17 ms·
Two New Fed GPS Trackers Found on SUV
- DamnYuppie 15y agoI can't be the only one who finds this disturbing. I have no issue with the tracking devices or their use. What I find very concerning is that they do not require a warrant and there is no oversight as to their usage.
- Bluem00 15y agoThen you will be interested in this case being argued today in front of the Supreme Court: http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/united-states-v-jones http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/united-states-v-j... Here is the issue: Whether the Constitution allows police to put a tracking device on a car without either a warrant or the owner's permission; and whether the Constitution is violated when police use the tracking device to keep track of the car's whereabouts.
- brador 15y agoNon american here, what part of the constitution says they can't track a cars whereabouts?
- wl 15y agoNo part states it explicitly (such technology didn't exist when it was written). People who are arguing against this practice cite the 4th amendment, which reads as follows: "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." People are arguing that putting a tracking device on a car constitutes a search.
- nobody3141592 15y agoThe arguement is whether this is simply the same as reporting your position in public. Or by tracking everywhere you go and correlating that with tracks of other known suspects and then extending that to tracking people that you travel near they are approaching "unreasonable search and invasion of privacy". For example you can hardly object to the police office outside the bank seeing your car at the scene and radioing that in - but that's different to having a police officer follow you around 24x7 and asking the name and address of everyone you speak to.
- nobody3141592 15y agoYes it would be so much better if a government law officer had to also get a rubber stamp on a form from a government court officer before doing this. That would remove any concern over civil liberties
- drivebyacct2 15y agoThe courts intrinsically have a fairly (relatively) high standard of evidence necessary to constitute "probable cause" to issue a warrant. Unless you're referring to FISA Courts/Warrants which are just a larger slap in the face than this. Also, with that level of snark, I have to ask, what do you propose as an alternative?
- nobody3141592 15y agoIntroduce various independent levels of city, county, state and federal police with special separate forces in charge of major crimes, terrorism, drugs, money laundering etc Then they will spend all their time and effort fighting each other for funding jurisdiction and media spotlight that they leave the innocent bystanders alone. Of course they wont catch any criminals - but no plan is perfect.
- bediger 15y agoYou're not the only one. Every person who spends more than af ew minutes thinking about the issue finds it disturbing. Warrants and oversight will get in place eventually, or this sort of thing will warp society in a bad way.
- rtrunck 15y agoI wonder what the implications would be should a citizen or group place tracking devices on police vehicles. Though I'm sure they'd have some law in their arsenal to call that a crime.
- rdtsc 15y agoHa! I know someone who did that. Built transmitters and attached them to police cars in their small town. He could get a warning when a police car was approaching. Not a GPS device or anything -- just a simple proximity alert. And that was in the mid 90s.
- itg 15y agoSome states have a law in their arsenal if you take a video recording of an officer. Even if they don't, some pissed off cop can just slap on the usual "disturbing the peace" or "resisting arrest" nonsense on you. There is too much hero worship for law enforcement and they need to be more accountable and held to higher standards.
- tptacek 15y agoSo this would have been a great comment if you just left it at the first sentence, because it's true that there's an ongoing legal battle in a bunch of states about the right to record police officers doing their jobs. My home state of Illinois is one of the worst offenders here. I note, happily, that the police are tending to lose these fights in court. The rest of your comment saps your credibility. "Some pissed off cop can just" &c &c &c --- well, let's not discuss what the police should be able to do at all then, because this is logic that inevitably ends up with us throwing up our hands. Or, because we're on Hyperbolic News, having a debate about whether the citizens of a truly free society need police at all.
- itg 15y agoI added the "pissed off cop" bit because it is true, go search around if you don't think so. The rest of it shows what I think is a part of the problem. God forbid we express our opinions and try to have a discussion without someone making a meta-comment about hn itself as if they are above it all.
- nobody3141592 15y agoPresumably if you discover a suspect package under your vehicle you would call the fire service and the bomb squad. (Then quietly also call the local news service.)
- stefs 15y agothey feds would probably charge you for destroying their property. (only half joking)
- nobody3141592 15y agoThere was a famous case in the UK in the 70s The security services bugged the HQ of the Communist Party of Great Britain (because the UK doesn't have a bill of rights it's legal to be a commie there). The members found the bug and destroyed it. They were then prosecuted (succesfully) for destroying government property - even though the government denied planting the bug, and in those days even denied the existence of the security services. Their case was that the defendants believed it was government property and therefore their intent was to destroy government property. So if you have a reason to be tracked by the police then it would be a crime to destroy it. But if you have no reason to believe you have done anything wrong then it's more reasonable to believe it's a terrorist bomb and you should call the FBI/DHS/Army etc
- swasheck 15y agoah, the old "You Destroyed Not-My Property"
- dotBen 15y agoThis is an example of one of those situations where it doesn't pay to be 'over clever'. If you call the bomb squad to report a bomb under your car but as a technology-inclined person/geek know full well it's a GPS receiver then you're committing all sorts of illegality there.
