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USA: GPS Tracking Without a Warrant Declared Legal

walt cunningham

walt cunningham

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how do you know? this just happened last week. so if they are, thats fine, you will get off if they do not have a warrant

also, why would state police use them? usually their jobs are tickets and traffic stops
 
O

onegreenday

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Judge warns of ‘Orwellian state’ in warrantless GPS tracking case

Judge warns of ‘Orwellian state’ in warrantless GPS tracking case

http://alethonews.wordpress.com/201...lian-state’-in-warrantless-gps-tracking-case/

Judge warns of ‘Orwellian state’ in warrantless GPS tracking case

By Daniel Tencer and Stephen C. Webster | Raw Story | December 30th, 2010

Police in Delaware may soon be unable to use global positioning systems (GPS) to keep tabs on a suspect unless they have a court-signed warrant, thanks to a recent ruling by a superior court judge who cited famed author George Orwell in her decision.

In striking down evidence obtained through warrantless GPS tracking, Delaware Judge Jan R. Jurden wrote that “an Orwellian state is now technologically feasible,” adding that “without adequate judicial preservation of privacy, there is nothing to protect our citizens from being tracked 24/7.”

The ruling goes against a federal appeals court’s decision last summer that allowed warrantless tracking by GPS.

Jurden was ruling on the case of Michael D. Holden, who police say was pulled over with 10 lbs. of marijuana in his car last February. Holden was allegedly named by a DEA task force informant in 2009, and in early 2010, without obtaining a warrant, police placed a GPS device on his car, allowing them to follow him whenever he used the vehicle.

Police investigators say they had the GPS on Holden’s car for 20 days when they saw what they believed to be a cash-for-drugs exchange involving Holden in New Jersey. Police stopped him on a bridge crossing into Delaware and arrested him.

Unless there are special circumstances, “the warrantless placement of a GPS device to track a suspect 24 hours a day constitutes an unlawful search,” Judge Jurden wrote in her ruling (PDF). “In this case, there was insufficient probable cause independent of the GPS tracking to stop Holden’s vehicle where and when it was stopped, and therefore, the evidence seized from Holden’s vehicle must be suppressed.”

Prosecutors were forced to drop marijuana trafficking charges as a result.

Jurden argued that the same legal principle that allows officers to tail a suspect in traffic, without a warrant, doesn’t apply to GPS because the devices reveal far more about a person under surveillance than physical surveillance could — and more than police need.

“Prolonged GPS surveillance provides more information than one reasonably expects to ‘expose to the public,’” she wrote. “The whole of one’s movement over a prolonged period of time tells a vastly different story than movement over a day as may be completed by manned surveillance.”

She added, “It takes little to imagine what constant and prolonged surveillance could expose about someone’s life even if they are not participating in any criminal activity.”

Wesley Oliver, an associate law professor at Widener University, told the Wilmington News Journal that the ruling falls in line with judicial opinions in New York, Massachusetts and elsewhere.

“Without such restrictions, Oliver said, an incumbent candidate for sheriff could track an opponent with a GPS device — searching for visits to a strip club, mistress’ house or clinic — and be perfectly within the law,” the paper reported.

But the issue is far from settled. The US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling last August effectively allowing the use of GPS tracking without a warrant. Law enforcement agencies in the nine western US states covered by the Ninth Circuit now have the ability to use GPS without a warrant

A dissenting judge in that case also referred to Orwell in his dissenting opinion.

“1984 may have come a bit later than predicted, but it’s here at last,” Chief Judge Alex Kozinski wrote.

That ruling is expected to be appealed to the Supreme Court.
 
O

onegreenday

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Veteran
my old roomate got busted for driving without a license by MA state police.

The cop told her it was a random number plate run that showed the owner's license suspended.

The cop said he runs 300 license plates on the highway per shift.

walt cunningham said:
how do you know? this just happened last week. so if they are, thats fine, you will get off if they do not have a warrant

also, why would state police use them? usually their jobs are tickets and traffic stops
Click to expand...
 
JHerbz

JHerbz

Member
onegreenday said:
my old roomate got busted for driving without a license by MA state police.

The cop told her it was a random number plate run that showed the owner's license suspended.

The cop said he runs 300 license plates on the highway per shift.
Click to expand...
some states are getting the cameras for there cars and does over 300 cars in like a minute or so, reads plates and when it finds one with something out on it they stop and inspect.
 
O

onegreenday

Active member
Veteran
Judge warns of ‘Orwellian state’ in warrantless GPS tracking case

Judge warns of ‘Orwellian state’ in warrantless GPS tracking case

duplicate post
 
Bud-Boy

Bud-Boy

Active member
Veteran
Butte county Sheriff got some heat from a local publication for gps'ing cars and then charging them with being the organizers of local dispensaries. If our ref-neck legal bending oakies are using it, your's probably are too.

Add under vehicle check to the foil hat equipment check....

http://www.newsreview.com/chico/content?oid=1883546

Hard to tell whats the best defense from being tracked, jammer or sweeper
Doing some googling, seems celly phone fleet trackers are small and inexpensive, anyone could use. E-Z for a small LEo dept.

It's a fug'd up world that's evolving. Let's all hope 2012 hysteria brings some kind of shake-up!!!

RESISTING BEING DEFINED BY MY PARANOIA.....
 
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