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."
But... (Score:2, Interesting)
How can warrantless GPS tracking be legal while warrantless car searching is illegal. I am sure that a higher court will reverse this ruling... but it is scary to speculate about what happens if it is not reversed.
True, but ... (Score:5, Interesting)
New law? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:But... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Not a meaningfull decision (Score:5, Interesting)
Courts have previously ruled (Score:3, Interesting)
The WI decision contradicts decisions in a number of other states. I doubt it will stand.
Wait, so... (Score:3, Interesting)
Does this mean I can do it? Stalking jokes aside, what's the difference between me attaching a GPS to someone's car and me following them around? Surely it's legal for me to tail a car. This just makes it simpler for me to track the whereabouts of multiple cars at once.
Re:True, but ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Much more fun to call the bomb squad.
1 Cop putting $1k GPS tracker on your vehicle, $50.
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?
Then keep the tracker if you can(just remove the batteries).
Otherwise, if you can get an excuse, visit a military base during an exercise where they do a search. Bring a book. It might take a while. I figure 50-50 they end up blowing it up. Also fun - they'll probably terminate the exercise.
Re:New law? (Score:4, Interesting)
The one interesting point in the article was the statement that the guys driveway was public and therefore the police were at liberty to attach the device to his car there.
Why is his driveway public? I would have thought he would have owned the land up to the boundary stated on his property deeds and that would include his driveway, perhaps his driveway needs to be signed private no public access.
Re:But... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
What if I find the device? (Score:2, Interesting)
I know my car. And yes, I'm paranoid enough to search it from time to time.
Now let's assume I find that baby. I obviously don't know who it belongs to (I doubt the police would inform me). It's on my car, so my assumption would have to be that it's mine. I dismantle it, because I love poking at shiny tech stuff. Am I liable for the destruction?
Better legal strategy: claim the tracker is a gift (Score:2, Interesting)
When the police took the tracker back, the defense should have claimed that was a seizure of the defendant's property, and should have required service of a warrant. Hey, it worked for music CDs. Might as well try it for GPS trackers.
Re:But... (Score:4, Interesting)
Now suppose they just put these devices on everyone's car, and used them to send remote speeding tickets and other such nonsense...
Re:But... (Score:5, Interesting)
In some places, and for some people, standard advice if you find a "device" attached to your car is to call out the bomb (disposal) squad...
Now doing that for a police gps tracker is going to waste a lot of police time but finding an unknown device under your car is legitiamte reason to call them out. In the US you could probably then sue them for emotional distress or something for thinking someone has put a bomb under your car. That would probably be more lucrative than ebaying the tracker as well...
Wrong Amendment. It's Due Process - 5th Amendment. (Score:5, Interesting)
Since the police are using his own property (the vehicle) for a public purpose (the tracking/investigation), they need at least probable cause and more likely a warrant to satisfy both procedural and substantive due process. If you read the article, you should take notice that this was essentially the argument that the ACLU spokesperson made without explicitly mentioning the 5th Amendment.
There's also an "unreasonable interference" due process argument.
Unfortunately, failing to raise the appropriate argument in the lower court may be construed as a waiver unless the defendant can demonstrate incompetent council.
'Poor (evil stalker) guy is probably screwed.
Fifth amendment violation? (Score:2, Interesting)
If asked by a police officer (in the US) to account for my movements, my right to decline to answer is protected by the 5th amendment.
Requiring me to carry a tracking device that would automatically answer this question is tatamount to forcing me to verbally answer, and thus seems to also be a violation of my 5th amendment rights.
How could this possibly be legitimized by tricking me into carrying a tracking device by slipping it into my pocket/bag/car?
This doesn't impact the police's ability/right to physically follow me; I just shouldn't have to help them.
Re:But... (Score:5, Interesting)
When over time GPS tracking becomes "normal observational techniques", would the police not then be able to ticket the driver for speeding? Right now a police cruiser that is tailing someone can give them a ticket for speeding. If GPS tracking is thought of as the same as tailing, why would it be different. Right now people may see a difference, how about in 10 years? how about 25 years?
Right now there is a limit on how many people can be trailed by a cruiser based on actual numbers of the police force. How does this translate to GPS tracking? Seems like some over zealous politician could get thru funding to have one tracker per citizen.
