Feds Tell Supreme Court They Should Be Able To Stick A GPS Device On Your Car Without A Warrant
from the 4th-amendment,-what's-that? dept
In the federal government's apparent ongoing quest to stamp out any remnants of the 4th Amendment, the administration has now officially petitioned the Supreme Court to let it stick GPS devices on cars with no warrant. This seems like the sort of case that the Supreme Court will actually be interested in hearing. That's because a variety of federal courts have ruled that it's legal to put a tracking device on your car without a warrant... However, last summer, the DC Circuit appeals court said that such GPS tracking, if done for a long time, crosses the line and becomes illegal. The standard the court used was pretty vague, but now there's something of a circuit split, and that's what generally interests the Supreme Court.Either way, the government's position is clear: it shouldn't need a warrant to track you. The feds seem to be playing a bit of a questionable game with your privacy here. They claim that you have no reasonable expectation of privacy in your daily movements. To some extent that's true. If you're out in public, and people can see you, then it's not private. But the real question here is somewhat more complex: if you don't see anyone following you, do you have an expectation of privacy in your long-term aggregate movements? I would think there's a much stronger argument there. I would think that just being spotted in public, or even followed in public, is reasonable as there's no real expectation of privacy. But the calculus may, in fact, change when we're talking about the aggregate information of pretty much all of your daily movements over a long term... especially when the person might never realize that anyone is watching them. In such situations, it seems like there is an expectation of privacy about that aggregate info.
Other than the DC court, however, most courts haven't recognized that difference between snippets of daily movements and the aggregation of daily movements. If I had to guess, I'd say that the Supreme Court won't recognize the difference either, and yet another prong of the 4th Amendment will disappear forever.
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Filed Under: 4th amendment, gps, privacy, warrant
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This is getting really ridiculous ...
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Re: This is getting really ridiculous ...
Time to hit the reset switch on this government of ours. This shit is really gotten out of hand.
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I was actually thinking about something that would only work within and under the car it is installed in. With a low enough RF power output to only disrupt signals ~half a foot away from the body-metal of the car.
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Re: This is getting really ridiculous ...
IANAL, it was a few years ago and we were just kids with too much time on our hands and an internet connection but I would be surprised to learn that you could now possess such a device in the US
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http://www.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2011/db0209/DA-11-250A1.pdf
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Re: This is getting really ridiculous ...
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Re: This is getting really ridiculous ...
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Re: Re: Re: This is getting really ridiculous ...
Let's take the FBI out of the equation. If my neighbor, without my consent, takes the door off my Jeep and replaces it with a door from a Chevy Impala, am I legally allowed to take it back off and throw it away (or give/sell it to someone else)?
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Re: This is getting really ridiculous ...
have fun!
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But,:I don't think it should be about whether or not it's long term following you or not. You're still out in public, so it's still not private.
I think it should be about police actually doing something to / putting something on, your car. That's a completely separate and different issue than just being able to see you out in public.
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Your case:
Talking in public you can not expect privacy when you have others around you.
GPS tracking of your car is different..
Other case: You are talking and some guy in a black suit glues a megaphone to your mouth.
now to take it a little further...
you have this megaphone attached to your mouth and you have no idea until you go to take a sip of that coffee you bought. Oh those delicate flavors of caffine and coffee...oh crap, lets take this megaphone off so you can drink it...BAM! Obstruction of justice.
I don't know of this happening yet, but I bet it will happen. Some poor person removes it not knowing what it is or who put it there or why, but hours later these men in black come knocking on the door asking for their equipment back and telling you that, despite them not having a reason to do so, you are now being charged with obstruction of them not finding anything to charge you with...
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Actually a man had the FBI do something similar a couple months back.
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Help me understand this better
Mike's counter to the latter view is that if you know you're being followed, you might act different, and therefore it's ok when it's people following you. That presupposes that you notice that you're being followed and/or the people following you aren't very good at being covert.
Provided that it's only tracking your movements in public, how exactly is a GPS different from a really good cop, in this regard?
