Massachusetts Police Can't Place GPS On Autos Without Warrant 194
pickens writes "The EFF reports that the Supreme Court of Massachusetts has held in Commonwealth v. Connolly that police may not place GPS tracking devices on cars without first getting a warrant, reasoning that the installation of the GPS device was a seizure of the suspect's vehicle. Search and seizure is a legal procedure used in many civil law and common law legal systems whereby police or other authorities and their agents, who suspect that a crime has been committed, do a search of a person's property and confiscate any relevant evidence to the crime. According to the decision, 'when an electronic surveillance device is installed in a motor vehicle, be it a beeper, radio transmitter, or GPS device, the government's control and use of the defendant's vehicle to track its movements interferes with the defendant's interest in the vehicle notwithstanding that he maintains possession of it.' Although the case only protects drivers in Massachusetts, another recent state court case, People v. Weaver in the State of New York, also held that because modern GPS devices are far more powerful than beepers, police must get a warrant to use the trackers, even on cars and people traveling the public roads."
What is very sad (Score:5, Insightful)
is that there had to be a case where the Police overstepped their authority, and did this without a warrant, before this question of law could be settled.
That's a definite flaw in our legal system: someone has to be abused (at least) once before the courts can rule.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It's only good that they need to get it. What's the problem anyway - if it's justified to put a GPS tracking device in the car, they get the warrant. This decreases the abuse from police where they would use those device's without a good reason.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Actually, I would have thought that the Fourth Amendment makes it somewhat doubtful that this can be done to a U.S. citizen at all. It states that:
The specificity requirement would
Re: (Score:2)
You can describe a place without stating the location or address.
For example, if you think someone was the bank robber you're looking for, and hide the money, you can describe the place as 'the place the money is hidden'. That is what the warrant is trying to find.
It's essentially the same as how they do normal search warrants...they don't have to specify, for example, which murder weapon they're going to be looking for and seize. They just say they're looking for anything connected with that specific mur
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Maybe this varies by state, but as someone who works in a 'related field' I can tell you this is wrong in several states, at least. Warrants are required to be very specific when it comes to which house is to be searched. I've seen cases where that meant a street address, and cases where that involved a detailed description of the house itself: Second house on x street from y street, with off-white paint and pale blue shutters.
I saw an example like the one above result in a failed raid, because the house in
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm pretty sure that even when the Bill of Rights was written, courts would have considered a vehicle (say, a carriage or boat) to be a "place to be searched" for the purposes of issuing a warrant. Even if the vehicle is in motion, "Bob's carriage" or "the good ship Lollipop" describes a particular place to be searched.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Well... given that roving wiretaps are so controversial in the Patriot Act, I'm not convinced of this. A lot of people seem to think otherwise!
Re: (Score:2)
Well... given that roving wiretaps are so controversial in the Patriot Act, I'm not convinced of this. A lot of people seem to think otherwise!
You are joking, right?
The wiretaps are roving, not the phones being tapped.
The roving wiretaps are not affixed to any physical place at all. In no way, shape or form could one reasonably argue that the pay phone at the shopping mall and the phone in my house 50 miles away are the same place.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
A roving wiretap indeed follows the target, who moves from location to location.
A roving wiretap does not follow the target.
The term "roving wiretap" is shorthand for a set of individual taps on multiple phones in series in an attempt to tap whatever phone the target is using at that point in time without a warrant specifically naming which phones will be tapped.
Comparing that to the gps tracker on a single car is misguided, a more correct analogy would be the emplacement and removal of gps trackers on any vehicle the target uses as he boards and disembarks each vehicle.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
What is very sad is that so many illiterates have logged into slashdot today. I've been ignoring it all day, damn it, but I've got the flu and I'm cranky. Are you in the second grade or something?
This decreases the abuse from police where they would use those device's without a good reason.
Soppsa (and the other illiterates here), meet Bob. [angryflower.com] Terry Pratchett also had fun with you bozos in Going Postal, which I'm about to do today. Please explain why you think that apostrophe belongs there? It's annoying as hel
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Why is that sad? You expected the people who made the laws 100 years ago to predict the existence of a satellite-based global positioning system with modules small enough to be placed on a vehicle to track it anywhere on the planet? THOSE MORONS!
Note how the judge had to classify that "seizure" to ban it. If you need a new law, why not write a new law?
Re:What is very sad (Score:5, Insightful)
Judges are forced to do stuff like that, because the lazy legislators are not doing their job. As soon as this case hit the news, the legislators should have been passing laws or constitutional amendments that stated, "The People's movements shall not be tracked except when a warrant is issued by a judge."
