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GPS: illegal search or just cheaper tracking?

August 15th, 2008
By JOE WINDISH, Technology Editor

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Police have a new secret weapon:

Across the country, police are using GPS devices to snare thieves, drug dealers, sexual predators and killers, often without a warrant or court order. Privacy advocates said tracking suspects electronically constitutes illegal search and seizure, violating Fourth Amendment rights of protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, and is another step toward George Orwell’s Big Brother society. Law enforcement officials, when they discuss the issue at all, said GPS is essentially the same as having an officer trail someone, just cheaper and more accurate. Most of the time, as was done in the Foltz case, judges have sided with police.

With the courts’ blessing, and the ever-declining cost of the technology, many analysts believe that police will increasingly rely on GPS as an effective tool in investigations and that the public will hear little about it. Last year, FBI agents used a GPS device while investigating an embezzlement scheme to steal from District taxpayers, attaching one to a suspect’s Jaguar.



This entry was posted on Friday, August 15th, 2008 at 1:23 am and is filed under Law Enforcement, Domestic Surveillance, Civil Liberties, Crime, Technology, Law & Legal Matters. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Viewing 12 Comments

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    An interesting post, illustrating people's total lack of comprehension over how technology is denying our capacity to be anonymous.

    For example, most people are not aware that individual cell phones (without GPS functionality) can be - and are - tracked across considerable distances as part of police investigations.

    The cell or mobile phone does not have to be used, it just has to be on.

    The cell phone network provider can then monitor the movements of the person carrying this with almost GPS levels of accuracy by triangulating between nearby cell sites.

    An RF engineer friend of mine who works for a major network is regularly called into court by prosecution to testify about the movements of perps in a range of criminal cases, usually drug trafficking.

    The homies have no idea they are being followed through the cells they carry in their pockets.
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    Marlowecan - as this is the industry that I am in, I will add another little known fact. Most cell phones, and I mean almost every one of them, can also have the microphone turned on and record whatever conversations are spoken near it, again as long as the phone is merely on, not in use.
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    AustinRoth . . . Ah, I did not know that. Hahahahaha. I swear, technology will make us all manically paranoid tinfoil hat wearers yet.

    The only thing that saves us is the natural human incompetence and venality of our police forces.

    I recall, a year or two back, in the UK -- where there is a police CC camera on almost every street -- a major scandal when it was revealed that London bobbies spent most of their time focusing on and videotaping well-endowed women.

    (Yes...you can imagine the always-inventive London tabloids had a field day with endless variations of the headline: "Bobbies on boobies" :)

    The Lesson: If you do not have big breasts, your privacy in the UK -- and your constitutional right to blow up buses and trains -- is secure.

    Anyhow, gotta run. I keep hearing voices coming from the wall power outlet, so I had better break out the tinfoil. . . .
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    I just went digging around in my library to find a podcast I listened to around the time that the latest Batman movie came out. No luck. I remember it was a lawyer or law professor who referenced in passing that the FBI had tried to get permission to monitor every cell phone, anywhere at anytime it chose, but was turned down. At the time I could not find any reference to that in the media. And now can't find my source reference for where I heard it. I'm interested to learn more about that.
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    It's fine if they have court issued warrants.

    But why should local law enforcement be required to get warrants, when our political leadership and the Republican base have made it clear that the Feds don't need them to spy on us?
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    JWindish said: "FBI had tried to get permission to monitor every cell phone, anywhere at anytime it chose, but was turned down."

    That is very disturbing. Sorta like those stories one hears about business class in Air France being bugged, with close cooperation between the French secret services and French industry.

    I wonder at the scale of the systems necessary for such monitoring. As it is, the monitoring of cell phones is done on the cell companies dime - as a favor to law enforcement (re: the Bush FISA business) - as it does not involve significant resources.

    Anyhow, re: ChrisWWW, it is fortunate for law enforcement -- though perhaps not for American citizens -- that the Democrats care more about scoring points on Bush and protecting journalists calling terrorist sources abroad . . . than about the everyday warrantless monitoring of Americans as they walk/drive down Main St. USA.
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    Not sure what you mean AR.
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    Chris -

    Ok, you have your cell phone with you, it is turned on, but you are not using it.

    The cell phone companies can activate the phone's microphone, and it will pick up any sounds within its range (granted for some phones, like flip-style phones, the range is limited).

    Those sounds, which include any nearby conversations, can be recorded using the phone company equipment. You will not see any indication that your phone is or was in use, on the phone itself or in any billing records.

    You can still place calls, and as soon as you do so, the monitoring switches to that call, obviously, then back to passive mode afterward.

    That is in addition to the same passive location capabilities Marlo first brought up. The net is they can know (to a certain degree, depending on clarity for the passive listening mode) who you were talking to, when the conversation took place (cause they can time-stamp the recording from the phone company's equipment timing clocks, which are insanely accurate), and where you were when the conversation took place.

    I miss anything you wondered about, or does that cover it?
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    I meant your political jab at the end, but that was enlightening too :-)
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    Think that is bad?

    You thought your annymous when surfing the internet or posting at the moderate voice or anywhere else for that matter.

    Check out this website. It is safe. No spyware or adware or computer hijacking that Im aware of.

    Scroll to the bottom and watch them identify you, where you live and a map of your home.

    http://www.auditmypc.com/anonymous-surfing.asp

    And you thought the government was bad about spying on you. The internet is about the most unsafe place in the world if you dont know what your doing.