Court says police can use GPS to track anyone

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: bobr () bobrosenberg phoenix az us
Date: May 11, 2009 2:23:12 PM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Court says police can use GPS to track anyone

Hi Dave

Perhaps for I.P.

Just in case you (mistakenly?) thought the 4th Amendment still  
exists....

Cheers,
Bob

--
Bob Rosenberg
P.O. Box 33023
Phoenix, AZ  85067-3023
Mobile:  602-206-2856
LandLine:  602-274-3012
bob () bobrosenberg phoenix az us



May 10, 2009 9:04 PM PDT
Court says police can use GPS to track anyone
by Chris Matyszczyk
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10237353-71.html?tag=nl.e703

I haven't managed to become dependent on GPS yet.

It seems to be quite fun when you're driving in strange areas of  
America. But I'm
not sure I want to hear a voice telling me where to go all the time.  
It's all a
little too, well, corporate for me. Or a little too like a 20-year-old  
marriage.

However, I was moved to virtual paralysis when I learned that an  
appeals court in
Wisconsin decided that police can stick a GPS-tracking device on  
anyone they want
without getting a search warrant. Even if that person is not suspected  
of anything
more than living, breathing and expectorating.

The Fourth District U.S. Court of Appeals doesn't seem terribly happy  
about its own
decision. However, the court decided, after much rumination, that GPS  
does not
involve searching and seizing.

Which means that any information gained by sticking a secret GPS- 
tracking device on
someone's car will only yield information that could have been gleaned  
through
normal visual surveillance.

Some might wonder, normal visual surveillance by whom? R2D2? Spiderman?

The decision stemmed from a case against Michael Sveum, a Madison  
resident who was
accused of stalking. In his case, police got a warrant to slip a GPS  
on his car.

Sveum argued that this contravened his Fourth Amendment rights, which  
protect him
against unreasonable search and seizure. His lawyers said that he was  
followed out
of the public view, in intimate places such as his garage.

The court begged to differ, declaring that an officer could have used  
his eyes to
see when Sveum entered and left his garage.

I don't know about you, but I'm a little disquieted about this.  
Imagine if you'd met
a nice person in a bar. Having spent some considerable overnight time  
with this
person, you discover that this person is the lover of a police officer.

This ruling seems to say that the officer can track your every  
movement by sticking
a GPS on your chassis with a view to sticking a haymaker on your chin.  
Yes, this
might sound a somewhat unlikely example. But surely you see the point.

Larry Dupuis, legal director of the ACLU in Wisconsin, does. He told  
the Chicago
Tribune: "The idea that you can go and attach anything you want to  
somebody else's
property without any court supervision, that's wrong. Without a  
warrant, they can do
this on anybody they want."

Even the appeals court itself is "more than a little troubled" by its  
own
misdirected thinking and suggested that lawmakers in Wisconsin  
regulate the use of
GPS by its officials.

I have a theory, however. I believe the court made this decision  
because it wants
the police to track every single movement taken by former Green Bay  
quarterback and
legendary mind-changing diva Brett Favre.

The Cheeseheads want to know whether he's staying retired or whether  
he's thinking
of unretiring yet again, don't they?


Chris Matyszczyk is an award-winning creative director who advises major
corporations on content creation and marketing. He brings an  
irreverent, sarcastic,
and sometimes ironic voice to the tech world. He is a member of the  
CNET Blog
Network and is not an employee of CNET.





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