, then you have the walking definition of a corrupt state and an illegitimate government. When the government does not obey the law, you have a duty to break it and oppose the men in power. I'll let the Declaration of Independence speak for itself:
...whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends ... it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
When the government does not follow the Law, then there is no Law to be followed.
You will, of course, still have moral limits on your behavior.
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The very idea of the Supreme Court "weighing in" is a bit flawed. The SC is supposed to UPHOLD the Constitution, not sit around and decide which parts they, as a small handful of individuals, agree can be totally streamrolled, ignored, and used as toilet paper. There isn't much to "weigh in" - it's blatantly unconstitutional, and the only way they can ethically "decide" is for the Constitution. In spite of many of us having been convinced otherwise, the "consent-of-the-governed" mandate of the SC doesn't ac
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I'm going to go ahead and guess that they know a little more about the Constitution than you do, and may be aware of subtleties of its interpretation that cloud the issue.
Even if you believe it's blatant, the Supreme Court has the final say on Constitutionality, so when the Executive and Legislative branches get it wrong, it's kinda important they "weigh in" on the issue... The Constitution is just a piece of paper with a description of some ideas. It doesn't *do* anything by itself.
Keep Questioning Authority, BeanThere (Score:2)
I'm going to go ahead and guess that they know a little more about the Constitution than you do, and may be aware of subtleties of its interpretation that cloud the issue.
And yet, the wonderful thing is that BeanThere still has the right to call them on their nonsense. You just made the most literal "Appeal to Authority" argument I've ever heard. I'll go BeanThere one better. Not only do I believe their decisions of late have been grievously, horrifically wrong, I don't think they're the caliber of men fit to walk through the Court's doors and sit in the shadow of Thurgood Marshall, Earl Warren and Oliver Wendell Holmes.
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The Constitution is written in plain, simple English. Might I suggest you read it sometime - in fact anyone can read it and understand it quite clearly. The SC doesn't have the "final say" insofar as they cannot have the "final say" over and above the Constitution, their JOB is to UPHOLD the Constitution - the Constitution itself IS the "final say". The fact that it's become that way is because we've lost the "consent of the governed" because people like you have been convinced that SCOTUS gets to "interpre
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SCOTUS judges take the following oath:
"I, [NAME], do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me as [TITLE] under the Constitution and laws of the United States. So help me God."
The keyword there is "under" the Constitution. They aren't supposed to trample over it or go around it or sidestep it or ignore it. They are requi
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If ruled unconstitutional ... (Score:2)
Some states want to tax using driving habits based upon GPS. What would this mean for states' or feds' attempts to require GPS in all motor vehicles?
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What about data from private companies? (Score:2)
Is this even relevant, given that private companies would likely be more than willing to sell your location information to the police or anyone else?
Are the police barred, for instance, from purchasing your location information from companies that perform automated license plate tracking? What about 5 years from now when every department has an 'eye in the sky' providing the ability to track you visually from the air?
Sauce for the goose (Score:2)
If it's not an unreasonable search to attach a tracker to someones car, does that mean ordinary citizens can do it too?
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If it's not an unreasonable search to attach a tracker to someones car, does that mean ordinary citizens can do it too?
I can think of nine people in DC you should try it on.
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Why would anyone complain about this? (Score:2)
The first question that needs to be answers is why there might be a case where getting a warrant is a problem when they are willing to expend the resources to attach the tracking device in the first place. These things are expensive - on the order of $1000 plus fees for the cell phone connection. So they can't attach one just on a whim, there has to be some reason. So what reasons would there be where a warrant would be a problem? I would guess that the most logical would be one where someone is clearly
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These things are expensive - on the order of $1000 plus fees for the cell phone connection.
Save 2 weeks*police persons to follow the subject and you paid it back. See now why they are so attracted?
Push hard enough against GPS tracking and we will have optical systems using either LEO satellites (lots of 'em)
LEO satellite orbits are a limited resource, can't be that many.
