Supreme Court Looks at Warrantless GPS Tracking

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Is this really a case for the Supreme Court? Seriously, we are talking about vehicle tracking here, what is so urgent that you have to do it without a warrant? It's not like you can't get one in minutes these days anyway.

The Supreme Court is considering whether police use of GPS devices to track criminal suspects requires a judge's advance approval. The Obama administration is appealing a ruling that threw out the drug conspiracy conviction of Antoine Jones of Washington because FBI agents and local police installed a GPS device on Jones' car and collected travel information without a search warrant.
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Article said:
The government argues that people have no expectation of privacy concerning their travel on public streets.
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So that somehow means you can just place tracking devices on vehicles without prior consent or court order? Sure, you can follow me but bugging my car is a whole 'nother situation in my opinion. That statement seems overly broad.
 
The government argues that people have no expectation of privacy concerning their travel on public streets.
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Unless you're a police officer then they try to slap you for an illegal wiretap.
 
tesfaye said:
So that somehow means you can just place tracking devices on vehicles without prior consent or court order? Sure, you can follow me but bugging my car is a whole 'nother situation in my opinion. That statement seems overly broad.
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Exactly. Expectation of privacy versus being monitored at all times are two VASTLY different things. And law enforcement wonders why people don't trust them. Some of us, actually have read 1984 and had allergic reactions to it.
 
There has to be a premise of probable cause and barring a direct intervention by law enforcement, then a warrant must be obtained. Why is this so hard to fathom?
 
Seriously, just follow someone with a car or heli UNTIL you get a warrant for the gps tap. It really isn't that damn hard if it needs to be done.
 
I do not get why they try to circumvent the law.. seriously follow whats in place and it works almost every time. Maybe they need to send em back to school..
 
If you add equipment to my vehicle or alter equipment already on my vehicle that should absolutely require a warrant/court order.

-tin foil hat time:
I see this as a slippery slope subject. If they can do this without court oversight what's to stop them in the future from increasing the scope of this to adding this to more and more vehicles "to maintain good order/public safety/deter risky driving" and begin issuing tickets/tracking arbitrarily.
 
Court orders requires paperwork. The GAO has stated before that the government has an issue with getting records to match resources used. So if we assume that everything else is above board (which I'd never do). There is still an accountability issue that law enforcement doesn't want to address. Systems that can be abused will be eventually.
 
jahcs said:
If you add equipment to my vehicle or alter equipment already on my vehicle that should absolutely require a warrant/court order.

-tin foil hat time:
I see this as a slippery slope subject. If they can do this without court oversight what's to stop them in the future from increasing the scope of this to adding this to more and more vehicles "to maintain good order/public safety/deter risky driving" and begin issuing tickets/tracking arbitrarily.
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Honestly I think the only way they should be able to access anyone's personal information or track them in any way is with a warrant or physically following you around. We are on a long and slippery slope and we've already slid dangerously far down it. The politicians used 9/11 to ram a lot of really heinous shit down our throats under the guise of keeping us "safe".
 
Remember when they told us that "probable cause" was to protect you...and then it turned out that "probable cause" to be pulled over was a mullet and Camaro? Wait...that was probably just me ;)
 
Anyone goes on my property and attempts to attach a GPS device to my car risks getting shot for trying to steal my property, which is legal in many states. When cops start going down for this they'll reconsider...
 
Article said:
The government argues that people have no expectation of privacy concerning their travel on public streets.
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Excellent! That means I can put a GPS locater on all the cop cars so I know where it's safe to speed/rob a bank/rape a duck!
 
“If you win this case, there is nothing to prevent the police or the government from monitoring 24 hours a day every citizen of the United States,” Justice Stephen Breyer told Deputy Solicitor General Michael Dreeben. “If you win, you suddenly produce what sounds like '1984.' ”

“This case does not involve 24-hour surveillance of every citizen of the United States,” Mr. Dreeben responded. “It involves following one suspected drug dealer as to whom there was very strong suspicion.”
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Note that Dreeben does not dispute Justice Breyer's statement, he simply answers a question that Breyer did not ask.
 
Steve said:
Remember when they told us that "probable cause" was to protect you...and then it turned out that "probable cause" to be pulled over was a mullet and Camaro? Wait...that was probably just me ;)
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Did flashing some man-boobs get you out of the ticket?
 
Steve said:
Remember when they told us that "probable cause" was to protect you...and then it turned out that "probable cause" to be pulled over was a mullet and Camaro? Wait...that was probably just me ;)
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No...that wasn't just you, or people with mullets, just camaro and honda owners.
 
I feel that investigators should be allowed to do anything they want without a warrant, provided that average citizens are afforded the same privileges (like putting GPS devices on their cars mentioned earlier).
 
^I'm lost... that sounds like total anarchy.

A police doesn't need a warrant to search your house... and then citizens are afforded the same privileges, so they can search another's house as they please... etc. So can you elaborate?

And WTF was that duck article...?
 
Serpent said:
^I'm lost... that sounds like total anarchy.
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Doesn't it just? That's exactly why we can't have police being allowed to do whatever they want whenever they want without being on equal footing with citizens. Also, I assume by "anarchy" you mean "chaos", because an anarchy just means there is no ruler.

A police doesn't need a warrant to search your house... and then citizens are afforded the same privileges, so they can search another's house as they please... etc. So can you elaborate?
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Maybe they don't need search warrants in your country, but in the United States, it's forbidden by the constitution. My post is a bit US-centric, I guess. Not every country is provided the same protections as US citizens, at least what we're provided on paper, that is.
 
I have no problem with them placing a GPS on my car and tracking me. I'm not going to get side-tracked into all the WHAT-IFs that are possible, cause they go both ways.

If the "What if police started doing this to all cars" is valid, so is the "What if had police done this, that serial killer could have been stopped ten victims sooner?"

I understand where you're all coming from but that's how I feel on the subject. My privacy in public is not something I worry about.

What's next, someone saying that being tracked by satellite is a breach of privacy? How's that any different, with the exception of a simple piece of equipment not being added to someone's vehicle?

Same exact results, so I see this as a huge non-issue that is being made into a mountain for no reason other than WHAT-IFs.
 
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