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9th Circuit court rules the government can use GPS to track you
- protomyth 16y agoI have a lot more respect for Chief Judge Alex Kozinski. His comments on fences and poor people are a nice rational argument to prove why this ruling is so unfair.
- maeon3 16y agoGeorge Orwell 1984 exhibit A: the two way view-screens, you never know when your being watched. exhibit B: global tracking system, from when you come out of your mother to your grave. We can only hope that going forward, men will resolve to behave like angels so that they will not abuse the power we are giving them with technology.
- fleitz 16y agoIf you want to get the ruling overturned, wait for your congress critter to park their vehicle on a public street and do the same thing, then setup a blog that shows the information online.
- micks56 16y agoThis is currently the rule in a majority of US jurisdictions. The 9th Circuit did not make a ruling. Rather, they declined to hear the case because California law is already on point and they do not wish to change the law. I am displeased with the attorney writing the article for another reason. He wrote, "The government's intrusion on property just a few feet away was clearly in this zone of privacy." The Supreme Court articulated 4 factors to determine zone of privacy, and proximity to the home is only one of the four. United States v. Dunn, 480 U.S. 294 (1987), Curtliage does not mean area close to your house. It means the area that a person can readily see (sort of). If I can see your front door from the street, then you have no reasonable expectation of privacy there. If I can see your backyard when I fly over in a small airplane at a normal heigh, you have no reasonable expectation of privacy there. California v. Ciraolo, 476 U.S. 207 (1986). I am not saying that I agree with this. All I am saying is that this is the current law and it is not new.
- nkassis 16y agoBut I don't get it, how can they just walk in you driveway and plant a device on your car? I can find more than just privacy being violated here, they modified his car and added a device to it, how is that not illegal?
- micks56 16y agoA search warrant is needed to inspect an area that you have a reasonable expectation of privacy for. If you don't have a REP, no warrant is needed. To partake in life we expect people to walk on our property - mailman, paperboy, UPS guy, electric company. Because we freely allow access to our property to these things we cannot claim "privacy!!!!" when it involves the police. The key here is that the device is on the car, not in it. Search warrant would be needed to put the GPS in the car, or put a microphone in the car. Outside of your car, no REP. Regarding modification, the court is going to balance police needs and the modification. Placing a magnet to the underside of your car is not considered a substantial modification to the court. Sure, if the cops replaced your rear axle with a GPS equipped rear axl you probably have a good argument. But something as simple as a magnetic GPS on your quarter panel isn't going to get any sympathy from the judge.
- carlrice 16y agoI'd say your private property would have reasonable expectation of privacy. Provided your car was parked on private property this would be called trespassing should you enforce and report it. Foregoing REP really only applies to public places (parking lots, parks, the sidewalk, etc.) so I would just check your car. Don't Fast Passes and the like already do this where possible?
- micks56 16y agoAccording to the courts, private property does not have an absolute REP. Your definition of REP is not one used by any US court. Good luck with trespassing claims. Criminal trespass elements are not met, so no luck there. You probably don't have a civil trespass claim, either. Civil trespass is intentionally entering the property of another without justification to do so. The court just affirmed that placing GPS on a car is legal justification to enter the property. So you would lose on the trespass claim. Of course that assumes it even sees the light of day in court. Civil claims take years to litigate and seeing that no actual monetary damage was done to the car the plaintiff is only entitled to nominal damages, perhaps $25 if he is lucky. Contrast that with thousands of dollars and many hours to litigate and this case is clearly a money losing proposition. I am not saying I agree with it. This is just the current affairs in the US legal system. Also, Fast Passes are RFID transponders. They are activated when you drive through the toll. No GPS is present. Don't forget that you explicitly consented to the placing of the device inside your car.
- nkassis 16y agoIs it really that hard for them to get warrants? I don't get all these shenanigans to avoid warrants. They should be able to easily make the case that this person was suspected of selling drugs and that the GPS data would help prove this. I don't understand the law involved in getting and using a warrant, can someone clarify the difficulties that make it necessary to bypass it?
- micks56 16y agoThis is how you get a search warrant: A person makes an affidavit in front of a neutral and detached magistrate, who then determines that a reasonable person would conclude that it was more likely than not that incriminating evidence of the named items or persons would be found in the specifically named place to be searched. Lots of legal buzzwords there. Each of those buzzwords adds overheard in obtaining a warrant. Police are happy to avoid that overheard whenever possible. That is the motivation to avoid obtaining search warrants. Plus, a privacy minded judge might deny you. With warrant-requirement-exceptions you don't run the risk of being denied a search. You just do it.
- blahblahblah 16y agoThe court is wrong on the privacy issue. Setting that issue aside, isn't what the police did in this case an illegal act of vandalism? If you attach a bumper sticker to a police car without the knowledge and consent of the police department that owns it, that is vandalism and you can be prosecuted for it. How is this unauthorized alteration of private property any different?
- anamax 16y ago> How is this unauthorized alteration of private property any different? Their car license plates are marked "exempt" - they take that seriously....