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Re: Help me understand this better
Being able to track you for no apparent reason isn't right no matter what the government thinks. The 4th amendment states that pretty clearly.
Everything I just said.....plus, It's just one more example of the Govt. trying to do what it does best, looking for results without actually doing any work.
My 2 cents
Gordon
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Re: Re: Help me understand this better
1) Do they need a warrant to track you in person? If so, excellent point, and I agree. If not, then there is precedent for not needing a warrant to track someone.
2) Needing a person to "work" instead of having a machine do it seems like a weak argument. No doubt the gov't is lazy, but I support automation of all sorts of other processes. Why should this be excluded?
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I own my car, therefore you have to get my permission to attach something to it... unless you have a warrant issued by a state or federal court specifically stating what device is to be attached, and specifically stating to which vehicle said device is to be afixed to.
If you don't have a warrant, and you still want to track my movements, you'd better have someone following me.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Help me understand this better
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Re: Help me understand this better
GPS units are ridiculously cheap. There's almost no cost per hour of surveillance. Attaching a GPS unit to a vehicle doesn't effect the pool of officers assignable to other cases.
There's nothing stopping the government from sticking a GPS tracker on everyone.
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Re: Re: Help me understand this better
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Re: Help me understand this better
aka "robo-tapping"
On that note; Just because my phone conversations are trasmitted over public lines doesn't mean the authoritizors have the right to listen in 24/7 with no warrent or probable cause...
Secondly, we may have to add a line to the 4th amendment that states "thou shalt not collect aggregated data on a US Citizen without probable cause and a phatty warrent."
Thirdly; Can a cop literally and legally follow somebody around 24 hours a day with the intent to decern criminal activity without a some kind of probable cause? Fucking robots shouldn't be allowed to be cops, because it's essentially doing the work for somebody. If my name is in a system that has a device which does investigative work for somebody by following me around through GPS with the intent to find out if I am a criminal based upon the data gathered. Well, without probable cause that I am committing a crime... I would describe that as an illegal search and seizure.
F the police.
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"It is time for someone to build a short range GPS and cellphone detector with built in jammers for both."
BTW, it's illegal to have jammers on phones, too.
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Re:
I could see the SC striking this down as well, but in the past, the court has ruled pretty strongly in favor of police power, so I'd still expect them to uphold the warrantless tracking.
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A couple more issues with it
What if the car itself is no longer in public? I assume they continue to track your car when it leaves public roads. Is it not a privacy issue if they are tracking me when I drive my truck onto my property in Vermont - and hundreds of feet from public land?
Also, what if the car travels outside of the US? Are authorities in other countries allowing tracking of vehicles on their roads by US authorities? That may not be a privacy issue as much as a jurisdiction problem, but it seems to me that affixing something to someone's car and tracking them across the boarder is outside of the reach of US law enforcement.
I'm not a big fan of the GPS tracking on cars anyway. It tells law enforcement where your car is, but not who is driving it. That seems pretty problematic to me right from the start.
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Re: A couple more issues with it
This guy had the device put on his car while it sat in his driveway on private property!
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Re: Re: A couple more issues with it
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Big Brother
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At some point, though, a difference becomes a difference in kind. A 24/7 stakeout of a suspect is VERY expensive, and will only be used in the most important of circumstances, where law enforcement is already pretty darn close to nailing someone. They might not actually have a warrant, but it's easier to justify a warrant than a round-the-clock stakeout.
Cheap GPS trackers can be sent on fishing expeditions to follow anybody you happen to not like in the hopes that you'll find something to nail them for.
To refer to a previous discussion, standing outside the suspects apartment and listening for a few minutes is not a violation of privacy. Setting an automated recorder on their window sill might be another matter.
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Re:
Am I missing something? I totally understand the matter of taste ("should we do/allow this?"), but from a pure legal standpoint, I don't see where it could be knocked down yet.