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Why should we have laws for new shit that nobody's thought before.
The government should be on a "DENY ALL, ALLOW FOO" type policy for ALL actions. If the government wants to do something "new" they should get permission before they do it. PERIOD.
In this case, the police should have had a policy for GPS tracking devices in place BEFORE the first one was deployed. Strict guidelines on when, how, and why they are used.
This is the problem with the shoot first, ask questions later mentality we tend to have in ou
Re: (Score:2)
Politicians by and large don't stand up for what's right because if they did, they'd get voted out of office by the mouth-breathing, uninformed "think of the children!" twits that are unfortunately a majority of voters.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
If the ruling went the other way it would be great, that the police saved time thier & courts getting warrants and spent more time stopping crime!
I think GP was looking for a way for people to make the area of the law well defined instead of pushing it and finding out what happened (often letting criminals go free, if they were wrong)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You misunderstood the GP's post. He's expressing dismay that someone must overstep the mark, as ambiguous as it is, before proceedings can be brought and a judge can rule on whether the defendant acted unlawfully. What he's suggesting is that there ought to be a way for either the police, an independent body or perhaps an individual to identify ambiguous areas of law, that exist because of a changing world or otherwise, and seek clarification from a judge as to how the law should be interpreted.
Whether this
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Isn't that exactly what declaratory judgment [wikipedia.org] is supposed to be?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Whether this is in fact impossible under the current system, or whether his proposal would be unworkable, I could not say.
I believe that one must have "standing" in order to bring suit and without a real or at least expected infringement on oneself, one does not have standing and will be dismissed. I don't think anyone is going to try to claim, "I commit crimes, so sooner or later the cops might try to track me" and "I'm a law-abiding citizen, so sooner or later the cops might try to track me" isn't plausible enough, yet, in this society...
Re: (Score:2)
Read the post that you're replying to, troll. He expected the people who made the laws 200 years ago to know that governments sometimes enact laws that conflict with their constitution, and therefore there should be a way to challenge new laws before a specific victim exists.
Re: (Score:2)
"That's a definite flaw in our legal system: someone has to be abused (at least) once before the courts can rule."
The judges are lazy! Sounds like living in legal Haskell...
Re: (Score:2)
re: definite flaw (Score:2)
Do you realize that is the same dynamic at work in our free-market economic system? People have to get repeatedly abused by the system (e.g. corporations) before adjustments are made to stop the abuse (usually in the form of kludges rather than real solutions, but that's another discussion). I'm not saying that's the way it should be, merely that this is the way it is. This is DEscriptive, th
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually there are a lot of laws in place to protect citizens from abuse by corporations, but many people don't avail themselves of those laws (typically due to ignorance). For example I saw a story on local tv about a guy who purchased some vitamins for a "trail bottle" of only $2. But the company charged him the full $99 instead. Then they send him another bottle for another $99. And another. And another. He stopped the automatic shipment, but the company refused to refund the money for the other b
Re: (Score:2)
Those laws were themselves originally knee-jerks. Follow the money.
Re: (Score:2)
Not that the system doesn't have it's flaws, but adaptability isn't one of them.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't think it's a flaw that our system can adapt to new situations. Do you want to be the person who's locked away in a room writing new laws for millions of things that "could" happen? Not that the system doesn't have it's flaws, but adaptability isn't one of them.
I'm sorry but that's just silly. Do you really need a "person who's locked away in a room writing new laws for millions of things" before you can decide that hey, maybe we don't want the police to plant electronic devices on your property to track your every location at all times without a good reason, and that maybe getting a warrant is the standard way to show that there is a good reason? Seriously, how much foresight does that take?
... Who has ever read the 4th Amendment and thinks t
For that matter
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Great, common sense wins for once. If the cops really need to track someone, they can still do so. It only takes a short period of time to ask a judge to sign a warrant. If a judge isn't willing to sign the warrant, then the cops have no case, simple as that. Lazy cops who would rather rely on technology instead of "police work" have no business being a cop.
Re: (Score:2)
Great, common sense wins for once. If the cops really need to track someone, they can still do so. It only takes a short period of time to ask a judge to sign a warrant. If a judge isn't willing to sign the warrant, then the cops have no case, simple as that. Lazy cops who would rather rely on technology instead of "police work" have no business being a cop.
