Police Use of G.P.S. Is Ruled Unconstitutional

[mikita's helmet]

Justices Say GPS Tracker Violated Privacy Rights



http://www.nytimes.c...&pagewanted=all



Justices Rein In Police on GPS Trackers



http://online.wsj.co...1800873358.html

 

[BiscuitintheBasket]

Interesting. From a fundamental level I wonder how using a GPS to track a suspect is any different that having an unmarked police car follow them....perhaps just the act of attaching the device. Personally I would have no problems with this type of surveillance as long as a search warrant is part of the process.

 

[supraman]

Interesting. From a fundamental level I wonder how using a GPS to track a suspect is any different that having an unmarked police car follow them....perhaps just the act of attaching the device. Personally I would have no problems with this type of surveillance as long as a search warrant is part of the process.

The roads the police use to track you are public domain, however your GPS data is not public domain.

 

[klemmer]

Interesting. From a fundamental level I wonder how using a GPS to track a suspect is any different that having an unmarked police car follow them....perhaps just the act of attaching the device. Personally I would have no problems with this type of surveillance as long as a search warrant is part of the process.

I think this is where I draw the line between acceptable and unacceptable and agree with your stance.

 

[jakobeast]

The police(government) should absolutely have to jump through many hoops. It's not that I think criminals should get away with it, it is more that I want to make sure non criminals aren't screwed.

 

[mikita's helmet]

Personally I would have no problems with this type of surveillance as long as a [font=lucida sans unicode,lucida grande,sans-serif]search warrant[/font]is part of the process.

Which is what the police failed to get in the case before the Court. With a warrant, all is kosher. Warrantless, verboten.





U.S. v. Jones

http://s3.documentcl...tes-v-jones.pdf



Scalia's lead opinion:



It is important to be clear about what occurred in thiscase: The Government physically occupied private property for the purpose of obtaining information. We have no doubt that such a physical intrusion would have beenconsidered a "search" within the meaning of the FourthAmendment when it was adopted. [font=Century Schoolbook,Century Schoolbook][font=Century Schoolbook,Century Schoolbook]Entick [/font][/font]v. [font=Century Schoolbook,Century Schoolbook][font=Century Schoolbook,Century Schoolbook]Carrington[/font][/font], 95 Eng. Rep. 807 (C. P. 1765), is a "case we have described as a ‘monument of English freedom’ ‘undoubtedly familiar’to ‘every American statesman’ at the time the Constitutionwas adopted, and considered to be ‘the true and ultimate expression of constitutional law’" with regard to searchand seizure. [font=Century Schoolbook,Century Schoolbook][font=Century Schoolbook,Century Schoolbook]Brower [/font][/font]v. [font=Century Schoolbook,Century Schoolbook][font=Century Schoolbook,Century Schoolbook]County of Inyo[/font][/font], 489 U. S. 593, 596 (1989) (quoting [font=Century Schoolbook,Century Schoolbook][font=Century Schoolbook,Century Schoolbook]Boyd [/font][/font]v. [font=Century Schoolbook,Century Schoolbook][font=Century Schoolbook,Century Schoolbook]United States[/font][/font], 116 U. S. 616, 626 (1886)). In that case, Lord Camden expressed in plain terms the significance of property rights in search-andseizure analysis:



"[O]ur law holds the property of every man so sacred,that no man can set his foot upon his neighbour’s closewithout his leave; if he does he is a trespasser, though he does no damage at all; if he will tread upon hisneighbour’s ground, he must justify it by law." [font=Century Schoolbook,Century Schoolbook][font=Century Schoolbook,Century Schoolbook]Entick, supra, [/font][/font]at 817.



The text of the Fourth Amendment reflects its close connection to property, since otherwise it would have referredsimply to "the right of the people to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures"; the phrase "in their persons, houses, papers, and effects" would have been superfluous.





Sotomayers's concurrence:



Of course, the Fourth Amendment is not concerned onlywith trespassory intrusions on property. See,



[font=Century Schoolbook,Century Schoolbook][font=Century Schoolbook,Century Schoolbook]e.g., Kyllo [/font][/font]v. [font=Century Schoolbook,Century Schoolbook][font=Century Schoolbook,Century Schoolbook]United States[/font][/font], 533 U. S. 27, 31–33 (2001). Rather, even in the absence of a trespass, "a Fourth Amendment search occurs when the government violates a subjective expectation of privacy that society recognizes as reasonable." [font=Century Schoolbook,Century Schoolbook][font=Century Schoolbook,Century Schoolbook]Id., [/font][/font]at 33; see also [font=Century Schoolbook,Century Schoolbook][font=Century Schoolbook,Century Schoolbook]Smith [/font][/font]v. [font=Century Schoolbook,Century Schoolbook][font=Century Schoolbook,Century Schoolbook]Maryland[/font][/font], 442 U. S. 735, 740–741 (1979); [font=Century Schoolbook,Century Schoolbook][font=Century Schoolbook,Century Schoolbook]Katz [/font][/font]v. [font=Century Schoolbook,Century Schoolbook][font=Century Schoolbook,Century Schoolbook]United States[/font][/font], 389 U. S. 347, 361 (1967) (Harlan, J., concurring).



