Ok for cops to attach GPS trackers to cars without a warrent

[coppertales]

They already have the means to track you.........aka cell phone....chris3

[Ned Hamford]

Funny story

When interning for the DOJ was told about a gps tracker on a guy's car that was being shown off to a batch of interns from several years ago.  The AUSA was showing off the technology and they were watching the blips as it traveled across the map.  Speculation was abound about where the suspect was going.  The blips got closer and closer.  The attorney, despite it being a white collar crime target, played up the dangerousness of the suspect.  The blips went to the parking lot of the DOJ office.  You can imagine the rush to the windows.  The fellow came to meet with his lawyer and try to plea bargain with the AUSA.

[French G.]

Probably nothing good.

What would happen if you found a GPS device attached to your car and called the police saying "Send the EOD team!  I think there's a bomb attached to my car!" ?

 

Easy, looks too tough, blow it in place. Hope the lizard covers that on your comprehensive.

[Seenterman]

As much as I hate pedophiles I had a problem when they were releasing sex offenders with GPS devises, and said it was just opening the door to tracking all released felons or prisoners. Now they want to attach GPS to your car without a warrant.   :|  What stopping them from saying that all American cars sold for use in the U.S. needs to be equipped with a GPS device to report your location to the authorities just in case a crime happens in that area. Wouldn't that be for the greater good too?

Funny how when things are usually for the "greater good", they are actually bad for the individual. 

[Hawkmoon]

Out of curiosity -- how many of you use EZ-Pass on the highways?

Otherwise ironclad-appearing alibis have been demolished in court by EZ-Pass records ...

[RevDisk]

Out of curiosity -- how many of you use EZ-Pass on the highways?

Otherwise ironclad-appearing alibis have been demolished in court by EZ-Pass records ...

I haven't heard of it as much, but cell phone records could be used to do the same.  There is nothing technical stopping the telecoms from recording and timestamping what cell phone tower your phone is currently associated with.  The reason why cellular phones are called "cells" is because coverage is broken up into discrete areas.   When your phone enters a cell, it contacts the towers to authenticate and register itself.  Equipment in the tower tells the rest of the phone network that said phone is physically located in this particular cell, so route all calls or data to this particular cell.  This isn't a bad thing, it's pretty much just dictated by laws of physics.

However, if these authentications/registrations were recorded, it would give a pretty accurate description of where a person was over a very long period of time.

All phones must include GPS chips by such and such date.  For your safety, of course.  But if someone hacked their GPS chip, the cell repeater information would still be valid.  Actually, it'd be handy for identifying people who hacked their phones.  If requested GPS data doesn't match up with tower info after a couple of requests, viola, you have successfully identified someone violating FCC regs.   


Just remember, always remove the battery from your phone instead of turning it off.

[CNYCacher]

Just remember, always remove the battery from your phone instead of turning it off.

Don't forget the secret battery.

That's all I can say.

[Sawdust]

I've said it before, and I'll say it again:

Tracfone.

Sawdust

[CNYCacher]

Cooincidentally I just noticed this one come through our breaking news on the website I run as my day job.

NY court: Police need warrants for GPS trackers

By: The Associated Press

Tuesday, May 12, 2009 12:19 PM EDT
ALBANY -- New York's top court ruled Tuesday that police cannot place GPS trackers on suspects' vehicles without first getting a court warrant showing probable cause that the drivers are up to no good.
The Court of Appeals split 4-3 on the issue, with the majority saying the tracker that state police planted on Scott Weaver's van for 65 days starting in 2005 violated his constitutional protections against unreasonable searches.

The ruling overturned both the trial court and a midlevel appeals court. Weaver has been free on bail.

"The massive invasion of privacy entailed by the prolonged use of the GPS device was inconsistent with even the slightest reasonable expectation of privacy," Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman wrote.

Judges Carmen Beauchamp Ciparick, Eugene Pigott Jr. and Theodore Jones Jr. agreed.

They rejected the argument that the satellite tracking device was essentially the same as common police surveillance of vehicles.

"GPS is not a mere enhancement of human sensory capacity, it facilitates a new technological perception of the world in which the situation of any object may be followed and exhaustively recorded," Lippman wrote. "Without judicial oversight, the use of these powerful devices presents a significant and, to our minds, unacceptable risk of abuse."

New York State Police have declined to say how many GPS trackers they own or how they use them. They did not immediately reply to a request for comment on whether they were removing devices from vehicles Tuesday.

"The attempt to find in the Constitution a line between ordinary, acceptable means of observation and more efficient, high-tech ones that cannot be used without a warrant seems to me illogical, and doomed to fail," Judge Robert Smith wrote in a dissent. Judges Victoria Graffeo and Susan Read agreed and would have allowed the GPS evidence and conviction to stand.

In a second dissent, Read wrote that the majority opinion "unnecessarily burdens" police and the courts, while "handcuffing the Legislature by improperly constitutionalizing a subject more effectively dealt with legislatively than judicially." Graffeo concurred.

Weaver was convicted of burglary based in part on GPS data that showed him in a suburban Albany department store parking lot before a break-in. He will get a new trial with that information excluded.

Lawyers on both sides said the ruling establishes case law in New York and won't be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court because the decision was made under the state constitution. Its provision against unreasonable searches and seizures generally mirrors that of the U.S. Constitution.

State courts in Oregon and Washington have rejected police use of GPS without a warrant under their constitutions. Some federal courts have upheld warrantless GPS use.

The Supreme Court has yet to address the issue, though in 1983 it upheld government agents' use of a beeper to track the movements of a container of chloroform.

So that's pretty good.

[Waitone]

--Police attached GPS sender to your car=bad
--Cell company and congress require GPS sender in every cell phone for which you pay=Good

That about right??

How 'bout us boning up on consistency, people.  A little logical consistency will go a long way in directing anger.

[LadySmith]

I'm pretty consistent. I hate all of that invasive spy-crap.

But as a telephone company guy told me a long time ago, privacy in this country is only an illusion.

[RevDisk]

--Police attached GPS sender to your car=bad
--Cell company and congress require GPS sender in every cell phone for which you pay=Good

That about right??

How 'bout us boning up on consistency, people.  A little logical consistency will go a long way in directing anger.

Who was saying that they supported GPS chips in every cell phone? 

It sounded like everyone had a dim view of it, or made jokes about government surveillance.