Warrantless GPS Tracking Is Legal, Says WI Court 594
PL/SQL Guy writes "A Wisconsin appeals court ruled Thursday that police can attach GPS trackers to cars to secretly track anybody's movements without obtaining search warrants. As the law currently stands, the court said police can mount GPS on cars to track people without violating their constitutional rights — even if the drivers aren't suspects. Officers do not need to get warrants beforehand because GPS tracking does not involve a search or a seizure, wrote Madison Judge Paul Lundsten."
This is why (Score:5, Insightful)
Seems reasonable (Score:5, Insightful)
If it's only vehicle location track, how is this different than having the police tail the vehicle or follow it via helicopter, etc. This seems like a lower-cost mechanism for doing the same thing. Is there more to it than that?
Bill of Rights (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Bill of Rights (Score:5, Insightful)
An interesting question (Score:5, Insightful)
On the one hand, you've got the theory that this is analogous to assigning an officer to watch and tail a suspect's car, which is perfectly legal without a warrant.
On the other hand, you have, for example, things like Kyllo v. United States, where using thermal imaging equipment was treated as a search even though ordinary visual observation from off the property is not.
I suspect a higher court would rule that GPS devices are more common in civilian use than thermal imaging, and that when driving your car in public you have no reasonable expectation that your movement will be unobserved, and so rule that this court got it right, there is no Fourth Amendment violation.
Cool (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Perfect! (Score:5, Insightful)
And then let's see how long it takes for them to change the law.
Re:Seems reasonable (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a saying that goes, "Quantity has a quality all its own."
Tracking a vehicle by having a live officer tail it, or using a helicopter, takes significant resources and effort. Using a GPS device makes that job much, much easier. So yes, it saves resources and effort - but what if it makes it too effortless?
Perhaps the logic of why the police don't need a warrant to tail your car is because they can't possibly tail everyone's car all the time, and tailing a car represents a significant investment of effort on their part - which they are unlikely to do without reason. On the other hand, if it's as easy as slapping on a GPS device, the police might be much more likely to track cars without only minimal reason.
Not everyone agrees (Score:5, Insightful)
From August 14, 2008 - http://www.insidetech.com/news/articles/2833-police-planting-gps-trackers-on-cars-without-warrants [insidetech.com]
Privacy advocates are shocked. They say that by monitoring the movements of people, many of which are likely innocent, police departments across the country are committing a Big Brother-esque invasion of privacy. And one state Supreme Court is on their side. The Washington State Supreme Court ruled that a warrant must be obtained to justify such invasions of privacy.
However, other state supreme courts - including New York, Wisconsin and Maryland, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit in Chicago - have declared that warrants are not needed.
First - way to go, State of Washington.
Next, it's not cut and dried, legally. From TFA:
Sveum, 41, argued the tracking violated his Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure. He argued the device followed him into areas out of public view, such as his garage.
The court disagreed. The tracking did not violate constitutional protections because the device only gave police information that could have been obtained through visual surveillance, Lundsten wrote.
Even though the device followed Sveum's car to private places, an officer tracking Sveum could have seen when his car entered or exited a garage, Lundsten reasoned. Attaching the device was not a violation, he wrote, because Sveum's driveway is a public place.
"We discern no privacy interest protected by the Fourth Amendment that is invaded when police attach a device to the outside of a vehicle, as long as the information obtained is the same as could be gained by the use of other techniques that do not require a warrant," he wrote.
Although police obtained a warrant in this case, it wasn't needed, he added.
Larry Dupuis, legal director of the ACLU of Wisconsin, said using GPS to track someone's car goes beyond observing them in public and should require a warrant.
"The idea that you can go and attach anything you want to somebody else's property without any court supervision, that's wrong," he said. "Without a warrant, they can do this on anybody they want."
So, what the real issue? Surveillance? Like it or not, that's legal. A cop can follow you all day long, so far as I know, as long as it doesn't amount to what a judge would call harassment. (That said, a judge's threshold and mine are probably quite different.)
Or is the real issue as the ACLU says, the attachment of a (police) device to property without court supervision?
