Supreme Court rules 9-0 that warrant absolutely needed for police GPS tracking
1–10 of 122 posts
Re: Supreme Court rules 9-0 that warrant absolutely needed for police GPS tracking
#2In the meantime Lamar Smith is pushing a bill so ISP's track and log everything you do online for 18 months, and then to give the data away without a warrant.
http://gcn.com/articles/2011/08/05/protecting-children-bill-...
Re: Supreme Court rules 9-0 that warrant absolutely needed for police GPS tracking
#3This is a victory -- if you can call a victory taking something back to where it was all along.
Along those lines, I noted this in the article:
In a footnote, Scalia added that, “Whatever new methods of investigation may be devised, our tsk, at a minimum, is to decide whether the action in question would have constituted a ‘search’ within the original meaning of the Fourth Amendment. Where, as here, the government obtains information by physically intruding on a constitutionally protected area, such a search has undoubtedly occurred.”
If that broader interpretation would hold, that would be awesome news. But by putting it in a footnote, as I understand it, it's more of a dream than anything else. Great philosophy, though. Here's hoping it plays out that way.
The problem -- and the reason it won't, probably -- is that this kind of interpretation needs to be put into a constitutional amendment. If you rely on judicial interpretation, between the legislature and the courts, they'll make a muddled mess out of it.
Re: Supreme Court rules 9-0 that warrant absolutely needed for police GPS tracking
#4One of the things the article doesn't point out (but the linked case law does) that I was curious enough about to look into:
The "beeper" was essentially a short-ranged RF transponder used as a tracking device. The officers were actively following the suspect, and using it as an aid to tailing the suspect's car. The suspect lost the tail, and the cops used the beeper to find where he went.
This is contrasted with a GPS device, which was placed, tracked for a month, and then retreived, and the data of the month's movements used to convict the drug dealer.
Re: Supreme Court rules 9-0 that warrant absolutely needed for police GPS tracking
#5In the meantime Lamar Smith is pushing a bill so ISP's track and log everything you do online for 18 months, and then to give the data away without a warrant. http://gcn.com/articles/2011/08/05/protecting-children-bill-...
Warrantless everything. It's the future of America.
Why they feel the need to do an end-run around judicial overview I have no idea, because you rarely see a judge ever say "no" to law enforcement.
Re: Supreme Court rules 9-0 that warrant absolutely needed for police GPS tracking
#6Does this ruling cover tracking via cell phone as well? According to the Wikipedia article on mobile phone tracking, "The U.S. Justice Department has argued that current laws allow them to track suspects without having probable cause to suspect a law is being violated."
This case only seems to cover devices the suspect doesn't already willingly carry.
Re: Supreme Court rules 9-0 that warrant absolutely needed for police GPS tracking
#7I'm curious what the next step is going to be, maybe try to use "onstar" gps data without a warrant, because the way this is worded, it maybe seems the action of placing the tracking device that is the violation, not using an existing one, and they can still do it for "segments" (ie. tracking you for just one leg of a journey and removing it afterwards is legal without a warrant?)
Next we have to fight for our bodies not to be searched without a warrant as Rand Paul is currently experiencing personally: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3500715
Re: Supreme Court rules 9-0 that warrant absolutely needed for police GPS tracking
#8In the meantime Lamar Smith is pushing a bill so ISP's track and log everything you do online for 18 months, and then to give the data away without a warrant. http://gcn.com/articles/2011/08/05/protecting-children-bill-...
To me, this supreme court decision stands as precedent against the ISP's forced tracking. If recording your vehicle moves constitutes a search, then recording your online moves surely constitutes a search.
The only difference is that the supreme court ruling mentions officers having to enter a constitutionally protected area(your car) to install the searching device. With ISP data recording they would have to make no such intrusion, as it would be built in. It would be as though every car came with GPS monitoring and all the feds had to to was ask for it from your car's manufacturer.
Re: Supreme Court rules 9-0 that warrant absolutely needed for police GPS tracking
#9I'm curious what the next step is going to be, maybe try to use "onstar" gps data without a warrant, because the way this is worded, it maybe seems the action of placing the tracking device that is the violation, not using an existing one, and they can still do it for "segments" (ie. tracking you for just one leg of a journey and removing it afterwards is legal without a warrant?) Next we have to fight for our bodies…
I think, unfortunately, it wouldn't be considered a search as the data recording would probably be considered voluntary.
Re: Supreme Court rules 9-0 that warrant absolutely needed for police GPS tracking
#10The government told the justices during oral arguments that that GPS devices have become a common tool in crime fighting, saying it is employed “thousands” of times annually.
Wow. So I guess that number is supposed to shrink to zero now? That transition could prove to be very interesting...