Warrantless GPS Tracking

[travesty]

Is anyone else concerned about this week's 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decision (http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2013150,00.html)?
In summary it allows federal agencies to plant a GPS device on your car, while it's in your driveway, and track you....without obtaining a warrant. What am I missing here Bob? As I said before, I'm no lawyer and since this isn't on the news Time must be glossing over something....please, please, please be glossing over something for all of our sakes.

[Bob]

without reading the decision or doing any research or doing anything other than relying on what i remember about the 4th amendment from law school and studying for the bar, my guess is that the reasoning is that as long as you're driving around in public, you don't have a reasonable expectation of privacy in regards to your location. it would be like if you were driving around the city and the government tailed you in a car; you're out in public, it's not illegal to follow you and figure out where you go. i guess the court considered a GPS tracker to just be a more efficient way of doing that? kind of like how you can set up an informant with a wire and use the recording as evidence instead of asking the informant to tell the court what he remembered about the conversation

that's just my guess though, and i'm too tired atm to figure out how i feel about it. i also don't know the extent of the ruling. if the device tracks you somewhere where the government wouldn't normally be allowed to follow you, are they allowed to keep watching? i'd think that would be a different case but again, i haven't read the opinion or done any research

[travesty]

I get that. What makes me concerned is that the opinion states that we do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy on our driveway, on our own property. The most disturbing thing is that according to this if you have a gated home and driveway, then you do have a reasonable expectation of priacy. Seems highly eleitist.

[Bob]

I get that. What makes me concerned is that the opinion states that we do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy on our driveway, on our own property. The most disturbing thing is that according to this if you have a gated home and driveway, then you do have a reasonable expectation of priacy. Seems highly eleitist.

i can't argue with that

edit: well i could, but i don't want to because i agree with you

[Bob]

i mean i suppose you could make the argument that it would be no different than sitting outside someone's house, waiting for them to leave, and then tailing the car, but you could do that to someone with a gated driveway too. but it's legal to GPS track one and not the other? it is fishy, yeah.

[kaiser soze]

The most disturbing thing is that according to this if you have a gated home and driveway, then you do have a reasonable expectation of priacy. Seems highly eleitist.

Well more than likely those individuals will have OnStar in their cars and probably own phones with exceptional GPS signals, probably have chips in their dogs and tracking devices in their kids cars. So no worries chap!

all kidding aside, yes this is bullshit - it all comes down to the Patriot Act and what it has bred.

Privacy is a joke, people volunteer their information, images, and character online to practically anyone, no need for sneaking around or voyeurism, everyone just gives it up freely with the hopes of becoming something in their head.

It seems like 1 out of every 3 tv show is a "Reality" show, think about it.

[saz]

Is anyone else concerned about this week's 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decision (http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2013150,00.html)?
In summary it allows federal agencies to plant a GPS device on your car, while it's in your driveway, and track you....without obtaining a warrant. What am I missing here Bob? As I said before, I'm no lawyer and since this isn't on the news Time must be glossing over something....please, please, please be glossing over something for all of our sakes.

it's creepy as hell but sadly, hardly anyone gives a fuck.

[Whatitis]

Exactly, who gives a shit. Except for ones that are doing wrong. Even if you are being whatched for whatever reason, say being outspoken(thinking of the most minor reason to be "tracked"), keeping things legit, which gives you a more powerful poise, why worry?

[Sir SkratchaLot]

I get that. What makes me concerned is that the opinion states that we do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy on our driveway, on our own property. The most disturbing thing is that according to this if you have a gated home and driveway, then you do have a reasonable expectation of priacy. Seems highly eleitist.

The (conservative) Justices ruled long ago that you don't have any reasonable expectation of privacy in your driveway, in your house when the window is open, on your front porch, in your back yard (think helicopter surveilance), if you are a non-overnight guest at a friends house, etc. Last I checked, the only truedly protected area in you car is the trunk and there are ways for law enforcement to get around that as well. These were ideological battles in the Supreme Court that the liberal Justices lost long ago.

[Sir SkratchaLot]

Exactly, who gives a shit. Except for ones that are doing wrong. Even if you are being whatched for whatever reason, say being outspoken(thinking of the most minor reason to be "tracked"), keeping things legit, which gives you a more powerful poise, why worry?

That's the spirit! Fuck privacy. If you're not doing anything wrong then you have no reason not to let the cops come inside your house and rifle through all your shit and feel your balls.