I'm going with the ACLU on this one. Bond used a homer(*) 45 years ago in Goldfinger, and that was cool - or so we thought, because the of the target. But when I think now that the pursuer had a license to kill - I wonder if the future shouldn't be protected very, very carefully.
(* - Yep, they called it a homer in the movie. Nonetheless, cue Simpsons' jokes in ...3...2...)
Re:True, but ... (Score:5, Insightful)
6 man EOD team response, more like $10k. What are they going to do, NOT respond when you call about a potential bomb on your car?
No, they'll surround your car with sandbags and water barriers and blow it up.
It pays to think these things through.
Re:Seems reasonable (Score:5, Insightful)
Probably the fact that, as private citizens, we'd be arrested if we were trying the same strategy on police cars. We are allowed to follow a policeman walking down the street, right?
There's also the fact that the GPS device would be attached to our property, which seems to me like a pretty significant change. A cop could put your home under surveillance, but could they drill holes into your siding to attach the cameras?
Oh well, that's what we get in a country that has no clear provisions for a right to privacy.
Re:But... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:An interesting question (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think it makes any sense. The police can't just install a camera on my lawn to watch the house. They should not be able install something on my car either. Its not the same as a tail operation at all. All I can say is that the police have no reasonable expectation of getting their GPS back since they are obviously disposing of it by leaving in on my property.
Re:New law? (Score:3, Insightful)
Now I really want to know: if you're not suspected of a crime, aren't behaving suspiciously, and aren't meaningfully related to some ongoing investigation, is it still okay for someone in law enforcement to just follow you around? If true, that's pretty disturbing.
Re:But... (Score:5, Insightful)
How can warrantless GPS tracking be legal while warrantless car searching is illegal.
Police don't need a warrant to follow a car, and in my opinion, GPS tracking is more akin to tailing a car than searching through it. I'm not thrilled by this ruling, but it doesn't seem blatantly unconstitutional.
I'm not quite sure you're correct there. It's rather ironic that the case here involved someone suspected of stalking. Stalking also can be no more than following someone around and watching them in public places, yet it's something most areas have laws against. The only difference here is that the "stalker" is a police officer. Do you have any doubts that if it were found that the person suspected of "stalking" had covertly put GPS trackers on his victim's cars, they wouldn't nail him in a second? It would seem to me that if this type of behavior would be potentially criminal if done by someone who's not a police officer, it should take a warrant for a police officer to engage in it.
The clear intent of the Fourth Amendment is that the police can't pry into our lives without convincing a judge they have probable cause to believe we're involved in a crime. Even then, they can't just fish, they have to tell the judge exactly what crime, why they believe we're involved in it, and what evidence they believe their search will find.
Just because technology may now allow them to do such prying without physically kicking in a door doesn't mean we should allow surveillance on anyone at any time. As far as I'm concerned, gathering data on a specific person's movements, habits, etc., through surveillance, is a type of search (one is checking into that person's personal life, using methods that would routinely be thought to be invasive even if they are in public, and ironically here most of those methods would trigger the very anti-stalking laws being enforced here), and should be subject to Fourth Amendment protection, including the requirement for a warrant.
Re:Perfect! (Score:5, Insightful)
No, you can't. There are probably laws out there that prevent you from tampering with police cars. Police officers, in the course of an investigation, are allowed to do things that citizens cannot, such as pulling someone over or patting them down.
The entire problem here is that the state hasn't passed any laws regulating the conduct. The court only ruled that there was no violation of the Fourth Amendment here, which restricts SEARCH and SEIZURE. It would be hard to argue that putting a GPS unit on a car is either a search (you don't see anything in the car, etc.) or a seizure (such as impounding the car). In fact, the decision starts off by inviting the legislature to address the issue. States are allowed to regulate even if there isn't a constitutional bar to an action.
Re:An interesting question (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, but the reason they can't put a camera on your lawn isn't the Fourth Amendment. They can put the camera on public property, or on a neighbor's property with their permission, to observe your property. While putting the GPS on your car might be illegal for other reasons, it isn't obvious that it's a violation of the Fourth Amendment.