Re:Seems reasonable (Score:3, Interesting)
A federal judge told the cops that they need a warrant to track your location via cell phone. I fail to see how this is any different than tracking your location by GPS. Unless the police have more power than the feds...?
http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/celltracking/lenihanorder.pdf [eff.org]
Re:But... (Score:2, Interesting)
-Oz
Re:But... (Score:5, Interesting)
Police have always been able to 'tail' suspects. I feel this is no different.
Except that tailing you does not need them to "secretly attach a GPS device" on your property. Yep. Not different at all.
How about skipping the car and implanting the tracker on, say, your shoulder? Or if that's too invasive, require you to carry the device at all times?
Re:But... (Score:5, Interesting)
Or better yet, putting GPS on police cars.
This is actually a very good idea. With all these invasions of privacy imposed on citizens, the police should be subjected to such surveillance as well. How about civilian squads monitoring the movements and actions of police units? Think of it as a kind of inverted neighbourhood watch. 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!
Re:But... (Score:4, Interesting)
I've always felt that way about how they sometimes use canine units to search for drugs. At least in the USA, it would be illegal for a cop to randomly search your car for no reason even if he did find drugs. But if that same officer has a dog and the dog starts barking at your car, he can now legally charge you with whatever contraband he finds. To me those two situations are exactly alike; the dog in this case is just the device with which the search is performed. Yet one is legal and the other is not.
I guess you might call this legalism or Phariseeism, in that both situations are the same except for a minor technicality. Because of that technicality (whether the cop uses his own eyes to search or the dog's nose to do the same thing) they're somehow considered completely different situations for which different rules are applied. I can't imagine that any judge or other authority who actually respects freedom would ever support this. I have to assume that all of these fine distinctions and splitting of hairs are to provide excuses so that the cops can do whatever it is they want to do while completely ignoring the intent behind the Fourth Amendment.
Re:But... (Score:3, Interesting)
SOP in that case would be to evacuate the block, surround your vehicle with sandbags, and then bring in enough high explosives of their own to ensure that the suspect device is completely detonated in the ensuing explosion. Then when you sue, you have to claim you honestly thought a device the size of a quarter could be a bomb. If any moron was inclined you believe you were that stupid, I'm sure their mind will be changed when they read your /. posts and find you planned this out ahead of time to purposefully waste their time. So now not only do you have a blown up car that insurance won't cover, but you're in trouble for filling a false police claim, too. That sure is clever of you.
That reminds me. The only reason why I wouldn't consider having bumper stickers with messages like "Please Tailgate - I Need The Money" and "I Brake For Tailgaters" is because if I ever actually do get rear-ended by some thoughtless clumsy bastard (face it - it's the most easily preventable accident you could ever cause) I wonder if that would work against me. I never could find a clear answer to that question.
Re:This is why (Score:4, Interesting)
What we ought to be asking for is for some clever engineering /. reader to develop and market a device that can find a GPS unit on your vehicle.
Already done, and cheaply. Just purchase an R.F. field strength meter, a common tool for those in amateur radio and radio communications in general. There are a wide variety of models and price-points.
They are relatively simple and cheap to build yourself, especially for frequencies under 500mHz. Here's a rather fancy LED-bar indicator design with plenty of sensitivity and good to ~2gHz that won't break the bank found in a Google search:
http://www.qsl.net/n9zia/wireless/pics/LED_sig_meter.png [qsl.net]
Strat
Re:But... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:But... (Score:4, Interesting)
Unfortunately, police are granted many powers that citizens are not given.
Just try to hold someone against their will and search them, for example. Or wear a gun on your hip here in Chicago. Or force someone off the road. Or force a hooker to service you with the threat of arrest.
By the way, I live near the Chicago Police Academy and walk my dog by there regularly. A few weeks ago, there were two huge Blackwater semis there and their were a bunch of dudes in paramilitary gear with no insignias giving training to police cadets.
It's comforting to know that we now have mercenaries training police. It's bad enough that we allow these mercenaries to represent the US in armed conflict. I wonder if besides their (extremely high) salaries they are allowed all the plunder and rape they want. Thank you, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld for renewing and rewarding this great tradition.
Re:But... (Score:3, Interesting)
Erred in what? What is wrong in tracking the very public progress of a vehicle on public roads? What you do in public, in plain view of other people cannot be deemed to be subject to some “right to privacy”.