And most of the time, judges will grant retroactive warrants. If time is an issue, you can plant the tracking device when you find that you have the opportunity to get to the suspect's car at 10:00 a.m., then go to the court after lunch to get the warrant for it. The ease of getting a warrant is what bothers me the most about doing anything without one.
Re: (Score:2)
Err... That's the way the courts act. They don't make laws, they figure out how existing laws apply to new classes of situations.
The basic problem is that there is no right of information privacy in US law. In fact, the common law right of privacy didn't exist until Louis Brandeis wrote his famous law review article, and even *that* varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.
Way back in 1973, HUD under Elliot Richardson undertook a study on the privacy effects of this new information technology. It was ver
Re: (Score:2)
Someone better tell Spiderman... He's been doing this for ages
Re: (Score:2)
Re:What is very sad (Score:4, Informative)
In America, though, nothing stopped the state legislators from passing a law explicitly saying that police may not surreptitiously place a tracker on a car before getting a warrant. They could have done that long before any police officer got it in their head to overstep their boundary.
But of course, they were---especially in Massachusetts---too busy taxing and spending their constituent's money to devote any time to protecting their fundamental rights. But make no mistake. It is not the system that has failed, it's the legislators that the people of Massachusetts elected that have failed.
Nice troll. The law does specifically require a warrant [slashdot.org]. I'm rather upset that the police thought they could get away with it and wanted to test it. Just get the damn warrant! If your suspicions are sound you should be able to get it!
The ability of judges to relatively freely interpret laws as written is one of the checks and and balances in the system that has always amazed me. On one hand, it protects the people against bad laws. On the other it opens another avenue for abuse. I think it's better overall, but you end up with a very muddled law system.
This may be a bit out there, but I feel like the judiciary is a bit "unfinished". I think there needs to be better way for the judicial branch to recommend removal of and changes to laws to the legislative branch. Not force those recommendations mind you, just improve the process of refining laws.
Re: (Score:2)
Also I apologize for calling you a troll. It would be easy to assume the worst with these kinds of laws, especially given the headline and the types of laws and rulings that usually make their way to
Re: (Score:2)
If politicians had to listen to all hypotheticals, including all the batshit insane ones, they'd never find time to deal with reality. If it hasn't happened once in the entire history of the courts, it's probably not worth piling another law on top of an extremely long list already to deal with it unless it's a major new principle.
Free to drive (Score:3, Funny)
You are now free to drive around the Commonwealth.
With apologies to Southwest Airlines.
TERRORISM!! (Score:4, Insightful)
There are terrorists, pedophiles and drug dealers out there. Any arguments for civil liberties and the rule of law are automatically invalid!
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
First they came for the bomb-making kiddie-loving drug-dealers ....
Re: (Score:2)
Re:TERRORISM!! (Score:4, Interesting)
silly rabbit. Civil liberties are not for kids.
Really. Just take one look at the average school board handing out restrictions left and right to children.
Thou shalt wear the uniform approved by the state, thou shalt not disrupt class by having the wrong color hair.
Thou shalt not express wear the any symbol of a faith other than our own (crosses are ok, pentagrams, jewish and islamic symbols are not).
Thou shalt not question our authority to suppress you beneath our jack booted thugs.
Thou shalt not have tattoos or piercings, thou shalt not be gay, etc.
Children have no rights and no real representation, yet when they do work they are taxed, when they spend money they are taxed (in locations with sales tax).
Yet they can not vote, nor can they legally protest. This bothered me when I was young, and it still bothers me now that I am old.
Unfortunately I have no answers, no solutions.
Allowing young workers and buyers to go tax free would inevitably be exploited.
Allowing the vote is not a good idea due to their lack of knowledge and critical thinking (though the same could be said for many adults).
Right against self-incrimination (Score:3, Interesting)
You cannot be forced to provide testimony or evidence against yourself. By tracking your vehicle, the state is forcing you to disclose your location at all times against your will, which is also a violation of the 5th.
This is the same reason why you cannot be forced to reveal the encryption keys on your computer by your own will.
Re:Right against self-incrimination (Score:4, Insightful)
That doesn't sound right; by that logic wiretapping would never be allowed because the defendant may incriminate himself against his will.
Re: (Score:2)
The point of the story is that now you need a warrant to put in a GPS unit.
Plus it is managed by the phone company who has a legal obligation to remove the tap if the warrant expires.
Not necessarily true, you can tap a phone with a device that transmits directly to the police via radio waves.
Plus, how do they know the person driving the vehicle is the person they are tracking?