...or solar-powered [optical tracking] drones.
Night time?
My point: for the present (and in the next 5 years), GPS tracking devices are more effective for them and more invasive for the citizens.
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These things are expensive - on the order of $1000
How much do the various safety and emissions control technologies incorporated into a modern motor vehicle cost? A state could require that all vehicle owners cover the cost of a GPS.
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These things are expensive - on the order of $1000 plus fees for the cell phone connection.
ROFL. Expensive? To the FBI? Give me a fucking break.
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Push hard enough against GPS tracking and we will have optical systems using either LEO satellites (lots of 'em) or solar-powered drones. The LEO satellites would be tough to coordinate and we might not have all the kinks worked out of that right now. The drones are clearly less than five years away and might be nearly as cost effective as GPS tracking is today.
If the Supreme Court rules that this sort of GPS tracking is unconstitutional, there is no way that any of these options would not, also, be unconstitutional. This is why many of us hope the Supreme Court opposes this sort of tracking.
Alito's spotless record (Score:2)
Any chance Alito will break his record of never seeing a police search he didn't like? Nah....
My Property. (Score:3)
My take (Score:2)
If the feds don't bother getting a warrant, then they don't get to whine if their "suspect" decides to dispose of the device as he sees fit.
Dingdingding (Score:2)
Precisely what I came here to say. If I find a tracking device on my car I'm going to attach it to something headed to NY. Preferably a train.
would this apply to my estranged ex-gf (Score:3)
If the Supremes rule against this does that mean my routine GPS tracking of my estranged ex-GF will become illegal?
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It'd be far more fun to put these on political figure's cars. We wouldn't have to wait for love children to show up 10 years later, or getting caught in rubbing against someone's foot in a bathroom, we could just analyze their driving habits to see if they're going to a red light district or a mistress' house.
Or from a personal point of view - In my local township there's a recall effort underway because the township switched ambulance services. Since the new company took over there are documented cases of
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Re:Warrantlessly Track The Police (Score:5, Informative)
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>>Seriously, I am in favor of random drug tests for all elected and appointed Federal officials.
Heh, like in Snow Crash, eh? Make the federal government only for the dedicated people willing to work for low pay in order to do something good for the country? Random drug testing and polygraph tests?
Actually? Maybe it wouldn't be so bad.
Well, in any event, it's worth supporting the EFF in their efforts on this. As always, they're on the right side of the issues. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/06/supr [eff.org]
Fair's fair (Score:2)
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If only Lulzsec didn't disband!
Predictions? see Kyllo v. United States (Score:5, Informative)
Kyllo held that the use of a thermal imaging device from a public vantage point to monitor the radiation of heat from a person's home was a "search" within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, and thus required a warrant. Because the police in this case did not have a warrant, the Court reversed Kyllo's conviction for growing marijuana.
Majority: Scalia, joined by Souter, Thomas, Ginsburg, Breyer
Dissent: Stevens, joined by Rehnquist, O'Connor, Kennedy
Kyllo was a win for us, but you can bet Sotamayor and Kagan will follow Stevens lead, and Roberts and Alito will follow Rehnquist/Connor. We get the worst of both the "liberal" and "conservative" Justices.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyllo_v._United_States [wikipedia.org]
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Very well said, I couldn't agree more.
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Re:I'd allow it (Score:5, Insightful)
The cops can already get this information by dangerously and expensively tailing you or flying over your head, and they can do that without a warrant; why should obtaining the same information from a GPS be any different?
Because the burden of cost is one of the ways that our public anonymity is maintained. If the cost barrier is removed, it will need to be erected as a legal barrier.
Matter no degree, not type (Score:5, Insightful)
The cops can already get this information by dangerously and expensively tailing you or flying over your head, and they can do that without a warrant; why should obtaining the same information from a GPS be any different?
Because Liberty is a matter of degree, not just type. A woman runs into her ex-boyfriend at Starbucks Monday morning. If she doesn't see him again, that's chance. If she bumps into him again at lunch, that's odd. If she sees him at dinner, it's weird. If she sees him every time she sets foot out her door, that's stalking.
