ATS: Judge Rules Police Don't Need Warrant to Attach GPS Tracker to Car

There is pending legislation at the moment that will make the installation of a black box data recorder mandatory in every vehicle manufactured or imported into the US. The only protection of civil rights offered in that bill is that retailers will have to disclose the data recorders to a buyer.
We are talking about a very serious violation of your right to privacy, and I took my concerns to my Congressman Charles Taylor, and I expressed my concerns and posed the question as to who is actually sponsoring this legislation, law enforcement or insurance companies. Mr. Taylor, while he is a republican, has a pretty good track record of responding to the concerns of his constiuents, and he sent some information from NHTSA that I found useful, however he failed to really address the question as to who is behind this legislation. I would initially suspect that it derives as a mandate from insurance companies who could benefit by saving a buck, in other words you get into an accident and say you were doing the speed limit of 45mph, but your data recorder says you were doing 46mph, so you broke the law and your insurance doesn't pay dime one. That is the nice theory behind this legislation, but I suspect it not JUST the insurance companies behind it.
Seekerof, I may be wrong here, but my vehicle is private property regardless of what road I am on, the legal precedents in both common law and state law make this abundantly clear, and telling me I can now be monitored, tracked, and investigated without any probable cause or warrant issued from a court is sickening to me. While you seem to be fine and dandy with illegal search and seizure, alot of us are not. If they want to get off their ass and show some probable cause to a judge as to why someone should be tracked and monitored, then fine, get a warrant, show some shred of evidence, and install a system, but changing the laws here to violate a basic constitutional right to privacy at literally the very whim of a law enforcement agency is a disgrace. They can stick their warrantless, causeless, violation of our right to privacy and of our right to protect us from illegal search and seizure right up their collective arses.

Wow- what a deal.

I'm totally against this but it will happen.

Years back much thought was being given to magnetic strips and reporting devices. The costs were seen as being too heavy. Now with GPS technology as cheap as it is this is a piece of cake. Imagine being a P.I. and being paid just to download a data file.

Not too far in the future drug runners will be employing maskers. Laws will be enacted that if YOUR car is found with a disabled GPS you lose the car and go to jail as a - fait accompli criminal. After all, only a criminal would not want the (benevolent) government to always know where they are.

The upside will be easy tracking of robbers, stolen cars, etc.

By 2008 this, or something similar, will be in all new cars along with laws punishing those that defeat the devices.

marge6043 said:
And also some may even improvised to see what their teenage children are going.

This will be another excuse for the legislation- 'protect children.'

*edit maybe 2012

[edit on 14-1-2005 by JoeDoaks]

There was a much more lenghty story on this in my local paper today, however they only put a much shorter blurb on their website Hmm?

The Chicago Tribune gave it a better online representation, saying this


full story

My strongest argument is that no warrant is required. If someone is under investigation and a warrant is deemed appropriate by a judge then thats a different story, (the evolution of the criteria to define "suspect" is another thread) What I don't like about this is that the police themselves are making the decision who to track and they can be biased by any number of factors. That bias leads to the uneven application of the law, who is free to roam about and who's movements will be tracked in an attempt to find something criminal.

To me it is really no different from a warrantless phone tap, the potential for bias and outright abuse is just to high. Would a trip through the wrong side of town a gps'ed driver stopped and searched for drugs? At this point there is no regulation on the rule. Would a suspicious wife be allowed to track her husbands car to see if he had a mistress? what if she then uncovered evidence of an unrelated offence, would it be admissible?

Isn't the tracking involved very much like the stalking that this guy was accused of in the first place?

To those who point out the prevalence of OnStar and LoJack. Remember that these are options that the owner chooses, and usually pays for their service. Something which the owner is fully aware of, not something that was placed secretly under the cover of darkness.

As always I do not like the ever incroaching presence of big brother, and while I can see the proper application of a tactic like this, I think the potential for misuse outweighs any benefit.

The bright spot is bolded in the clipping, and I don't think that the fight is over on this, but I do think it will be upheld.

reply to post by Seekerof


Whilst technology can always have a good side, the bad side, even if it has only one flaw, could be so serious as to out-weigh any benefits.

You could argue all day about the benefits of a Big Brother society, but the rammifications of one are far greater than any protection they might appear to provide.

Just look at the UK - CCTV galore, and yet crime still continues, adn criminals still get away with it.

You're living in fantasy land.

This is awesome news...whats good for the geese is good for the gander right? Time to start tracking their cars with hidden cameras and gps units.

a gps tracker detector would be 100% legal for me to sell, but a scrambler would be illegal. if i sold a detector to a criminal being tracked and he found the gps device and put it on a public bus how funny would that be? to me very.

I believe most electronic devices that might be deemed "illegal" can be sold in a kit form. So long as it's not assembled it's only a hobby kit.

Any privacy minded citizen needs to protect themselves from reckless police abuse. Illegal wiretapping and accessing databases of personal information on innocent citizens is bad enough, and most cell phones can already be tracked by E911.

The police mentality is "we'll only use this on suspicious persons or criminals". But do you want to let this police mentality define who is a suspicious person? The feds are already releasing reports labeling everyone from returning vets to pro-lifers as potential terrorist threats.

Originally posted by ExPostFacto
This is awesome news...whats good for the geese is good for the gander right? Time to start tracking their cars with hidden cameras and gps units.

Simply brilliant.

The police are out in public on public roads and we could follow them around if we want - nothing illegal there right? So .... if someone puts a GPS tracker on a police car it's just the same as following them around - right? Isn't that the logic the judge is applying here?

Can you imagine what would happen to the poor smuck that put a GPS tracking device on a police cruzer and got caught?

This country is getting so messed up

Is there another planet I can move to?