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GPS Warrant
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Stalker - Terrorist - DHS - Local LEO: Synonymous
They (both the LEO's and the Supream Court Justices) also took an oath to uphold and protect the principles that the Constitution stands for. We need to start holding our elected officials accountable to the citizens. The highest law of the land is being razed to third world stature. Why do so few people care?
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I am sure this is one of the reasons the cops all want Predators. Aerial drones can see you on private property without having to go on that property.
It's not that I'm out doing something illegal, it's that I resent the intrusion. Why should any person, not just myself, be subject to 3ʳᵈ world type surveillance?
But I guess with the way things are going, we are a 3ʳᵈ country aren't we?
My 2˘.
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But they are modifying MY vehicle
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Re: But they are modifying MY vehicle
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Re: Re: But they are modifying MY vehicle
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Re: But they are modifying MY vehicle
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Better Get Used to It
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Re: Better Get Used to It
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Re: Re: Better Get Used to It
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Its a recording
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I say, drown it in the sink and toss it out with the garbage. When they come knocking, shrug. ;)
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The police have no powers that private citizens don't have
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Wait, what?
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They do not need GPS tracker to find where you are or have been,
They just have to get friendly with Steve Jobs
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Re:
All the locations the victim has been are instantly copied.
Nice, huh?
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Privacy
I know the police have a job to do, but removing the rights of law abiding citizens should not be on the list of things they (the government) should take away.
If the police suspect someone of committing illegal acts, get a warrant. It is that easy. If the suspicion is not up to warrant level, then you ARE invading the rights of the individual.
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Re: Privacy
I know the police have a job to do, but removing the rights of law abiding citizens should not be on the list of things they (the government) should take away."
I agree with you 100%!
The gubmint, however, does not: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/10/fbi-tracking-device/
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Serious answers are preferred.
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1. Your car is your property. Even if it is legal to track your movement 24/7, the government does not have the right to deface your property.
2. Not everywhere your car goes is "public". You can drive on private roads and private land. Since the device will not magically know the difference between public and private areas, even if it were legal to track everything done in public, this will inevitably track things done in private.
3. The idea that anything done in a public area has no expectation of privacy because "what's public is public, duh" is absurd. Your cell phone broadcasts signals over public airspace- that does not mean your phone conversations can be listened to without a warrant. The ruling in Kyllo v. United States struck down this absurd idea that everything in public is public information, when it said that the heat emanating from a home, despite emanating into a "public" area, was still private information and reading it would be considered a search for 4th Amendment purposes.
All of these factors should make this case a decisive loss for the government, but somehow incompetent judges have botched it.
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No warrant? No tracking.
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Law Enforcement: immune to feelings of shame?
But what about the people in law enforcement? Don't they feel shame at being nosy-parkers? Some of the snoops must feel "dirty" or "creepy" at having to do surveillance, right? So the people pushing warrantless GPS surveillance, which seems like a pretty clear violation of 4th Amendment rights, and therefore the current Supreme Court will find some way to weaken that protection, should cause humans in law enforcement to feel perverted, dirty or ashamed of their actions.
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Re: Law Enforcement: immune to feelings of shame?
...
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'nuff said.
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1) It will be easier to track stolen vehicles
2) It will be easier to locate vehicles with missing people AND potentially occupants under duress.
3) It CAN be used to help determine fault in a vehicular accident.
But it also can be used to track moving violations and issue more tickets, or to track private citizens who aren't doing anything illegal and we shouldn't be wasting our tax dollars on that.
My biggest concerns are the increase in spending AND the fact that if you find one such tracking device on your vehicle and you tamper with it or even remove it, you can be conceivably be charged with and found guilty of obstruction.
Should you find a tracking device, or any other device on your vehicle, what would be the proper course of action? Call the police and report an unknown device on your vehicle and demand that they have technicians remove it so that you can safely operate it?
I'm all for preserving our fundamental freedoms but I fail to see where this can lead to any real invasion of privacy, unless the movement data was leaked to other private citizens, or worse, to advertising and marketing firms.