Police departments have finite resources. They can only surveil a handful of people full-time. That's police work. If they can automate that and keep track of thousands of people simultaneously while logging their every movement into a database, that's Orwellian.
The fact that they would do that while trespassing on my property is just creepy.
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The Right to be Left Alone (Score:3)
Stalking as a degree got defined by law at the cost of blood. We literally stacked up too many bodies of women until it could no longer be ignored. It wasn't a natural consequence.
Speaking of the law, here's what Warren and Brandeis thought of technological surveillance:
The Right to Privacy [mit.edu]
Warren and Brandeis, Harvard Law Review, December 15, 1890
Recent inventions and business methods call attention to the next step which must be taken for the protection of the person, and for securing to the individual what Judge Cooley calls the right "to be let alone" [10] Instantaneous photographs and newspaper enterprise have invaded the sacred precincts of private and domestic life; and numerous mechanical devices threaten to make good the prediction that "what is whispered in the closet shall be proclaimed from the house-tops."
Warren and Brandeis were worried about technologial advances destroying privacy in 1890. Just how big of a heart attack do you think they'd have at the idea of the police warrantlessly tracking citizens 24/7?
And how far do you think our libe
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"Expectation of privacy" is not the only issue surrounding unreasonable searches. This case is not purely about the expectation of privacy.
As long as I'm on the subject though, I do believe that there is a certain expectation of privacy, even in public. Every cheating spouse expects to get away with their dalliance by a form of "security through obscurity", which would fall apart under constant GPS surveillance. Why is there a strong correlation between your location and this other person Thursday mornin
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One good test of this is whether the police would have any issue with the public doing the same to them in return - in this case hiding GPS trackers on cop cars to make sure they don't engage in waste/fraud/abuse of public resources by hanging out a little too long at the donut shop, or putting personal miles on squad cars, or speeding w
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I have reasonable suspicion of you not being a worshipper of the one true God. Please calmly go to sleep tonight soon after which a tiny unnoticeable RFID tag will be inserted just under the skin of your right hand. It will only activate when you attempt to buy or sell anything, communicating with similar RFID chips in banknotes or credit cards belonging to banks covered by the FDIC
After all, the government owns those instruments of commerce
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Expectation of privacy should be simply what the common man reasonably expects to be true, not what extreme or unusual circumstances make possible. When I was younger, I'd often go on long trips late at night. I'd be the ONLY person on the road for miles. Being a law abiding citizen, I think it's REASONABLE to EXPECT that the appearance of being all alone on the road at 3am meant that no one knew I was there, aside from people I told where I was going. I was aware there could be a state trooper lurking
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Minors can buy violent video games, even though historically Minors haven't had full rights and parents are the ones who have had the authority to regulate their children.
In your dreams. To quote Antonin Scalia:
JUSTICE THOMAS ignores the holding of Erznoznik, and denies that persons under 18 have any constitutional right to speak or be spoken to without their parents’ consent. He cites no case, state or federal, supporting this view, and to our knowledge there is none. Most of his dissent is devoted to the proposition that parents have traditionally had the power to control what their children hear and say. This is true enough. And it perhaps follows from this that the state has the power to enforce parental prohibitions—to require, for example, that the promoters of a rock concert exclude those minors whose parents have advised the promoters that their children are forbidden to attend. But it does not follow that the state has the power to prevent children from hearing or saying anything without their parents’ prior consent. The latter would mean, for example, that it could be made criminal to admit persons under 18 to a political rally without their parents’ prior written consent—even a political rally in support of laws against corporal punishment of children, or laws in favor of greater rights for minors. And what is good for First Amendment rights of speech must be good for First Amendment rights of religion as well: It could be made crimi- nal to admit a person under 18 to church, or to give a person under 18 a religious tract, without his parents’ prior consent. Our point is not, as JUSTICE THOMAS believes, post, at 16, n. 2, merely that such laws are “undesirable.” They are obviously an infringement upon the religious freedom of young people and those who wish to proselytize young people. Such laws do not enforce parental authority over children’s speech and religion; they impose governmental authority, subject only to a parental veto. In the absence of any precedent for state control, uninvited by the parents, over a child’s speech and religion (JUSTICE THOMAS cites none), and in the absence of any justification for such control that would satisfy strict scrutiny, those laws must be unconstitutional. This argument is not, as JUSTICE THOMAS asserts, “circular,” ibid. It is the absence of any historical warrant or compelling justification for such restrictions, not our ipse dixit, that renders them invalid.
