After US v. Jones, FBI Turns Off 3,000 GPS Tracking Devices

suraj.sun writes with this excerpt from the Wall Street Journal: "The Supreme Court's recent ruling overturning the warrantless use of GPS tracking devices has caused a 'sea change' inside the U.S. Justice Department, according to FBI General Counsel Andrew Weissmann. Mr. Weissmann, speaking at a University of San Francisco conference called 'Big Brother in the 21st Century' on Friday, said that the court ruling prompted the FBI to turn off about 3,000 GPS tracking devices that were in use. These devices were often stuck underneath cars to track the movements of the car owners. In U.S. v. Jones, the Supreme Court ruled that using a device to track a car owner without a search warrant violated the law. After the ruling, the FBI had a problem collecting the devices that it had turned off, Mr. Weissmann said. In some cases, he said, the FBI sought court orders to obtain permission to turn the devices on briefly – only in order to locate and retrieve them."

Mine now!

[ewanm89]

Maybe the feds should be more careful before giving out their toys!

Re:3,000?

[hardburlyboogerman]

Wouldn't it be a laugh if they found out that a lot of them had already been removed and stuck to the undercarrage of some random over the road semi?

Re:A much better idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you suggesting that federal agencies should somehow be required to admit to people that they have been illegally tracked? Such knowledge would only confuse and upset people. Far better to break the law one last time in order to covertly retrieve their hardware.

Why do you hate America?

Re:You may already be a winner! -- a template

[PPH]

Sir,

I am more than happy to comply. I have enclosed the object I located stuck to the bottom of my truck in the vicinity of the right wheel well. Although I am no expert and I don't really know what this GPS object of which you speak looks like, here it is. On my ranch, we have different names for these, depending on whether they are dried or still soft.

A cooperative citizen.

Re:Just an idea...

[Kennon]

Although true, I don't think calling the FBI "bitches" would be very constructive in this situation.

Re:Turn it on again?

[meerling]

It just struck me. This means they don't know either where the owner of that vehicle works or lives, otherwise they'd have an address to go to for retrieval purposes.

WTH! Were they just sticking them on random cars in a McDonalds or something?

Re:3,000?

[flyneye]

2999, I stuck mine to the bottom of a carnival ride trailer long time back.