Court allows agents to secretly put GPS trackers on cars

if there is justifiable cause/suspicion i don't have a problem with it. Alone, it does nothing but put you in a particular spot at a particular time.

why spend the man hours following/tracking him when you can just use a gps?

 

because there is no warrant. you are allowing the PD or whatever agency to track every car whenever the department thinks it should. there is no oversight.

and we have the bill of rights which explicitly protects us from unreasonable searches and seizures. and this ruling does away with needing to prove reasonable suspicion in a court, the typical standard.

 

I think his point is that without GPS, police can already do that by just having someone follow the guy, which is perfectly legal without a warrant. All the GPS does is make the whole process more efficient and less labor intensive.

I think my biggest problem with this is the idea that the police can attach something to your private property (your car) without permission. I'm not sure how I'd feel if they instead just had a little miniature robot following you around or putting a drone in the sky and following someone that way (again, without a warrant). I assume these things are legal already, separate from this ruling.

 

It just that I would tend to correlate the ease of use to the increase of use. They'll smack on the side of your car for unjust cause since it's so easy now. The concept is great but can easily be abused.

 

How much weed do you think the government grows and smokes to be paranoid of mar1juana?

 

Exactly. I can't imagine the Supreme Court will allow this, but the current SC majority just might be capable of any radical notion that pops into their heads.

 

I can see the rationale of allowing this when you decompose the act down to individual actions. Cops go on your property, but it's your front drive and they didn't have to jump a fence or anything to do it, so it's not exactly trespassing. Cops coming on your lawn to look at your property isn't barred. They stick something on your car, which might be a sort of vandalism, but that in itself isn't an invasion of privacy. And, finally tracking your movements does intrude on your privacy, but they've already been conceded that option with other surveillance techniques.

So, I'm torn. Overall, it doesn't feel right. But, what implication would it have? Would it mean they should get warrants to follow someone?

 

How nice. Wanna guess how cops would react if the citizenry wanted to gps there movements? We already know how kindly they take to being filmed...

 

WHy do you assume there would be no oversight? It isnt too difficult to set up a process where by a case is presented for use of the tracker.

As for the bolded, that is the important part. If a case is being investigate then it is very reasonable to track them.

that's a fair point but as mentioned above, there would seemingly be a process of approval. Abuse is always a possibilty for anything but given all the other things cops could abuse (e.g. gun, taser, pepper spray, running personal info, etc) a simple device telling the location of a car seems miniscule.

 

dont all police cars have gps systems on them?

 

Certainly - I totally agree with that. But from a legal perspective, I think the issue is much more murky. Take, for example, this spectrum of actions:

1. Cops asking where you are going.
2. Cops putting surveillance on your home to see when you come and go.
3. Cops following you in the traditional sense of actually having a car follow you - mobile surveillance.
4. Cops using a little robot to follow you.
5. Cops using unmanned drones in the sky to follow you.
6. Cops putting a mobile tracker on your car.
7. Cops sneaking into the back seat of your car and following you.

#1-3 are clearly legal and used all the time. No one seems to have a problem with it. #7 is clearly considered unacceptable/illegal. 4-6 all fall in the grayer area. What is the logic wherever something thinks the line should be? What is the Constitutional issue dividing 3 from 4? Or 4 from 5. Or 5 from 6. That's the key as far as the courts finding something unconstitutional.

 

Unless you have access to them, the point is kind of moot.

 

but why would the public need access to them? it's just a bad example used.

If a cop was under investigation for something and here where abouts needed to be tracked...then that information could be had.

 

Cops have never been known to do bad things, good point.

If we're willing to allow cops to follow citizens without warrant via gps, why not the reciprocal?

If we are willing to assume the cop has justification, why not vice versa?

(to be fair, I do no know if cop cars really have gps surveillance 24/7 or how easy it is to get access to that data. The problem is really that there is no control in place without a warrant. How many cars will be tracked? Who is monitoring them? Where is this data stored?)

 

It's not gray to some of us, Major.

 

yeah...thats exactly what i said. Cops have never made a mistake in the history of the universe. It's science.

why would they?

one, because that's a crappy way to look at things.

two, because why would they waste time and resources? Why would a cop put a tracking system on a car of a person who is doing nothing wrong? They are using it as part of an investigation. it's not that hard of a concept.

[/quote](to be fair, I do no know if cop cars really have gps surveillance 24/7 or how easy it is to get access to that data. The problem is really that there is no control in place without a warrant. How many cars will be tracked? Who is monitoring them? Where is this data stored?)[/QUOTE]

they could easily be control. Like i said, a system could be established so that a superior would have to give authorization. A cop would then be assigned a gps based on the case presented. That gps would be identified as being checked out to that office, for said case and X amount of time.

 

Because many cops are total dickheads.

 

If it's part of an investigation, how hard can it be to get a warrant?

We demand this sort of criteria to avoid misuse. It's not that hard of a concept.