- nobody3141592 15y ago
- antidaily 15y agoHe apparently came under surveillance after the FBI received a vague tip from someone who said Afifi might be a threat to national security So one guy gets GPS'd because of a vague tip and the other guy because his cousin might be a drug dealer. Yikes.
- gvb 15y agoTo clarify, in this particular case the connection was stronger than what you state. He bought the SUV from his cousin and the tracking device showed up shortly after he drove his cousin’s wife to Tijuana, I assume with the SUV in question. While we can debate whether this is sufficient cause for a planted tracking device, the connection between him and his cousin is a lot less casual than what you state.
- ck2 15y agoHe apparently came under surveillance after the FBI received a vague tip from someone who said Afifi might be a threat to national security. Without exaggeration, this is exactly how innocent people, some of them teenagers, ended up in Gitmo (and are still there) via vague tips from people who didn't like their neighbors and decided to deal with it by reporting them.
- wavephorm 15y agoTerrorists are the new communists. Merely being accused is a crime.
- onemoreact 15y agoI have thought that would be a great way to attack the system. However, I suspect accusing large numbers of people would simply create suffering and would do little to create real change. Worse yet it would probably be used to promote increased monitoring because look at the X number of suspects out there. Still, it's sad to think the most effective / damaging / and possibly profitable approach for a risk averse terrorist might be to pretend to be a overly helpful.
- DamnYuppie 15y agoSounds eerily similar to the Spanish Inquisition and the Salem Witch hunts.
- rdtsc 15y agoThe thing they don't realize is that this kind of attitude can and will be exploited by evil people to exact personal revenge on others. From a system-wide point of view, this irrational crazy behavior is a vulnerability. And it just begs to be exploited. If you want to burry your neighbor -- submit an anonymous tip about them being a terrorist, child pornographer or a illegal music downloader. With a bit of luck, their life will be completely ruined. I remember stories from Soviet Union how neighbors would make up stories about each other and denounce them as conducting anti-party propaganda, because say, they insulted them or moved the fence too close. It was the amazing ease and predictability with which this process worked.
- drivebyacct2 15y agoI've been arguing against this stuff for over 6 years since I got heavily involved in discussions of the Patriot Act and the erosion of the Fourth Amendment in policy debate. This has been going on for a long time in various forms (FISA courts/warrants, National Security Letters, widespread [near universal] wiretapping, etc). I'm not sure what to do about it, or more importantly how to get people to care. It's like the article a while back (I'll try to find the source on it) that quoted a huge percentage of people as being opposed to government survelliance who only two years earlier had vehemently defended it as necessary for security. It's called a slippery slope for a reason, and every time the Patriot Act it is reauthorized without consideration is a slap in the face to the Founding Fathers who refused to sign the Constitution without a Bill of Rights. The thing that bothers me the most is the "Conservatives" (who are supposed to be in favor of small, unintrusive government) that hook-and-line fall for the "Patriotism" guise and excuse these government intrusions with, at times, absurd leaps of logic (that often fly in the face of evidence and statistics from the very organizations carrying out these actions).
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- protomyth 15y agoHave you actually talked to any of the "conservatives" in the Tea Party? Most of them are super fed up with the TSA and all this crap. Heck, here is an example from today: http://www.redstate.com/tabithahale/2011/11/08/no-tsa-i-will-not-lift-my-skirt-for-you/ http://www.redstate.com/tabithahale/2011/11/08/no-tsa-i-will... If you notice, there is a Democrat in office who hasn't ended this crap, but kept it going in new ways.
- mindcrime 15y agoIf I ever find one of these things on my car, I'm taking it off and putting it on an over-the-road tanker truck, or a Greyhound bus or something. I'll deal with the fallout, whatever. Actually, wait... on second thought, an even better plan would be to disassemble it, and hack it to report bogus data. Like, have it show me doing nothing but driving around in circles around Groom Lake for hours on end, then "magically" transporting to Edwards AFB.
- nomdeplume 15y agoI'm throwing mine at the concrete at high velocity, then spray painting a middle-finger gesture next to the debris.
- raganwald 15y agoYou are describing crimes. If you have reason to believe the device was placed by law enforcement, tampering with its function to deceive them is a criminal offence. It’s far better to work to make such activities illegal than to do your complaining from behind bars.
