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A Fight For Warrantless GPS Tracking

November 9th, 2011

US v. Jones began November 8^th, and this is a case that will decide the fate of warrantless GPS tracking. The case originated in Washington DC, and involved a drug dealer who was convicted for cocaine distribution. The conviction was made with help from a GPS device that was affixed to the dealer’s car. Police did not have a warrant when the GPS tracker was placed on the vehicle. However, the arrest was still made.

Those in favor of the use of GPS tracking devices by law enforcement feel that it is the only way to keep up with all of the nation’s criminals who are (with our deteriorating economy) increasing their activity. Shockingly, less than half of the nation’s criminals are actually prosecuted, and for nonviolent crimes the numbers are even lower (roughly one out of five).

Those in favor of warrantless tracking feel it is only fair to give the police and related authorities the upper hand. This is especially true given the fact that anyone with a smartphone, the right spyware, or a GPS tracking device can do the same thing. If citizens (and some of them even criminals) are able to use this technology, shouldn’t the police be allowed to do the same?

Opponents of warrantless GPS tracking claim that allowing authorities to track citizens with a warrant could lead to the tracking of all citizens at any given time — and for any reason. However, this claim isn’t realistic for one very good reason: the manpower to track an entire population (or large segments of the population) doesn’t exist. Attempting to do so would create additional work for authorities across the United States — a notion that is likely an unpopular one with most police officers.

The bottom line is this: if regular citizens can use technology to track others, why should these useful and accurate tools be taken away from police who are (in the end) attempting to protect populations? I believe that the average citizen would agree that tracking suspected criminals is a great way to help put the 53% of untouchable criminals where they belong — behind bars.

Article Written by Khristen Foss

Warrantless Tracking: An Opposing Stance

November 8th, 2011

November 7^th marks a historic moment in the GPS tracking device world. The US Supreme court is set to begin proceedings to determine whether or not law enforcement or a government agency must first obtain a warrant before placing a GPS device on a suspect’s car as part of an investigation.

Opponents of this concept believe it is against an individual’s Fourth Amendment protection from unreasonable search and seizure, and for good reason. If a warrant must be obtained to search a suspect’s property during an investigation, shouldn’t his whereabouts be treated in the same fashion?

Yes, it seems that the two circumstances are black and white, but really, it’s more the fact that we are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty. If a warrant isn’t required to slap a tracking device onto a suspect’s vehicle, it’s kind of like saying, “We think you are guilty, and we’re watching your every move waiting for our shot at catching you red-handed.”

Let’s go back and take a look at where this case originated, Washington DC. It stems from the trial of Antoine Jones, a case we’ve discussed here on the RMT blog before. To summarize, Jones was a cocaine dealer operating out of his night club, sentenced to life in prison for the charge of not only possessing cocaine, but distributing over 50 kilos of cocaine. Sounds like a great bust, until you look at the method of gathering evidence against Jones.

DC Authorities affixed a GPS tracking device to Jones’ vehicle after obtaining a warrant….wait, what? Yes, that’s right. Investigators were granted the opportunity to track Jones for 10 days, and that the device must be installed in DC and no other area. Strike 1: the device was installed after the 10 day time frame. Strike 2: it was installed in a Maryland parking lot. Strike 3: it wasn’t even Jones’ personal car, but that of his wife.

Norman Sadeh, computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University, paints us a frightening picture: “If the Supreme Court were to rule against warrants for GPS tracking, the state of Pennsylvania could, for example, decide tomorrow that all license plates would be issued with a GPS monitor.” Regardless of the actions of a criminal, it doesn’t give authorities the right to have access to every single aspect of their lives, right down to where they have their clothes dry-cleaned, or even where they attend counseling for a drug addiction problem.

In this author’s opinion, this isn’t a matter of whether or not authorities can track criminals. Rather, it is a matter of first obtaining a warrant in order to prove the likelihood of guilt. If Jones doesn’t win his case, it’s a step in the wrong direction for the privacy of citizens who live within the U.S. – the supposed land of the free where all citizens have the right to remain innocent until proven guilty.

Article Written by Khristen Foss

Facebook Privacy and Warrantless Tracking: Drawing Lines

October 26th, 2011

Richard Delgado stole the identities of 300,000 people. One victim related his identity theft story to a U.S. Postal Inspector. That inspector then tracked down Delgado by looking at Delgado’s Facebook page. The page contained a cell phone number, which the inspector then used to track Delgado’s whereabouts. After linking Delgado to a number of identity theft crimes, police arrested the California resident.