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It's Vandalism.
What if someone found the device and thought it was a bomb? They'd probably run screaming to the police that there's a bomb on their car, causing mass panic when the bomb squad comes out to check it.
Do they have to get a warrant to plant tracking devices on my person? If so, they should be required to do so with my car.
Nevertheless, this is just about law enforcement wanting to make their jobs easier rather than doing their job. What's their job? To uphold the law and protect the public. Is the public protected by ignoring the 4th amendment like this? I think it's the exact opposite.
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
Tracking a car by GPS is, in essence, a violation because it is broadcasting your movements to everyone. Such surveillance is above and beyond what anyone in public could reasonably be privy to without actually following them, except anyone in public following you could be confronted, where the GPS tracking denies you that right.
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Re: It's Vandalism.
Or put it on a shipping vessel.
So many pranks!
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Re: It's Vandalism.
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However, people have had, up until now, the realistic expectation that it's not practical to be followed unless the police have a damned good reason. Without GPS trackers, it takes considerable manpower to stake out someone and track their movements. So in essence, people have assumed they will not be tracked.
With the approval of GPS trackers, it would be possible to track anyone and everyone nearly indefinitely. This is clearly a different reality than the situation that existed previously and a much more troubling one.
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GPS Warrant
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Definately...
The government should be able to:
* Track all people, all the time for any reason
* Seize anything from anyone for any reason
* Interrogate anyone for any reason at any time
* Execute anyone for any reason at any time
Why bother with pesky laws or the constitution... or even oversight...
Our forefathers would become terrorists if they suddenly found themselves in "their" country... what we have now is far, far worse than the injustice they experienced back in Colonial times.
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Lets Reverse This
If the feds don't need a warrant, then why shouldn't anyone else.
And since it is in the common good to know how the federal employees are spending their time and using their assigned vehicles, these seems like a good way to cut down on abuse.
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Only Legal If...
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Re: Only Legal If...
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Jesus, dude. We get it already. You're in love with that Wired story. How many times are you gonna post the link, anyway? Can you ballpark it for me?
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Isn't that B and E or vandalism?
Personally I have no problem with the police putting the tracker on my car, but the tracker should become mine (They gave it to me intentionally) and the officer that performed the act should be charged with vandalism and if anyone else helped plan the act they should all be changed with criminal conspiracy, but the tracking itself should be fine as I would be in public....:)
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Re: Isn't that B and E or vandalism?
Just because someone leaves something on your property does not make it yours. It could be considered "lost" property, "mislaid" property, or "abandonded" property each have their own process (and lengths of time you need to hold it for them) to claiming ownership. Most likely your gonna do something fun like attach it to a cargo ship before these time periods expire.
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Re: Re: Isn't that B and E or vandalism?
An exception would be if it has a name and address etched on it.
After that amount of time EVEN IF THE THINGS IN QUESTION CAN BE CONNECTED WITH A CRIME, if you want to claim them as your own, they should be yours.
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I agree that this is a violation of the 4th Amendment, at least in spirit, but do the risks outweigh the benefits?
Perhaps what would make this more appropriate, is for said GPS to be required to be disabled upon entering private property, regardless of who owns or leases it the property or the vehicle being tracked. If this passes and private citizens place, on their properties and in a way so as to only disable GPS within the limits of their own property lines, devices to disable, jam, and/or scatter, then perhaps they also could not be prosecuted for obstructing justice.
Although, Police, Fire, and Rescue agencies may decline to provide service, citing that they too would be cut off from their organizations while on those properties...
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Privacy
They readily admit that I don't need a warrant to physically follow you around, but they say I do need one for a tracker because that violates privacy. But it's much *more* a violation of your privacy for my to physically surveil you. I can get all sorts of additional information doing that which a GPS won't provide (who you meet with, what stores you go into, what you buy, what pay phones you use, etc.).
So why would I need a warrant to do the thing that invades your privacy *less* and not need a warrant to do the thing that invades your privacy *more*?
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