When the phone is first answered you don't know who picked it
Re: (Score:2)
You can't be required to self-incriminate yourself with a warrant, either, you loon. Your entire analogy is stupid...you aren't disclosing your location, a police device is.
It's like arguing that mug shots are self-incrimination, because 'you' are disclosing what you look like. No, you look like something, and you are at a specific location, either of which anyone can plainly see, and the police have recorded those things as evidence.
Now, the courts have held that tracking you in secret is like tape recor
Re: (Score:2)
This is the same reason why you cannot be forced to reveal the encryption keys on your computer by your own will.
Yes, but would you really want to put it to the test? http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/07/15/120220 [slashdot.org]. That guy is still in jail to this day.
Re:Right against self-incrimination (Score:4, Insightful)
What nonsense. You can refuse answering questions or giving evidence, but the police can observe your actions without warrant where possible and with warrant where necessary. If that reveals your crimes that's fair game, the 5th amendment doesn't apply unless you've been asked or instructed to provide something. It is then your right to refuse.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I like your interpretation better, unfortunately that's not the common interpretation. People are required to turn over evidence against themselves all the time. Evidence of where you have been, what you did/said/bought is all fair game (with just cause.) Heck if you recorded yourself, and the prosecutor hears about it you can be forced to turn that over. Your not even allowed to destroy it if you know it is evidence in a on going case. You are not required to tell anyone about the GPS/tapes/purchases.
Re: (Score:2)
By tracking your vehicle, the state is forcing you to disclose your location at all times against your will, which is also a violation of the 5th.
There are two ways the state can track your vehicle, resulting in the 'disclosure of your location at all times against your will' -
1) Surreptitiously follow you around, photographing where you're going and taking notes. This is how it was done previously, and didn't require a warrant. Often subjects would be tracked night and day, without their knowledge.
Bait cars? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Bait cars? (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no expectation of privacy or security in a stolen vehicle. In fact, there is an expectation of seizure.
Re: (Score:2)
In fact, there is an expectation of seizure.
Does this mean, if you're driving a stolen car, and they don't seize it, and they don't have a warrant not to seize it, you can sue them for violating your civil rights? ;)
I laugh, but actually police probably do need some sort of court-ordered justification (It probably wouldn't be called a 'warrant'.) to let a non-owner drive off in a stolen car if they, for some reason, wanted to do that.
Re: (Score:2)
The police do not 'seize' people, they arrest them.
And do not need a search warrant to do so.
Would this kill Oregon's GPS mileage tax? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Why would a ruling by the Supreme Court of Maine affect anything in Oregon?
Maine and Massachusetts have been separate states for almost 200 years.
Any other alternative to the high speed chase? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
I agree as long as the police to it legally. They present their evidence for reasonable suspicion of a suspect to a judge. The judge issues a warrant allowing the police to tamper with the car owner's property by installing the GPS tracking device.
Re: (Score:2)
Why would a judge issue a warrant without proof? Unless there is proof that the "suspect" committed a crime there are plenty of judges that will not issue a warrant based on "suspicion" or even "probable cause". In areas where judges are elected many judges are rightfully concerned that they might not get elected if they approve police requests for warrants. Criminals vote too, you know.
From what I have heard, it is a continue battle between prosecutors (who get the warrants), the police (who want them t
A Follow-up Question (Score:3, Funny)
How about the reverse? Can we put GPS trackers on cop cars? I really want to replicate the video game minimap experience with a GPS dash unit.
fishing expeditions (Score:5, Informative)
Suppose the technology becomes so cheap that a hundred thousand motorists can be tracked by GPS in any given city, much less any given state. Why wouldn't the police want to deploy every available tracking device in a fishing expedition, even if no suspicion of wrong-doing guides their choice of who to track? The odds are that eventually someone innocent will be in the wrong place at an inauspicious time. I wouldn't want to be that person, then have to explain how "opportunity" is irrelevant, especially if there is any vaguely tenable argument for the presence of means and motive.
Let them get warrants. Let there be some oversight. The technology hasn't been banned. Presumption of innocence shouldn't begin in the courtroom.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Why bother when you can already do this with cameras [infowars.com]?
Sorry Spidey... (Score:2, Funny)
...all those criminals you tracked with your spider trackers are now being released from prison. You unconstitutional hack you...
C'mon, someone HAD to say it.
