Law enforcement officers may secretly place a GPS device on a person's car without seeking a warrant from a judge, according to a recent federal appeals court ruling in California.
Drug Enforcement Administration agents in Oregon in 2007 surreptitiously attached a GPS to the silver Jeep owned by Juan Pineda-Moreno, whom they suspected of growing marijuana, according to court papers.
When Pineda-Moreno was arrested and charged, one piece of evidence was the GPS data, including the longitude and latitude of where the Jeep was driven, and how long it stayed. Prosecutors asserted the Jeep had been driven several times to remote rural locations where agents discovered marijuana being grown, court documents show.
Pineda-Moreno eventually pleaded guilty to conspiracy to grow marijuana, and is serving a 51-month sentence, according to his lawyer.
But he appealed on the grounds that sneaking onto a person's driveway and secretly tracking their car violates a person's reasonable expectation of privacy.
"They went onto the property several times in the middle of the night without his knowledge and without his permission," said his lawyer, Harrison Latto.
The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the appeal twice -- in January of this year by a three-judge panel, and then again by the full court earlier this month. The judges who affirmed Pineda-Moreno's conviction did so without comment.
Latto says the Ninth Circuit decision means law enforcement can place trackers on cars, without seeking a court's permission, in the nine western states the California-based circuit covers.
This is simply nuts. If the police have justified suspicions about the possible criminal activities of an individual why shouldn't they have to go before a judge before being able to place a surveillance device? Our Constitutional protection against unreasonable searches was put in place to deny exactly the type of "fishing expeditions" the 9th Circuit has just sanctioned. Given this ruling, there would be no legal obstacle to the police simply targeting an entire geographical locale for tracking, or selcting any other reason (singling out a particular racial group for example).
As ever, the 9th Circuit has privileged state power over our rights. Just listen to the voice of tha state on the matter:
[S]upporters of the decision see the GPS trackers as a law enforcement tool that is no more intrusive than other means of surveillance, such as visually following a person, that do not require a court's approval.
"You left place A, at this time, you went to place B, you took this street -- that information can be gleaned in a variety of ways," said David Rivkin, a former Justice Department attorney. "It can be old surveillance, by tailing you unbeknownst to you; it could be a GPS."
He says that a person cannot automatically expect privacy just because something is on private property.
"You have to take measures -- to build a fence, to put the car in the garage" or post a no-trespassing sign, he said. "If you don't do that, you're not going to get the privacy." [emphasis added]
Get that? All you suckers living in apartments or on city streets have no expectation of privacy from the prying eyes of the state, who can monitor you electronically without cause if they feel like it. Of course, if you live in the burbs or in a gated community, you can have some privacy. Nice.
The truth is technological advances are making it increasingly easy for the state to monitor large numbers of people at a cheap price. The fact that non-electronic surveillance required a large amount of manpower was a check on its possible abuse. It was cost prohibitive to engage in. Electronic monitoring is relatively cheap, and getting cheaper by the day.
But will it wind up costing us our freedom? We shall see what the Supreme Court says.
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