Appellate court: Nope, feds can’t just GPS track your car without a warrant

[Tom Servo]

Appellate court: Nope, feds can’t just GPS track your car without a warrant
Men accused of robbing Rite Aid pharmacies tracked via GPS on getaway van.

by Cyrus Farivar - Oct 22 2013, 4:45pm CDT

The Third Circuit Court of Appeals has handed down a huge decision in favor of privacy rights in America. On Tuesday, the court confirmed in United States v. Katzin (PDF) that federal authorities must get a probable cause-driven warrant before attaching a GPS tracking device on a suspect’s car.

Of course, the circumstances of this case may sound familiar. Indeed, the Supreme Court decided in January 2012 in the United States v. Jones case that attaching a GPS device to a suspect’s car without a warrant constituted unreasonable search and seizure. In the wake of that decision, the FBI turned off 3,000 such tracking devices. However, the Jones case did not provide a clear-cut ruling on whether a lower legal standard could conceivably apply. In the new case, Katzin, the court definitively answered that with a resounding no.

As Judge Joseph Greenaway wrote:

We thus have no hesitation in holding that the police must obtain a warrant prior to attaching a GPS device on a vehicle, thereby undertaking a search that the Supreme Court has compared to “a constable's concealing himself in the target's coach in order to track its movements.”

[Tom Servo]

A rare victory for privacy.

[Celeste Chalfonte]

And about damned time!

[Lanie]

As much as my car gets bumped and scraped, the federal government would call it a waste of time.

Glad to hear about this.

[Norm dePlume]

They could get the exact same information by having undercover units tail you. That doesn't require a warrant. But it does require some manpower. So the difference really comes down to how widespread the practice can be. They could realistically track 3000 cars with electronic trackers, but they can't afford the man-hours to track that many the old-fashioned way.

[Celeste Chalfonte]

They could get the exact same information by having undercover units tail you. That doesn't require a warrant. But it does require some manpower. So the difference really comes down to how widespread the practice can be. They could realistically track 3000 cars with electronic trackers, but they can't afford the man-hours to track that many the old-fashioned way.

Frankly, they ought to need something more than idle curiosity or prurient interest to tail people. Where I go and who I associate with is not the government's business unless they have a solid reason to believe I'm up to no good.

[phillygirl]

Frankly, they ought to need something more than idle curiosity or prurient interest to tail people. Where I go and who I associate with is not the government's business unless they have a solid reason to believe I'm up to no good.

and therein lies the problem. How bad must the no good be to justify following someone? Stealing electricity? Pinching some cigarettes from a carnival stand? Raping little girls or blowing up the world trade center?

Ultimately, that is the philosophical debate, I think.

[gary m]

and therein lies the problem. How bad must the no good be to justify following someone? Stealing electricity? Pinching some cigarettes from a carnival stand? Raping little girls or blowing up the world trade center?

Ultimately, that is the philosophical debate, I think.

^^^This

Because with our sometimes antiquated system of local, state and federal laws, one can almost always be assured that they are breaking some law on the books somewhere.
And I am sure some jurisdiction somewhere has dusted this off and trotted it out to get a warrant to satisfy probable cause.

[Norm dePlume]

Frankly, they ought to need something more than idle curiosity or prurient interest to tail people. Where I go and who I associate with is not the government's business unless they have a solid reason to believe I'm up to no good.

As a legal principle, it's something new, I think. The question here is not whether or not police are entitled to access this information without a warrant. They are entitled. The question is how much effort it takes them to obtain it. Like I said, they could tail your car in unmarked cruisers for days without a warrant. And they would know exactly where your car was at every moment of that time. So they are legally entitled to obtain that information. But they can do so only through the effort of tailing you, not through the easier method of sticking a GPS tracker on your car.

[Tom Servo]

^^^This

Because with our sometimes antiquated system of local, state and federal laws, one can almost always be assured that they are breaking some law on the books somewhere.
And I am sure some jurisdiction somewhere has dusted this off and trotted it out to get a warrant to satisfy probable cause.

This is why I've long argued that probable cause is a joke in this country. There are so many rules, we're always doing something illegal or close enough to merit suspicion.

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