[and please note: I am VERY glad for this ruling]
Why not get a warrent? (Score:4, Interesting)
Why should the police be worried about getting a warrent? It is not as if officers are walking around with GPS devices to plant on suspects they suddenly see. No, these are planned operations with justification. Then why not get a warrent?
Police should not be wasting public resources nor possessing and exercising excessive discretion in "following hunches". Get the warrent. Its' easy.
How is the GPS installation physically done? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Car is parked on public street, and cop does indeed clip/tape the gps on. Cop could not enter private property i.e. garage to do that. If you removed the gps unit after a warrant you could be charged with damage to police property. Assuming that you didn't "damage" it I'm sure you'd be charged with something but it would be a tough sell.
Re:How is the GPS installation physically done? (Score:4, Informative)
What if you see them putting the GPS on your car, after they have obtained a warrant? Are you allowed to take it off?
Yes, you can take off the device, just like you could take off any other part of your car. You can probably even destroy it if you want.
There's actually a guy who discovered a tracker, destroyed it, was arrested by the police for destroying their property, and he won, but an important part of the case was that there was no identifying mark on the tracker identifying it as police property.
They knew he knew it was a police tracker, but could not prove it. (And he, of course, didn't have to testify if he did or not.) Hence, legally, he could do whatever he wanted to it, just like he could to any other part of his car.
So, unless they've started labeling them 'property of the police', you can destroy them if you want, or just claim ownership of them. I mean, as far as you know, it's just some part of your car. They have to prove you knew it was owned by someone else.
If it is labeled as owned by someone else, it is legally 'mislaid property', which is when the owner put something somewhere on purpose and didn't come back to get it. (As opposed to, for example, dropping it, which is 'lost property'.)
You are required to turn 'mislaid property' over the owner of the premise it's found on. Aka, the owner of the car. After which, the owner of the car has to keep it for a specific amount of time in case the person comes back to claim it. If the owner does not come back to claim it in a specific amount of time, the car owner now legally owns it.
See your state laws for your requirements, and if you have any obligation to attempt to find the owner, or notify the police. (Hilariously, if you are required to notify the local police, some police departments are so discombobulated you could probably notify the people in charge of keeping track of lost property you'd found some GPS tracker owned by 'the police', and that would never get forward to anyone who would actually claim it.)
But, regardless of whether you know it's owned by someone else, and what the laws say about mislaid property, you can certainly remove it. It's your car, you can unattach anything from it you want. (Although you'll get a ticket if you remove headlights or mufflers or whatever and then attempt to operate it on a public road.;)
But now there are a lot of people flabberghasted I'd be saying this about official police stuff. Well, legally, once you know about a warrant, you can't interfere with it, so if you knew the police had installed it on your car as part of a legal search, you couldn't remove it.
But this requires them actually informing you of the warrant, which they obviously don't do for secret tracking. Otherwise, the law allows you to assume they absentmindedly installed a GPS tracker in your car while peering under your car, and forgot to pick it up when they stood up.
I've always wondered, actually... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Ideally, here in Boston/Cambridge one finds it, realizes what it is, glues a VERY strong magnet to it, and then, affixes the GPS unit to one of the Green/Red/Orange Line subway cars or buses when next to it at a stop light/or as a passenger.
Hilarity ensues.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Or find the bar that the cops park behind while on duty and stick it to one of their bumpers.
Watch them:
Strange ruling (Score:2)
Why is this not covered by wiretap laws and recording laws? The GPS device is recording information about you and sending it to someone else.
But the dude was still busted, and conviction held (Score:3, Informative)
Re:And the point goes to the criminals (Score:5, Funny)
Gojira, too.
Re:And the point goes to the criminals (Score:5, Insightful)
So you think it's okay to just put GPS tracking devices in each person? The device would do nothing more than automate following each everywhere. The device could be put it at birth and the owner may never had any knowledge of it.
Stuff like this would make it real easy to round up those people who don't quite agree with the current government.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Neither is this a matter of illegal search and seizure, as the movements of a car can be tracked directly by having a car follow it everywhere. The tracking device does nothing more than make this an automated task.
You're wrong. If the cops are following someone's car--on suspician, no one is in imminent danger and they are not aware of a specific crime having been committed--and then the car goes onto private property (say, a large estate with miles of road on it), the police can't keep following the vehicle without either a warrant or probable cause. If they put a GPS tag on the vehicle, they can track it wherever it goes, public or private. This constitutes an illegal invasion of private property.