Re:Evidentiary value (Score:3, Insightful)
Me officer? Hell no. I've not driven anywhere all day, and your GPS logs PROVE IT!
Sweet as!
Without continual observation the results are potentially useless!
Re:Perfect! (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm note sure if you meant police (as per GP) or politician, but okay... so far so good, seems to be legal, all that. At least as long as you're a cop.
I'm guessing there's laws against private citizens attaching random item X to other person's property Y.
and there's definitely all sorts of laws against that one.
It's a cute thought-experiment, bound to get you all sorts of populistic "YEA!"-voters, and might even be used to demonstrate the inequality between what some people (such as law enforcement officers, licenses private investigators, licensed bounty hunters, etc.) can do and others (joe schmoe) can't do, but fails to be realistic.
That said - go for it, I'd love to see what happens, the media attention, all that.. I just hope it doesn't end badly for you.
Re:Perfect! (Score:5, Insightful)
One more thing... is it legal for you to tail a police officer? I guess that would be the deciding factor, because the argument seems to be that a police officer could tail anyone without a warrant, therefore there is no expectation of privacy and using GPS to track the movements is perfectly legal.
Re:But... (Score:4, Insightful)
It's only illegal after they have told me to stop it and show emotional distress or physical threats as a reason.
As the court said, the use would be legal as long as the same information could have been gathered using normal observational techniques. There are plenty of opinions regarding this type of public activity, and there will be plenty more.
The Constitution provides only guarantees against unreasonable search and seizure. There has to be a balance between protecting against fishing expeditions and letting people with a preponderance of evidence get away because of delays in getting warrants. A police officer can walk past a car and look into it and if he see's a dead body, he can open the car and search it. If he sees a what could be drugs, he may have to go get a search warrant. One is a reasonable search, there is a body with pools of blood in the back seat. The other is not, the white powder could be sugar.
Police have always been able to 'tail' suspects. I feel this is no different. If police start attaching GPS devices to cars of people not accused of any crimes 'just to see where he goes' and then arresting them for speeding, I'm sure the courts will toss those out using exactly the same type of finding.
Re:This is why (Score:5, Insightful)
Be careful what you ask for. You just might get it.
On Slashdot, you're asking for stronger privacy protections written into the laws, so that the level of privacy and liberty you enjoyed in your childhood remains relatively constant. Citizens using VOIP instead of an analog phone for voice communications? "Sorry, uppity government! We'd like a law that reminds you that you should need a warrant to tap that too."
In Washington, those exact same words mean that the laws should enable the development of a surveillance network so pervasive that it would have given Orwell nightmares. Citizens using VOIP instead of analog phones for voice communications? "Sorry, uppity citizen! Not until we pass a law requiring a built-in backdoor."
We asked for a government that listened to its citizens, and now we've got one. Let's not make that mistake twice by asking for surveillance laws that keep up with game-changing technological breakthroughs.
Slippery slope, where's my jammer? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Perfect! (Score:3, Insightful)
I was just pointing out how tracking citizens is ok, while it's not ok to track politicians. Why? Isn't a democracy what gives us the right to control our politicians?
I don't judge the police, since they are just doing the job they are told to do.
Re:Bill of Rights (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:An interesting question (Score:3, Insightful)
First, GPS *receivers* are common in civilian use. This is not just a receiver, but a *transmitter* that sends out the GPS coordinates of it's onboard receiver. How common are those?
Second, cars can drive onto private property. Right now my car is on private property, (in the garage). So am I to understand these devices detect when they are on private property, and stop transmitting until they are back on public property?
Re:But... (Score:3, Insightful)
Super insightful!
Seems like the judge just gave the green light to place tracking units on all police cars and make that information public. That way all the criminals know where to avoid the police. According to the Judge, that's perfectly legal.
Re:But... (Score:3, Insightful)
So when/if I find such a device on my car it belongs to me doesn't it? And I'm not giving it back. And I'm not paying any bill they send me.
Better yet, stick it on a truck, preferably one traveling over the road; or leave it on a city bus or subway.
Re:But... (Score:2, Insightful)
Letter vs Intent, possible future loopholes. (Score:4, Insightful)
Modern tort law states.