Some are up in arms about this use of GPS tracking while others believe that using GPS technology in this manner is necessary.

Facebook often comes under fire for its lack of privacy, but is this lack of privacy justified when information contained on someone’s Facebook page leads to a criminal’s arrest? In this specific case, the postal inspector who tracked down Delgado did not need to ask Facebook’s permission to access the page. Instead, Delgado listed his cell phone number in plain sight. In other cases, authorities have worked with social networks to find out certain details about suspected criminals.

On the flip side, banks, creditors, and other financial institutions often use Facebook (and other networks) to gain information about individuals. Recently, this type of “social snooping” has been outlawed, but that doesn’t mean that someone who wants to know about you isn’t taking a long and hard look at your Internet footsteps.

The public seems to be torn over the use of GPS tracking as well. In some instances, using GPS trackers to hunt down criminals is publicly approved. In other instances, the use of GPS tracking without a person’s consent (or proper search warrant) is frowned upon. At the time of this writing, no clear laws exist when it comes to tracking down suspected criminals, though it can be said that the 300,000 victims (mostly seniors) who Delgado targeted are happy that both Facebook and warrantless tracking exist.

Article Written by Harriette Halepis

Supreme Court to Decide Tracking’s Fate Next Month

October 7th, 2011

Next month, the Supreme Court will hear one of the most controversial cases of the last few years. The case will set a precedent for the legality of GPS tracking of suspects by law enforcement. The heart of the controversy lies with the privacy of United States citizens against the powers of government.

One one side of the fence, many people, including law enforcement claim that GPS tracking of suspects does not involve a breach of privacy, as there is no expectation of privacy when out in public. On the other side of the fence, people are concerned that without proper checks and balances, in the form of a warrant, it would be too easy for police to track any citizen for any reason. This does not sit very well with many citizens, including the ACLU.

“We don’t have a reasonable expectation of privacy when we are out on public streets,” said Anthony Barkow, New York University Law School’s director of the Center for the Administration of Criminal Law. “Police can do it without technology. This is just sexier because it is high tech.” Barkow is among the many who feel that there is no difference between police monitoring a suspect in their vehicle and monitoring suspects at their desk over a computer screen.

Federal appeals court Judge Douglas Ginsburg offers a distinction between following a person and using GPS tracking to monitor them. “The sequence of a person’s movements can reveal still more – a single trip to the gynecologist’s office tells little about a woman, but that trip followed a few weeks later by a visit to a baby supply store tells a different story,” wrote Judge Ginsburg, who was responsible for over-turning the ruling against Antoine Jones, the same case that is going to be heard by the Supreme Court.

Article Written by Marisa O’Connor

A First: Maryland District Court Denies Authorities Right to Track Citizen

August 30th, 2011

A Supreme Court decision regarding the legality of GPS tracking cannot come soon enough. Yet another controversial decision was made by a district judge in Maryland, when federal authorities were denied a warrant to locate a suspect using his cell phone’s GPS data. Because there have been no laws passed dictating proper use of GPS technology, the decisions have been left to individual courts. It’s not surprising that contradictory rulings have been made across the United States. Fortunately, the Supreme Court will rule on the legality of GPS tracking in their next term.

The latest case brought to Maryland’s district court involved a warrant request to use a suspect’s cell phone information to locate and bring him in to custody. The police had only the suspect’s phone number as a usable lead. Coincidentally, the phone number belonged to a phone equipped with GPS, and naturally, the authorities wanted the phone company to release the GPS data in order to track the suspect. However, U.S. District Judge Susan K. Gauvey denied the warrant request.

In order to get a warrant in Maryland, proof is needed that there is “a fair probability that contraband or evidence of a crime will be found in a particular place.” In this case, the warrant was requested “not to collect evidence of a crime, but solely to locate a charged defendant.” Although it is understandable that using GPS to track suspects “would appear reasonable, even commendable and efficient” to police, “this use of location data by law enforcement would appear chillingly invasive and unnecessary in the apprehension of defendants,” Judge Gauvey concluded.

The judge stresses that the court is not trying to get in the way of police’s apprehension of criminals, “but rather places them within the Constitutional and statutory framework which balances citizen’s rights of privacy against government’s protection of society. . . out of the government’s casual reach.” A system of checks and balances was established for a reason. Although it’s not perfect, Judge Gauvey’s decision plays an important role in protecting citizen’s rights from the increasing powers of government.