Re:But... (Score:5, Interesting)
You'd think video evidence would be enough to expose and convict police officers on a power trip. But a look at the Robert Dziekanski case [wikipedia.org] that many Canadians have been following for the past year and a half shows otherwise. There is a video of the incident [youtube.com] that has been made public by a witness at the scene. Immediately after the incident, the RCMP made multiple statements that were blatantly inconsistent with the video evidence (e.g., it was originally claimed that Dziekanski kept throwing objects around after the RCMP arrived, which was conclusively shown to be false by the video.) and testimony from other emergency response personnel (e.g., the RCMP claimed that an officer was properly monitoring Dziekanski's vitals until medical help arrived. It turned out that the officer in question did not renew his expired first aid certification, and a fireman later testified that the RCMP officers barred him from any attempt to check Dziekanski's vitals.). The Crown prosecutors opted to not pursue criminal charges related to the death of Robert Dziekanski. There is an inquiry investigating the circumstances in the case [wikipedia.org] that is currently underway, but the prosecutors have thus far maintained that there is no reasonable prospect of conviction. In fact, the RCMP threatened not to participate in the inquiry until the Crown decided whether or not to pursue criminal charges.
Of course, the whole situation has not been resolved yet, as the judge overseeing the inquiry may be able to make recommendations based on his findings. But this situation has left many Canadians with very shaky feelings about the RCMP force as a whole.
And to drive the point home even further: They don't have to negate video evidence in court if they can keep it out of court.
Re:But... (Score:3, Interesting)
Dunno if it's a crime or not.
I'm pretty picky about my vehicles, though. I don't particularly want anyone fidgeting with anything on them, no matter how harmless, no matter where they might be parked.
Do you really care so little about your property that you really wouldn't mind if I stuck a few fliers to the bottom of it with some neodymium magnets? Really?
What if I just velcro them to the spokes on the wheels?
Can I stick a non-adhesive vinyl cling to the rear of the trunk lid on your car that says "BABIES - THE OTHER WHITE MEAT," where you're unlikely to see it right away but everyone behind you in traffic will?
A line must be drawn somewhere. Is physical damage really where it should be?
Re:True, but ... (Score:2, Interesting)
Guy in New Zealand who found a police tracking device on his car ripped it out and placed it on an online auction site.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/48059 [stuff.co.nz]
Quote "A police operation to covertly follow a man came to an abrupt halt when the man found tracking devices planted in his car, ripped them out, and listed them for sale on Trade Me"
Re:This is why (Score:4, Interesting)
Police got a warrant to put a GPS on his car and secretly attached it while the vehicle was parked in Sveum's driveway. The device recorded his car's movements for five weeks before police retrieved it and downloaded the information. Wisconsin court upholds GPS tracking by police
The tracker is a receiver/recorder, unless the IF is leaking badly, the field strength meter is useless.
Most of the smaller/cheaper GPS receivers that I've seen aren't all that well shielded and would leak enough of the LO (local oscillator) from the receivers' mixer to be detectable within 2-3 feet by an amplified FSM, which is what I was thinking.
Strat
Re:But... (Score:3, Interesting)
There's also the inconvenient fact that, based on the available evidence, the police departments ought to be training Blackwater and the US military, not the other way around.
While various and sundry police departments are generally able to maintain at least a semblance of law and order even in places where the general population is overtly hostile to them, Blackwater and the US Army can't seem to maintain the peace in a country we are theoretically supposed to have liberated.
Maybe it's not entirely fair to compare parts of LA to Iraq(I mean some people in Iraq actually like the people policing them), but I'd certainly say we'd all be better off with a bunch of cops, corrupt or otherwise, over there than we'd ever be with Blackwater and their ilk at home.
OnStar and Blanket Tracking (Score:2, Interesting)
A useless surveillance device (Score:2, Interesting)
It seems to me a GPS device would give inadmissible evidence if just attached to the car and left there. The police would still have to physically follow the car to provide eyewitness testimony (or better yet, video evidence) that the car travelled to all the places the GPS unit did.
If the police don't observe the car's journeys, then they have no way of proving that the GPS wasn't removed from the original target vehicle, moved independently of it by a third party, and then reattached later.
As far as I know, that's called 'reasonable doubt', and makes the evidence sufficiently suspect to tampering so as not to be reliable in a court of law. I think it would render the evidence gathered by the device to be considered 'hearsay'.