Intrusion upon seclusion occurs when a perpetrator intentionally intrudes, physically, electronically, or otherwise, upon the private space, solitude, or seclusion of a person, or the private affairs or concerns of a person, by use of the perpetrator's physical senses or by electronic device or devices to oversee or overhear the person's private affairs, or by some other form of investigation, examination, or observation intrude upon a person's private matters if the intrusion would be highly offensive to a reasonable person.
Unless this does not apply to LEO...
In theory you could expand this ruling to include monitoring of a persons latptop as long as they where not at home, to view connections made but not the actual communication, perhaps extending to his communication. Or even extended to snooping any wireless communication that can be received in a public place, even using basic encryption that is known to be compromised ie wep etc. (read below)
The argument which is kinda valid, is that the information of placing a tracking device can be obtained by following the person, hence the argument that it tracked him into a non private place IE his garage, while in theory a violation of privacy is still info that could be obtained visually from public view.
To me this appears to be spirit vs letter of the law issue. The letter of the law does make this type of tracking legal, but is that really the Spirit of the Law... I can see lots of loopholes extending from this ruling.
Correct (Score:4, Insightful)
This isn't a cut and dried situation. Police need a warrant to search your house. There is no question in this matter. The Constitution is pretty clear on the matter, and there's loads of case law. However they don't need a warrant to conduct surveillance on your house. They are free to park on the street and watch what goes on. For that matter, so are private citizens. I can park near you house and watch you if I like.
So that's where the argument that it is fine comes from. This isn't a search, they aren't looking through your car, this is surveillance, they are just watching where you car goes. They could legally do this by simply following your car, so one could argue this is just an extension of that.
Now please don't think I'm advocating this, just saying that it isn't a clear situation.
Re:But... (Score:5, Insightful)
So when/if I find such a device on my car it belongs to me doesn't it? And I'm not giving it back. And I'm not paying any bill they send me.
If I find such a device on my car, not only shall I not return it nor pay for it I shall feel free to destroy it, as I did not put it there, and do not want it there.
Re:But... (Score:5, Insightful)
Police have always been able to 'tail' suspects. I feel this is no different. If police start attaching GPS devices to cars of people not accused of any crimes 'just to see where he goes' and then arresting them for speeding, I'm sure the courts will toss those out using exactly the same type of finding.
You, oddly enough, fail to see the problem differentiating both situations.
The act of tailing a suspect by a police officer requires use of manforce, which prevents it from being widely abused.
Given the constantly decreasing costs of electronics manufacture, even if not now, there will be a point where it becomes possible to constantly monitor large part of the population without extraordinary expenses. Especially if you are doing this to simply gather data on people in case sometimes you decide to go after a particular individual.
I fail to see how this is difficult to envision.
Re:Perfect! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:But... (Score:5, Insightful)
If this is legal for the police, I presume it is legal for anyone else who wishes to track someone. So, with that thought, here is something great for valentine's day: lingerie equipped with GPS tracking [dailymail.co.uk]. The "boyfriend" version is bound to be more popular because of the strategically placed bulge.
I can't wait... (Score:3, Insightful)
I can't wait until someone decides to challenge all this crap and puts some of these devices on patrol cars, or even the car of Madison Judge Paul Lundsten, and lets the cops decide how to respond (no, I'm not going to do it. The cops in my neck of the woods are pretty decent folk).
If a warrant is not needed, what is to stop ANYONE from doing this, and doing so LEGALLY?
What law might I be charged with if I were to put one on a patrol car? Why wouldn't that law apply to a cop doing the same thing?
Just because you have the word "Judge" before your name doesn't mean your not an idiot. This entire decision on the judges part completely muddies the water in terms of existing laws that were designed to prevent STALKERS from doing this.
A warrant is a surety that the tracking is being done for legitimate purposes. As it stands, what the cops are doing is NO different then what a stalker might do because there is no assurance of legitimacy.
Re:Perfect! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:But... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Seems reasonable (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:But... (Score:3, Insightful)
It rests on the premise of whether or not your car is your property.