Suppose that Lo
Re:And the point goes to the criminals (Score:5, Insightful)
Precisely. For example, it's clear that a concealed spy camera, placed discretely in people's living rooms or bedrooms can have no effect on their normal behavior or use of these rooms. So, it's clear that no one should need warrants to install such devices. To enforce such a debilitating requirement would give "empower" criminal citizens to do as they please within the privacy of their own homes. Clearly, an unjust and unfair outcome.
APS (Score:4, Funny)
I volunteer you to be the first to have a GPS shoved up your ass.
Re:And the point goes to the criminals (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:And the point goes to the criminals (Score:4, Insightful)
Neither is this a matter of illegal search and seizure, as the movements of a car can be tracked directly by having a car follow it everywhere. The tracking device does nothing more than make this an automated task.
You cannot follow them onto private property without some type of warrant. It's not the same.
This type of weakening of police powers
It's not weakening anything. It's a clarification of the boundaries. They shouldn't have been able to do it to start with.
By skirting the very edges of the law
Then change the law. Don't legislate from the bench.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
He's trolling...well, more subtle than trolling, he just likes to be so tongue in cheek that you're never sure if he's serious. You have to look at other posts of his to realize he's just trying to get a rise out of people.
Re: (Score:2)
You cannot follow them onto private property without some type of warrant. It's not the same.
Couldn't all data collected on private land require a warrant to be admissible in court? I mean I see your point, but it seams like this ruling will just result in wasting of police time following people round when a GPS tracker could do that for them, limiting the effectiveness of the automated gadget to that of the manual method would achieve the same thing. While a car would not be able to track them, what would the legal standing of a helicopter or UAV following them on private property be?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
And, just as important, you can actually observe people following you in cars.
It's like audio recordings. The police can follow you around in public and listen to what you say, and write it down. (And I'd argue they should even be able to record what they can personally hear, but that's neither here nor there.)
This is because you have no expectation of privacy from someone when they're standing close enough to hear you!
They cannot, however, stand across a public park and point a directional mic at you wi
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Then change the law. Don't legislate from the bench.
I've heard this phrase, but it doesn't really parse for me. The job of judges is to interpret law. That's not "legislating from the bench"; that's their job. Also it's one of those pesky checks and balances on the legislative branch for when a law is too vague(even though it wasn't actually vague in this case).
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I agree! Also, we should be able, without warrant, to put trackers on all police cars, and local, State and Federal legislators'. And yours.
It's OK; if you don't commit any crimes - or go near any, or have your vehicle stolen or borrowed, or are accidentally misidentified through a flaw in the flawless system - then you have nothing whatever to worry about.
Fair enough?
Re: (Score:2)
The court did NOT rule that it interfered with the owners use of the vehicle as you claim.
The ruling is that the police tampering with the vehicle interferes with the owner's interest in the vehicle. In my opinion, this makes perfect sense because any interference with the owners interests in the property lessens the owners degree of ownership (control) of the property. It is in fact a partial seizure of that property.
Logically and from what I've read of the ruling so far, the fact that this case involved
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, unless there is a law allowing it.
Of course, good luck arguing about it in court unless you are rich and get a particularly good judge.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
>>>>>This type of weakening of police powers... groups like Yakuza
As scary as those types of groups (like KKK) may be, the group called "the police" are FAR scarier. Just check out these videos for yourself:
- unlawful search of innocent driver http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2ZV_kQh048 [youtube.com]
- unlawful arrest of Professor Gates http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n15KsSLQhBg [youtube.com]
- eating of an innocent pastor by police. His story http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUzd7G875Hc [youtube.com]
- Actual video of beatin
Re: (Score:2)
This is where you police state people go wrong. We are not talking about criminals here; we're talking about allegedly suspected criminals.
This does do something other than empower criminals: it empowers non-criminals. It empowers you.
This type of weakening of police powers is precisely why American citizens can look
Re: (Score:2)
They don't need a warrant to track you, they can just follow you the low-tech way, this ruling just results in more police time being wasted tailing suspects!
Re: (Score:2)
this ruling just results in more police time being wasted tailing suspects!
That's ok, they seem to have copious amounts of time to waste to catch a few speeders.
Re: (Score:2)
There seem to be two definitions of "criminal" here.
The definition that the police would like to use is "someone who committed a crime".
The definition that some people would like to use is "someone convicted of a crime".
I'd say the first is more accurate, with "convicted criminal" applying after the trial. With the second definition there is no need for police because there can be no criminals until they are sucaessfully prosecuted. You might find that difficult using the second definition. Judges do not