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Supreme Court rules 9-0 that warrant absolutely needed for police GPS tracking

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Re: Supreme Court rules 9-0 that warrant absolutely needed for police GPS tracking

#41

Post by amalcon »

padobson wrote: post #11

What sort of twisty-turvy world have we found ourselves in? A right-leaning Supreme court upholds tennants of the 4th Amendment - the go-to civil liberties ammendment - at the same time a Democratic administration seeks to weaken said ammendment. When Democrats are attacking our civil liberties and Republicans (looking at you, Lamar Smith) are removing our economic freedoms, it's time to take the crackpots seriously…

I respect the sentiment, but let's be fair here: this was a unanimous decision. There was no dissent. If one of the conservative-leaning justices were replaced with a liberal-leaning justice, it would have gone the same, with "A left-leaning Supreme court".

Sure, there's a lot to complain about, but this case shows that there are positive things both sides agree on.

Re: Supreme Court rules 9-0 that warrant absolutely needed for police GPS tracking

#42

Post by tylermenezes »

jessriedel wrote: post #38

Anyone know how this is squared with US v. Knotts? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Knotts >United States v. Knotts, 460 U.S. 276 was a 1983 United States Supreme Court case regarding the use of electronic surveillance devices. The device in question is described as a beeper and can only be tracked from a short distance. The court unanimously held that the use of such devices did not invade a legitimate…

It seems to me that since it can only be read from a short distance, you would be unable to track it in areas where police wouldn't be able to go without a warrant; it's closer to trailing a suspect than anything.

Re: Supreme Court rules 9-0 that warrant absolutely needed for police GPS tracking

#43

Post by dedward »

iamdave wrote: post #26
dedward wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a 9-0 vote by the supreme on this matter is a huge thing.... much more than simply a majority vote. it sends a loud and clear message about their stance on the matter. judges and prosecutors will take this, and all the details into consideration moving forward..... i would imagine the judiciary does not like to pass judgement that will beoverturned by thesupreme court as a matter of professional pride in many cases,…

a 9-0 vote by the supreme on this matter is a huge thing.... much more than simply a majority vote. it sends a loud and clear message about their stance on the matter. Tell that to lower/circuit courts who have an annoying habit of giving SCOTUS rulings a big fat middle finger.

attorneys on both sides, plus juries hearing this will do wonders..... judges dont rule alone necessarily (you have the right to trial by your peers, corect?)

Appeals courts will follow the supreme court if a similar cae hits the judges desk - they are not goung to throw the same case at the supreme cort, bad mojo, it would just be rejected saying "we Alredy ruled on that".

also.. while i am pretty sure the supremes are in office for life ( or until they step down voluntarily orprobably a few other things like commit a felony or become incapacitated, etc) - are other judges as secure? The supremes take their duties very seriously it seems to me. they dont rule lightly, and they are not stupid.

Re: Supreme Court rules 9-0 that warrant absolutely needed for police GPS tracking

#44

Post by _delirium »

jessriedel wrote: post #38

Anyone know how this is squared with US v. Knotts? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Knotts >United States v. Knotts, 460 U.S. 276 was a 1983 United States Supreme Court case regarding the use of electronic surveillance devices. The device in question is described as a beeper and can only be tracked from a short distance. The court unanimously held that the use of such devices did not invade a legitimate…

The majority (Scalia, Roberts, Thomas, Kennedy, Sotomayor) distinguished Knotts on the basis that in that case there was no trespass onto an owner's property to install the device: "The beeper had been placed in the container before it came into Knotts’ possession, with the consent of the then-owner. Knotts did not challenge that installation, and we specifically declined to consider its effect on the Fourth Amendment analysis."

The four remaining justices (Alito, Breyer, Ginsburg, Kagan) would've made a stronger holding, instituting a new general principle that pervasive, long-term monitoring requires a warrant, regardless of the method: they summarized Knotts as "relatively short-term monitoring of a person’s movements on public streets" as opposed to this case's "use of longer term GPS monitoring". (The're a need to come up with some kind of dividing line, because short-term tailing of people on public streets has long been considered something police can do on mere suspicion, without a warrant.)