Article Written by Marisa O’Connor

Warrantless Tracking: Supreme Court to Decide

August 7th, 2011

This term, GPS tracking will come before the Supreme Court, who will hand down a decision regarding the legality of warrantless GPS tracking. The case regards Antoine Jones, who was arrested in 2005 with 97 kilos of cocaine in his possession. He was convicted of drug trafficking and later of drug conspiracy. Some of the evidence used by prosecutors included information collected over the course of a month from a GPS tracker.

When police fit a GPS tracker on a car, following a suspect becomes a whole lot easier than it was back in the old days. They can, in theory, sit back and relax while the computers do the work. The car’s location is transmitted from tracking device to satellites to a computer, where an officer or dispatcher can watch the car travel the map.

It saves tons of time and energy, greatly reduces the chance of losing track of a suspect, and provides concrete data to produce in court. Really, it’s not designed to allow officers to sit back and relax, but to allow them to do more of their job protecting the public.
But the rise of technology is often cause for a rise in debate. Warrants were never required for good old-fashioned eyesight surveillance. In 1983, the Supreme Court determined that a warrant was also not required for using a beeper, which transmitted a radio signal, to track a suspect – and that was also a drug-related case. But in the case of GPS, various states and federal courts have been in disagreement about how much to regulate its use by law enforcement.
The Supreme Court has previously ruled that a warrant is not required for surveillance of a single trip. In Jones’ case, a federal judge granted a warrant for the GPS tracker if it was installed in Washington, D.C. within ten days, but it was installed in Maryland on the eleventh day. Jones’ defense argued that the FBI did not follow the conditions of the warrant. The US Court of Appeals in D.C. determined the length of the surveillance to be significantly more intrusive than the single trip allowance.
Clearly, the debate is complicated and has many facets to be examined. The Supreme Court has narrowed their current look to one question: do law enforcement officials need a warrant to use GPS tracking? That is the question the prosecution and defense must prepare their arguments about this time around.

Article Written by Kadence Vyra

Vermont ACLU Fights Warrantless GPS Tracking

July 27th, 2011

After the Vermont ACLU unsuccessfully attempted to obtain information pertaining to whether or not law enforcement was tracking citizens using the GPS on their cell phones, Rep. Peter Welch announced he would fight to pass a bill laying out ground rules for this practice.

The Geolocation, Privacy and Security Act will cover not only law enforcement, but private companies as well. The act will keep companies from taking information from citizens without their knowledge, making consent mandatory. It will also force authorities to obtain a warrant before they can begin tracking anyone using a GPS device. This bill is very similar to the bill discussed in a previous article, introduced by Sen. Patryk Leahy (also from VT).

The VT ACLU filed a complaint against the office of the Attorney General when it was discovered that the Attorney General granted police permission to track private citizens via cell phone. Police use GPS coordinates taken from a suspect’s cell phone to determine the whereabouts of a person at all times.

VT ACLU Executive Director, Allen Gilbert, recently told press that he believes the whole process of law enforcement obtaining secret information is no just. Gilbert went on to state that a warrant should be obtained prior to tracking a person. Gilbert commented that “it’s difficult to know what standards, if any, have to be met in order for law enforcement to get information through this process.” For Gilbert and the VT ACLU, tracking a person without obtaining a warrant is a violation of the Fourth Amendment.

Gilbert says it best: “The right to be left alone by government and for government to follow the law when it wants information about us and get a warrant, it’s just fundamental to our American DNA.”

Article Written by Khristen Foss

Are You For or Against Warrantless GPS Tracking?

July 13th, 2011

With the United States Supreme Court ready to rule on the legal limits of warrantless GPS tracking, many stories are popping up all over the internet, voicing different sides of the argument. GPS technology is very advanced, and it can no doubt aid police in bringing criminals to justice. The real question lies with who is best qualified to determine whether or not GPS tracking is warranted.

On one side of the fence, the argument is that GPS tracking is not so different from routine surveillance. Currently, it is perfectly legal for police to follow subjects on foot or in a vehicle in order to gain evidence. The Supreme Court actually set a precedence for this argument, in 1983.

The question, back then, was regarding a similar tracking technology, using radio frequency. Police would plant radio-based tracking devices on suspect’s property, to use to gather evidence against them.

At that time, the court decided, “Nothing in the Fourth Amendment prohibited the police from augmenting their sensory faculties with such enhancement as science and technology afforded them in this case.”