Alito's concurrence:



the use of longer term GPS monitoring in investigations ofmost offenses impinges on expectations of privacy. For such offenses, society’s expectation has been that lawenforcement agents and others would not—and indeed, inthe main, simply could not—secretly monitor and catalogue every single movement of an individual’s car for a very long period. In this case, for four weeks, law enforcement agents tracked every movement that respondent made in the vehicle he was driving. We need not identify with precision the point at which the tracking of this vehicle became a search, for the line was surelycrossed before the 4-week mark. Other cases may present more difficult questions. But where uncertainty exists with respect to whether a certain period of GPS surveillance is long enough to constitute a Fourth Amendmentsearch, the police may always seek a warrant.

 

[BiscuitintheBasket]

The roads the police use to track you are public domain, however your GPS data is not public domain.

From a fundamental stand point I don't see the difference. One is electronically tracked, the other by direct eyeball(s). The end result is the same.

 

[BiscuitintheBasket]

Which is what the police failed to get in the case before the Court. With a warrant, all is kosher. Warrantless, verboten.

Ahh.

 

[supraman]

From a fundamental stand point I don't see the difference. One is electronically tracked, the other by direct eyeball(s). The end result is the same.

Roads are public, everything that happens on them and is observed while on them is public domain and it is known that it is public information. Whereas GPS there is a level privacy, there is no assumption that the information in the GPS system is public information. Ergo accessing that information without court consent or consent of the owner of the information it is a violation of the 4th amendment.

 

[MassHavoc]

Yeah the whole issue here is that police were attaching GPS trackers to suspects cars without warrants. Now they need them. While I'm all about this, I can't be fore this without a warrant. It's about a checks and balances type issue for me. I don't want them to go around and putting a GPS on anyone they feel like.

 

[mikita's helmet]

Ahh.

Actually, Biscuit, I looked at the the decision again and it looks like the 5 justices in Scalia's lead opinion say that it was a tresspass on private property, so it can't be done even with a warrant. The 4 justice's in Alito's concurrence say that a warrant is necessary because Jones had an expectation of privacy which the government violated. Sotomayer, however, even though she joins Scalia's lead opinion, rights a separate concurring opinion which hems & haws between property rights and an individual's expectation of privacy, and concludes that the case can be decided on the property rights issue, alone, so a warrant is irrelavent, though there may be a case in the future where one may be needed.

 

[LordKOTL]

I think the deeper issues is that a vehicle, or a GPS tap on a phone, can go off of public lands/Right-of-ways (i.e. roads) and onto private lands.



If i remember my criminal law right, yes, the police can tail you on roads or into any public place, but they can't follow you onto private property without a warrant unless there are specific conditions met. Be it tapping your Cell's GPS and you waking into your house, or putting a GPS tracker on your car and you turning onto a private road and onto private land, at that point, it would become an unlawful search and tresspass without the proper warrant.

 

[MassHavoc]

To me the deeper issue is that they shouldn't be able to infringe your privacy for any reason without a warrant.

 

[supraman]

I misunderstood the issue, my bad, I thought they were tracking the gps of say your phone. but yeah I guess the same could be said for your car.

 

[LordKOTL]

To me the deeper issue is that they shouldn't be able to infringe your privacy for any reason without a warrant.

Of course, but it's already been written into law that the police can enter private property or make an arrest in certain conditions, like when a life is at stake or they feel a crime is taking place.



I agree that a warrant should be needed for any type of surveilance and that the specifics should be clear as to what type of surveilance is allowed. It's why i think on a deeper level the SC shot it down.



For example, a friend of mine's parents have a farm outside of Yakima, WA. The place is freaking huge and the access road to their home is about a mile of private gravel road. If the police were tailing me without a warrant, and I turned onto their access road (invited), the police legally couldn't follow--I'm not in a public area anymore. They would tell the police to leave because they are tresspasing and DON'T have a warrant.



Same with a vehicle-mounted GPS. While technically it's just a different type of location surveillance, there would have to be a control to turn off the GPS reporting as soon as the vehicle crosses from public land to private. Yeah, like that would happen--maybe in Fantasy land. As such, since there is a chance that a GPS can provide an illegal tresspass and illegal surveilance, it should need a warrant.

 

[MassHavoc]

Yes, but the things you mention at the begining for the reasons you would not need a warrant to enter things or other circumstances are immediate danger type of things with probable cause. I just can't think of a situation where something would happen that the cop things to himself, quick, GPS his car. If that's the case, they should probably just follow the guy and arrest him. GPS tracking should be for surveilance only, basically like you said, and there is no surveilance work that I can think of that is immediate threat and shouldn't need a warrant.

 

[LordKOTL]

Exactly.



I think the thing is, whenever a new technology comes out, not only will the standard miscreant populace try to use it for illicit things, but also the police and estabishment will use it to "get around" current laws and practices. It's the simple method of see where the law will make it's stand.



Right now we've seen the law's first stand on GPS.

 

[MassHavoc]

And I agree with it. You shouldn't be able to GPS tag a person or their possessions without a warrant. Or even probably cause at this point but I won't push it.

 

[jaxhawksfan]

The police(government) should absolutely have to jump through many hoops. It's not that I think criminals should get away with it, it is more that I want to make sure non criminals aren't screwed.

Completely agree.

 

[IceHogsFan]

Anyone thought of why the police are allowed to use your IPass information? Can someone define to me the difference?