Re:Bad-ruling trifecta in play... (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh fuck you.
Clarence "Just Bribe My Wife" Thomas's points were as disgustingly intellectually dishonest as I've ever seen from him.
Parental responsibility is just that: PARENTAL. It doesn't mean kids need to have a signed fucking permission slip to go into a store to buy a comic book, bubble gum, or even a video game. It means it is the responsibility of the PARENT to manage what money their kids are given, what they are allowed to do with it, and to punish the kid appropriately when the kid decides to "go behind their parents' backs and..."
If you as a parent don't want your kid to buy a certain game, or a certain action figure, or a toy cap gun, or a certain book, or a magazine, or any one of a gazillion other things that uptight cult-brainwashed puritan moron parents seem to think are "bad" for their kids, then YOU TALK TO YOUR KID ABOUT IT. It is the responsibility of the PARENT to keep tabs on what their kid is doing/buying.
The ruling, rightly stated, points out that it is NOT the right of the parent to demand that every fucking shopkeeper in the state has to be a fucking prick about selling harmless things and checking ID merely because of the 1 in a million chance that the parents of the kid in front of him might be the sort of fucking gap-toothed asshole who insists that the only books in the house be "Da Bible" and the gun cleaning manual hanging next to the rack of roadkill waiting to be gutted and spit-roasted for dinner.
Two words for you... (Score:5, Insightful)
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The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent national gifts. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.
I agree with the sentiment of your post but when one group tolerates another, they are not equals.
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Now that minors can go behind their parents' backs and buy the games, parents' role in "taking responsibility for their kids" has become that much more difficult.
What the hell does that matter? Be more concerned about drugs or alchohol, both of which are easier to obtain (no videogame store in the US sell to minors without a parent there, even without the law) and both of which are worse for kids than violent games.
If your kid is getting ahold of a violent game and playing it, you've failed. And it is a minor failure, but that's no one's business but you and your kids. Hands off the law book.
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Playing Devil's advocate here, since I've been playing violent games since I was 14 without any (noticeable?) side effects.
What the hell does that matter? Be more concerned about drugs or alchohol, both of which are easier to obtain (no videogame store in the US sell to minors without a parent there, even without the law) and both of which are worse for kids than violent games.
But it's still illegal to sell drugs and alcohol to minors. The fact that enforcement is easier in the case of videogames is not really a reason not to make something illegal.
If your kid is getting ahold of a violent game and playing it, you've failed.
Assuming the premise that violent VGs are actually harmful to children, we can all agree that the parent has failed, but that leads to the question: should we allow negligent parents to harm their children (even if
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But if the parents haven't in fact been responsible, it's the children who pays for such negligence, no?
(Assuming that violent VGs are actually harmful.)
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Actually, all video game retailers in California are part of the voluntary ratings system that enforces the industry's ratings as if they had the force of law. Manufacturers and distributors make this as a condition in their contracts. Independent tests have found that selling M rated games to children happens less often than allowing children into R rated movies (also a voluntary system).
In practical means, the law was entirely symbolic... except, of course, for the vague usage of the terms in the bill w
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I guess I don't look at video games as "speech" at all. I look at video games as a toy, as they're interactive. Does the mechanical demonic cymbal-clapping monkey count as speech because it makes a noise?
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As for the not speaking to minors thi
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