Sotomayor's concurrence indicated a potential willingness to join those latter four in an appropriate case, but she didn't feel it was necessary to deciding this case, since it was enough for this case to just hold that the physical installation required a warrant.

Re: Supreme Court rules 9-0 that warrant absolutely needed for police GPS tracking

#45

Post by feralchimp »

padobson wrote: post #11

What sort of twisty-turvy world have we found ourselves in? A right-leaning Supreme court upholds tennants of the 4th Amendment - the go-to civil liberties ammendment - at the same time a Democratic administration seeks to weaken said ammendment. When Democrats are attacking our civil liberties and Republicans (looking at you, Lamar Smith) are removing our economic freedoms, it's time to take the crackpots seriously…

>A right-leaning Supreme court upholds tennants of the 4th Amendment - the go-to civil liberties ammendment - at the same time a Democratic administration seeks to weaken said ammendment.

This isn't topsy-turvy; it's exactly what we should expect when we consider the two sides as "Judicial branch" vs. "Executive branch" rather than 'right' vs. 'left'. One should expect professional Defenders of the Constitution, however they used to vote in national elections, to care deeply about 4th amendment protections.

Re: Supreme Court rules 9-0 that warrant absolutely needed for police GPS tracking

#46

Post by Jtsummers »

jessriedel wrote: post #38

Anyone know how this is squared with US v. Knotts? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Knotts >United States v. Knotts, 460 U.S. 276 was a 1983 United States Supreme Court case regarding the use of electronic surveillance devices. The device in question is described as a beeper and can only be tracked from a short distance. The court unanimously held that the use of such devices did not invade a legitimate…

Just a guess but I suspect it's both the distance and how it was placed in the vehicle. The police did not put it in themselves, they placed it in a container that was loaded into the vehicle by the seller/suspect.

Re: Supreme Court rules 9-0 that warrant absolutely needed for police GPS tracking

#48

Post by raldi »

dedward wrote: post #37
raldi wrote: post #17

If I were to ask an FBI agent why obtaining a warrant first would have been onerous in this case (or similar ones), what would they say?

more importNtly, if the supreme court asks them, what will they say. in this case peosecutors mad it clear they interpreted the law to meanthey could legally gps tag anyone, including then supremejustice's car without a warrant - one imagines this could not have helped their argument, though the supremes, unlike lower courts, are there to be the wisest of the judiciary and keep things on track, iltimately. glad they…

Right, but my question was more like: Clearly this was a major investigation. The FBI was involved, they followed this guy around for a month, they used expensive technology, they appealed all the way to the Supreme Court .. if they're going through all that trouble, would it have been that much more work to just get a warrant first? Is there a long waiting list for warrant hearings? Would the warrant have been unlikely to have been granted? Or did they just screw up?

Re: Supreme Court rules 9-0 that warrant absolutely needed for police GPS tracking

#49

Post by rkischuk »

digikata wrote: post #24
ck2 wrote: post #7

I'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…

The linked article says Rand Paul set off an alert on a full body scan, then refused to be searched. That sounds more like his "protest" is trying to cover up something he didn't realize was carrying after the fact - otherwise why was he not protesting the body scan in the first place.

Not necessarily. Last week, I opted out of backscatter, and the pat-down triggered an "explosives detected" alert. I was in a hurry, but otherwise would have wanted to be much more resistive of the private search I underwent after that.

Because it's absurd. Because I do not carry or interact with explosives.

Re: Supreme Court rules 9-0 that warrant absolutely needed for police GPS tracking

#50

Post by stanleydrew »

dedward wrote: post #43
iamdave wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a 9-0 vote by the supreme on this matter is a huge thing.... much more than simply a majority vote. it sends a loud and clear message about their stance on the matter. Tell that to lower/circuit courts who have an annoying habit of giving SCOTUS rulings a big fat middle finger.

attorneys on both sides, plus juries hearing this will do wonders..... judges dont rule alone necessarily (you have the right to trial by your peers, corect?) Appeals courts will follow the supreme court if a similar cae hits the judges desk - they are not goung to throw the same case at the supreme cort, bad mojo, it would just be rejected saying "we Alredy ruled on that". also.. while i am pretty sure the supremes…

"you have the right to trial by your peers, corect?"

I believe the answer to that is "not exactly, it's complicated."

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