- mindcrime 15y agoIf you have reason to believe the device was placed by law enforcement, tampering with its function to deceive them is a criminal offence. No, it's against "the law." It's hardly a crime. But semantic distinctions aside, I really don't care if it's a crime or not. If the US governments fucks with me and pisses me off, I'm going to do what I'm going to do. It’s far better to work to make such activities illegal than to do your complaining from behind bars. That's not really an either/or thing. They haven't (yet, as far as I know) put one of these on my car, and I work on making things like this illegal though the political process . And I'll continue to do so, up until the (hypothetical) day that I wind up behind bars for fucking with one of their silly little tracking devices. All that said, I can't imagine them ever getting a conviction in a jury trial, on a charge of "tampering with a government owned device" if it's not labeled or anything. It's totally reasonable to say "Oh, I found this thing on my car and I didn't know what it was so I took it off and threw it away" or "I knew what it was, but I assumed my crazy stalker ex-girlfriend put it there," etc. Getting any reasonable jury to convict on this would be insanely difficult.
- josscrowcroft 15y agoLand of the free, indeed.
- georgieporgie 15y agodriving a Crown Victoria with tinted windows. Well, the GPS thing might be up for debate, but tinted front side windows are illegal in CA. :-)
- calloc 15y agoNot if you are on the FBI's payroll :P
- alirov 15y agoAlmost true. You can have the front side windows tinted as long as 70% of light still gets through. Which in actuality is fairly close to not tinting at all. The windshield of course can't have any tint whatsoever except on the top 4 inches.
- feralchimp 15y agoTwo inevitable events that will bring this situation to a head: 1. Citizens start throwing these devices into large bodies of water. 2. Armed citizen returns to vehicle at night, in mall or office parking lot, as suspicious man stands up from behind citizen's rear wheel well. Citizen draws down on Federal officer, one or both parties end up dead.
- bgentry 15y agoSingle page view: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/11/gps-tracker-times-two/all/1 http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/11/gps-tracker-times-t...
- yock 15y agoQuite frankly, I don't think any legitimate argument can be made that this kind of surveillance is Constitutional. That's not the most interesting thought evoked by this story though. How many of you that are outraged by this leave location services enabled on your smartphone 24/7? How do hourly location reports compare to the endless stream of information available from your dormant smartphone? A stream that can be provided to police in real-time without leaving a single shred of evidence. At least a little black box is minimally visible, has a finite power source, and has to be placed and maintained by a person who can be observed.
- Thrymr 15y agoI'm not against the authorities being able to subpoena my cell phone records through legal action. I would be opposed to my provider passing all my records to any agency without warrant or subpoena.
- leoh 15y agoDoes anyone know if these things actually transmit as well as record?
- aphyr 15y agoYes, they transmit their location on regular intervals (from the article: every hour) via the cell network.
- feralchimp 15y agoDoes the FBI also pull this stunt with cars tagged with consulate plates? That is, who is offered more civil rights: American citizens on American soil, or employees of foreign governments on American soil?
- Jun8 15y agoI think a great way to deal with this problem in a hacker type of way would be to create and post schematics for a cheap device (e.g. using your old cell phone or other types of old consumer electronics devices) to detect the presence of these devices. A big motivation of using these covert devices is that they work, i.e. the average tracked person is unaware of them. If this fact can be nullified, then law enforcement people may be less willing to use such tactics.
- xxbondsxx 15y agoGPS signals are everywhere, so the only thing you could intercept would be the outgoing transponder signal. This could be masked as almost anything.... random cell phone packets, radio waves with local pickup, etc. Hell, they could even just manually retrieve the data once in a while when your car is parked outside your house. So it might be hard to execute, but certainly still a good idea. I just wanted to point out that GPS logging is entirely passive; only the transmission can be detected.
- vl 15y ago>I just wanted to point out that GPS logging is entirely passive This is not entirely true, for example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radar_detector_detector http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radar_detector_detector It appears that many, if not all GPS devices use superheterodyne receiver as well.
- shareme 15y agoI think its time for a Hacker Kit to disable GPS tracking units that LAw Enforcement uses. Make it so simple that common motorist can use..and make it viral by having a open source license..we outnumber law enforcement by large numbers..and they do not have the manpower to face that set of circumstances
- giardini 15y agoSeems that wrapping it in several layers of foil and tossing it in a waste cntainer would be enough to keep 'em busy for awhile. After some handling the foil would likely come off and they could retrieve their toy: "Why are we following a garbage truck, now?" No fun digging though the city dump though.
- kristopolous 15y agoI once had a paranoid schizophrenic friend that suggested such things were happening to him. I think it's a bad move when what were previously paranoid delusions start manifesting themselves as accepted realities.
- jasongullickson 15y agoOut of curiosity, would something like this render the problem moot? http://www.meritline.com/super-mini-cigarette-lighter-gps-blocker-black---p-65208.aspx?source=fghdac http://www.meritline.com/super-mini-cigarette-lighter-gps-bl...
- locusm 15y agoWhy not have some fun with it - give it to an interstate trucker, or to your Aunt who is heading off to Australia...