Others have argued, with success in the Court of Appeals, that GPS tracking crosses the boundary of citizen’s reasonable right to privacy, as dictated by the Fourth Amendment.

When criminal or suspect activity is committed in public, there is no reasonable right to privacy, which is why police don’t need a warrant to use their eyes to track suspects in public. Law enforcement does, however, need a warrant when they wish to continue a search, passed what their eyes can see. Entering a residence or a locked trunk, to look for evidence, requires a warrant from a judge.

Police augmenting their sensory faculties, by opening locked doors, is considered an invasion of privacy without reasonable cause or a warrant. The ACLU, and quite a few defense attorneys agree, if the evidence cannot be collected with the eyes and ears of the officer, it requires approval from a judge. The Supreme Court Judges will make their decision in the coming months, on whether or not a warrant is required for GPS tracking.

Article Written by Marisa O’Connor

GPS Tracking: Warrant Needed?

July 12th, 2011

Americans are protected from unreasonable search and seizure by the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. New technology requires that the courts reevaluate modern applications of that amendment. One possible issue is the use of GPS tracking by law enforcement officials. On some occasions, police or other law enforcement departments have used GPS transmitters to locate and track persons of interest. This use of GPS tracking has become the subject of controversial court decisions.

This controversial practice relies on the use of a transmitter that sends a signal, allowing law enforcement to track the transmitter’s location using global positioning satellites. Law enforcement uses similar technology to track the location of sex offenders by using an ankle bracelet to hold the transmitter. Sex offenders know they’re being tracked for the safety of the public, but vehicle tracking is often done without the suspect’s knowledge, making it controversial.

On one hand, state courts have usually been ruling that such tracking with GPS transmitters is illegal. Because the tracking is done without the knowledge of the person of interest, it can be considered to be unreasonable search and seizure.

On the other hand, most federal courts have ruled that using GPS tracking is legal and does not violate the Fourth Amendment. However, in a case in DC, the federal court ruled that long-term tracking was not legal. This case has been appealed and will likely reach the Supreme Court soon.

One recent case involving GPS transmitter tracking has come to national attention. Yasir Afifi, a 20-year-old Egyptian-American, brought a suit against the FBI when a mechanic discovered a GPS tracking device installed under Afifi’s car. While FBI officials have admitted to installing the tracker without Afifi’s knowledge, they have not yet released a reason why.

Afifi’s suit claimed that he had not done anything to merit FBI attention.

It also demanded that the FBI destroy the surveillance records regarding Afifi, but they also refused to do that. Responding to Afifi’s suit, the U.S. Justice Department claims that because Afifi was not harmed in any way by the surveillance. The Justice Department also claims that the FBI director and the Attorney General are not liable to such lawsuits.

The debate about law enforcement using GPS tracking to locate persons of interest may soon be over. Once the recent appeal has been heard and decided by the U.S. Supreme Court, that will set a precedent for other courts in America to follow.

Article Written by Kadence Vyra

Warrantless GPS Tracking: A Fine Line

July 10th, 2011

If you watch the news or read a paper, you will note the increase in stories of law enforcement and even corporations that can follow anyone’s move at any time using secret surveillance methods, including GPS tracking. Recently, RMT featured an article about warrantless tracking – the fate of which will be decided in the US Supreme Court soon.

Americans have a lot less privacy than we think. Although we once boasted our ability as a nation to have a certain level of personal freedom, that day has, seemingly, passed.

For fun, let’s dip into the American history of privacy for a moment (if you will). The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) was passed in 1978. This gave authorities a certain amount of surveillance power over suspicious Americans (mostly during the “War on Drugs”).

Back in the 1990′s, The Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) was passed. This forced any telecommunications company (manufacturer or carrier) to build surveillance technology into the equipment directly, making it even easier for law enforcement to listen in on conversations.

The fiercely debated Patriot Act amended FISA in 2001, and this Act gives authorities the right to wiretap without restriction. Authorities are not required to say who or why, or even how, they are wiretapping. Furthermore, the suspected citizen does not have to be a terrorist or drug dealer. A citizen need only be a “person of interest.”

These loose laws are passed every day while most Americans are oblivious to various amendments. In this author’s opinion, it’s time for Americans to pay attention to the goings-on of Capitol Hill. With the rate technology is progressing, it’s only a matter of time before we are all being watched in some way, shape, or form. Or, maybe we already are.

Article Written by Khristen Foss