According to the judge it is not.
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.
He focuses on the bold and forgets the italics. This is a blatant abuse of the Constitution.
Next they will say that lashing people is not blatantly unconstitutional because people are secure in their persons against unreasonable searches and seizures, not unreasonable lashings. And people will swallow it.
Re:But... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think enforcement of this type of equality of "public" information will keep Judges and cops in line better in general. Set it into law that as soon as the Police don't need a warrant for some information, we get the information too about them and their families.
Of course in the real world YMMV.
Re:But... (Score:4, Insightful)
Really the decision is bizarre. Are the police allowed to bug your car since you're in public? Is it OK for you to put a GPS tracker on your girlfriend's car?
Re:But... (Score:3, Insightful)
Or better yet, putting GPS on police cars.
and give the public access to them sot that robberies can happen without cops.
Re:But... (Score:3, Insightful)
The sad, pathetic thing is that to many people, the inevitable scenario you describe there would somehow be surprising. Only by some twisted application of moral equivalence does anyone manage to believe that the supporters of this sort of warrentless tracking have an equally valid viewpoint compared to people who have, y'know, actually studied history and obtained an awareness of how easily state power can be abused. Not to mention the slow, incremental nature of the rise of a police state and how it happens by increasingly invasive measures just like this one. In other words, this is not a matter of taste or preference; supporting this kind of surveillance really is a bad idea and there are some solid reasons for it.
Civilian use? (Score:3, Insightful)
Time delay the information by, say 1 week (Score:4, Insightful)
The GP's idea is brilliant.
Re:But... (Score:4, Insightful)
We agree that when you're out in public, your whereabouts can be recorded. However, adding a GPS unknowingly to a vehicle isn't covered here. That's the whole point.
And yes, there is no specific right to privacy in the constitution. Now learn about how privacy is imbued by the first, second, fourth, fifth, and fourteenth amendments.
Re:But... (Score:3, Insightful)
Whenever a cop roughs someone up, a police-watcher would be there with a camera to put it all on tape. Try to negate that in court!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodney_King#Trial_of_the_Officers [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don't_tase_me_bro#Allegations_of_excessive_force [wikipedia.org]
Not to rain on your parade, but last I heard catching police brutality on tape doesn't necessarily mean much will be done about it.
Re:But... (Score:3, Insightful)
A police force is not legally constrained by their manforce. That is a physical constraint.
The use of GPS is consistent with the law, and a smart decision to work around current physical constraints.
Abusing GPS would be the same as abusing normal 'tailing' techniques. Ie following you around all day until they catch you speeding.
Re:But... (Score:2, Insightful)
I agree with you, even now there are applications where license plates can be detected using regular cameras on freeways. Expansion to this GPS tracking is to put license plate detection cameras on Freeways and on each exit, that way practically whole society would be under surveillance without huge cost. Since they are just following cars, it should be legal to do.
Next comes face recognition (iPhoto does search by face already) on streets and then we would slowly accept the fact that only criminals need to worry about surveillance so it's a really good thing...
Re:But... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:But... (Score:4, Insightful)
Who would you like to train them? Kindergarten teachers?
Actually, no, I don't want kindergarten teachers training them. On the other hand, I'm not too thrilled with police being taught military responses as the default response.
You see, there is a difference between a soldier and a peace officer. A soldier does what he/she has to in order to stay alive when they know that they are going to be shot at. They are basically taught to keep their weapons loose in their holsters / ready in their hands, because they expect that they are going to be using them. A peace officer is supposed to uphold the law and protect the citizenry (even if some of them may not seem to deserve it, but that's another aspect that we needn't go into at this point).
Now, MP (Military Police) receive the additional training of police in conjunction with their military training, and those are the sort of people that I would have NO trouble with helping to train civilian police.
Seriously... (Score:3, Insightful)
How long til surreptitious police monitoring GPS use becomes widespread and they start firing off automated speeding tickets?
How about cameras outside every residence, peering in? The cameras are on public property right? They don't require trespassing or B&E to install them right? How is this any different?
Anyone that is ok with the police doing this is a moron.
-Viz