High court: warrant needed for GPS tracking

[roo_ster]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2012/01/23/national/w072938S87.DTL

The Supreme Court says police must get a search warrant before using GPS technology to track criminal suspects.

The court ruled in the case of Washington, D.C., nightclub owner Antoine Jones. A federal appeals court in Washington overturned his drug conspiracy conviction because police did not have a warrant when they installed a GPS device on his vehicle and then tracked his movements for a month.

A contrary result would have been...disappointing.

[TommyGunn]

*WOW* 
Finally a victory for the Constitution......

[Fitz]

Nice.

A check mark in the W column is nice once in a while!

[HankB]

Also note the ruling was unanimous, although some justices arrived at the same conclusion for different reasons and wrote concurring opinions.

[Ned Hamford]

Ruling was Unanimous Too.  Planting a tracker on a suspect has long been an issue that has legal doctrine on both sides much to my own bafflement.  As can be imagined, those that think planting a tracking device is no actual infringement almost always have the same view on privacy in general.  But still, those pushing for a pan-optic police force will just need more security cameras and of course drones.  Yaaaay? 

http://documents.latimes.com/united-states-v-jones/

[French G.]

Good, correct decision. Now if you get enough license plate cameras and supercomputers to achieve the same thing wouldn't it follow that you could successfully challenge that in court?

[Blakenzy]

Great! Now that that's settled all we need is to declare the Federal "War" on drugs unconstitutional as well as all actions associated with it, repeal the Patriot Act, repeal subsection 1021 of the 2012 NDAA, block bills like SOPA and PIPA from passing, kill the TSA and DHS, fix or eliminate our broken Ponzi scheme entitlement programs, close down at least half of the 900 military bases in most of the 148 foreign countries we currently have troops in, get out of the current wars the American people have no interest in fighting, tell the Military-Industrial complex to shove it on future wars-for-profit, secure our borders, gain energy independence, place bailout banksters and politicians on trial, regain monetary sovereignty, replace the Federal Reserve notes with debt-free money, revoke the Federal Reserve's charter all together, completely reform the tax code, get rid of at least 90% of the bureaucracy and redundant regulations that stifle entrepreneurs, return manufacturing to US soil, create a more transparent electoral system, format Government and reinstall the Constitution.

Edit: oh *expletive deleted*, the welfare programs...

[Fitz]

Just as a side note... after talking to people "in my age group" about the economy and job market, I'm not convinced you'd be able to FILL those manufacturing jobs with Americans.

There seems to be this pervasive attitude that manual labor, manufacturing, and service jobs are "beneath" them.  A friend and I were discussing what we would do if we suddenly lost our contracts.

My answer was "go to one of those websites with all the South Texas /Dakota/wherever oil field jobs and carry heavy things for money until I could get another IT job."

His answer was unemployment and food stamps :-(

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

Just as a side note... after talking to people "in my age group" about the economy and job market, I'm not convinced you'd be able to FILL those manufacturing jobs with Americans.

There seems to be this pervasive attitude that manual labor, manufacturing, and service jobs are "beneath" them.  A friend and I were discussing what we would do if we suddenly lost our contracts.

My answer was "go to one of those websites with all the South Texas /Dakota/wherever oil field jobs and carry heavy things for money until I could get another IT job."

His answer was unemployment and food stamps :-(

on the plus side those unwilling to do those kinda jobs make them pay better for those who will.

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2012/01/23/national/w072938S87.DTL

A contrary result would have been...disappointing.

pay attention here though

"If long-term monitoring can be accomplished without committing a technical trespass — suppose for example, that the federal government required or persuaded auto manufacturers to include a GPS tracking device in every car — the court's theory would provide no protection," Alito said.

Sotomayor agreed. "It may be necessary to reconsider the premise that an individual has no reasonable expectation of privacy in information voluntarily disclosed to their parties," she said.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2012/01/23/national/w072938S87.DTL#ixzz1kJJqHycT

[Fitz]

on the plus side those unwilling to do those kinda jobs make them pay better for those who will.

This is true. This is part of the reason one can make a pretty nice living in south texas doing manual labor right now.

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

This is true. This is part of the reason one can make a pretty nice living in south texas doing manual labor right now.

i'm gonna make more than 50 k delivering newpapers. and it started as a part time job.and i still do the remodeling thing too though i'm gonna have to sub some of both sides out

[Tallpine]

Great! Now that that's settled all we need is to declare the Federal "War" on drugs unconstitutional as well as all actions associated with it, repeal the Patriot Act, repeal subsection 1021 of the 2012 NDAA, block bills like SOPA and PIPA from passing, kill the TSA and DHS, fix or eliminate our broken Ponzi scheme entitlement programs, close down at least half of the 900 military bases in most of the 148 foreign countries we currently have troops in, get out of the current wars the American people have no interest in fighting, tell the Military-Industrial complex to shove it on future wars-for-profit, secure our borders, gain energy independence, place bailout banksters and politicians on trial, regain monetary sovereignty, replace the Federal Reserve notes with debt-free money, revoke the Federal Reserve's charter all together, completely reform the tax code, get rid of at least 90% of the bureaucracy and redundant regulations that stifle entrepreneurs, return manufacturing to US soil, create a more transparent electoral system, format Government and reinstall the Constitution.

Edit: oh *expletive deleted*, the welfare programs...

I know just the guy to do it, too

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

I know just the guy to do it, too

now we just need to find a guy who can get elected who can do it

[Stand_watie]

This is true. This is part of the reason one can make a pretty nice living in south texas doing manual labor right now.

And those manual labor jobs still require IT and clerical support, so "carrying heavy things" doesn't necessarily have to be your only option.

[Fitz]

And those manual labor jobs still require IT and clerical support, so "carrying heavy things" doesn't necessarily have to be your only option.

This is true. We were speaking from  a "worst case" scenario standpoint. But yeah. i don't think I'd do too badly for myself if i lost my job.


Although, with most of my "savings" not actually in savings, but in various college funds and retirement accounts, I'd probably be hurting for a bit. I wish i had more cash reserves, but at this point there's not much room in the budget.

[Tallpine]

The manual labor thing is a good safety net, up until you start getting some age on you 

[Tallpine]

Good, correct decision. Now if you get enough license plate cameras and supercomputers to achieve the same thing wouldn't it follow that you could successfully challenge that in court?

They will probably end up saying it is okay to violate everyone's rights 

[HankB]

Thinking about this SCOTUS decision, I think the main factor in the decision is that this type of GPS tracking involved LEO's putting their hands on private property and making changes to it. This is different than the license plate trackers because those don't actually involve physical contact, so I don't expect it to impact LEO use of those. (Not that I like them having the capability of tracking everyone's movements . . . although once the technology further matures and goes down in price, it seems that a private network of cameras set to recognize police cars would be the basis of a good app for detecting speed traps and such . . .  )

It's sort of a government version of the old philosophical argument between stealing cable TV signals and "stealing" satellite TV signals; to steal cable, you have to physically connect to the privately-owned cable network; on the other hand satellite signals are broadcast right at you - without your permission - so many people have no compunctions about hooking up some hardware to look at what's being beamed their way.

[MechAg94]

The way I look at it, cops and local judges can go to all sorts of efforts to catch drunk drivers including over the phone warrants with judges and such, but these guys couldn't get a warrant to put a GPS on the guy's car?  Get a warrant.

[Hawkmoon]

The ruling was unanimous, but the reasoning wasn't. Some seemed to view it as a privacy issue while others seemed to regard it as a property rights issue.

Considering that, in fact, there had been a warrant issued, I wonder what the reasoning/ruling might have been if the police had installed the bug a day before their allotted time expired rather than a day after, and if they had installed it in DC, as the warrant authorized, rather than in Maryland. As it went, the bug actually WAS a warrantless search, because the police didn't act within the parameters of the warrant they were granted.

[longeyes]

Tell me that when they offer Facebook on a chip in your head people won't want it.  Desperately.

[erictank]

now we just need to find a guy who can get elected who can do it

Maybe if people weren't so bound and determined to believe that voting for anyone but the media-selected Front-Runner(s)-Of-The-Week was a waste of a vote, we could get the right guy...

[Scout26]

Duplicate topics merged.

[Ned Hamford]

Duplicate topics merged.

Anyone else always thinking of the twin security guards from Hellraiser?

http://youtu.be/J3Siu7aLO-g