Posted on 01/25/2012 10:54:32 AM PST by marktwain
The Supreme Court yesterday unanimously sided with Gun Owners of America in finding that the placement of a Global Positioning Device on an automobile constitutes a “search” for purposes of the Fourth Amendment.
The majority opinion in U.S. v. Jones was written by Justice Antonin Scalia and follows GOA’s reasoning to throw out the “reasonable expectation of privacy” test which has been thought to be the dominant Fourth Amendment standard in recent years.
The Obama Administration argued that because the police could theoretically follow Antoine Jones’ car, he had no “reasonable expectation of privacy,” and thus, placing a GPS device on his car was justified. GOA argued, however, that this constituted an “unreasonable search and seizure” which violates the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution.
This decision will have dramatic ramifications for gun owners. Indeed, the Court looked to the Founders’ intentions with respect to the Fourth Amendment, which, until the latter part of the 20th Century, was understood to restrict the ability of police to “trespass” upon the persons or property of Americans.
“This is no less than a fundamental transformation of American jurisprudence concerning searches and seizures,” according to GOA’s Executive Director Larry Pratt. “And it is a transformation which throws out fake modern jurisprudence and restores the Founders’ intent.”
The “reasonable expectation of privacy” test flowed from a Justice Harlan concurring opinion in Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347 (1967). Gun Owners of America had argued that the Supreme Court should jettison that decision by an activist court, and a majority of the justices agreed.
“The ‘expectation of privacy’ test for searches and seizures arose without support in the text or historical context of the Fourth Amendment, and has proven wholly inadequate to protect the American people from their government,” argued GOA.
The Obama administration, which had argued that planting a GPS device on a car was not a “search” under the Harlan standard, was unanimously rejected by the High Court. And the case is being cited by the mainstream media as a defeat for Obama and his Justice Department, which is led by Attorney General Eric Holder.
Said Pratt: “This is yet another failure by Eric Holder, the most corrupt and incompetent Attorney General in the history of the Republic.”
Now let’s see how this lawless tyrannical gumint responds.
This is the second good ruling I’ve read about in two days.
What has happened to the Supreme Court?
Are there any GPS-tracker detectors on the market?
It will also have dramatic ramifications on the attempt to replace gasoline taxes with a per-mile driven tax. Most of those proposals rely on GPS technology. And it’s gonna get kind of sticky if they are forced to go and get a search warrant to install every one of them.
“They have coalesced in anger at Obama over his public SOTU dressing-down over their Citizens United ruling.”
Very possible.
I could wish that the despicable scoundrels among them—Anthony M. Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan—had seen the error of their ways, but I guess a win is a win.
“The Obama Administration argued that because the police could theoretically follow Antoine Jones’ car, he had no ‘reasonable expectation of privacy’”
That’s like saying that because a Peeping Tom could look through my window the cops have the prerogative to permanently install hi-def, infrared cameras in my bathroom.
“Most of those proposals rely on GPS technology. And it’s gonna get kind of sticky if they are forced to go and get a search warrant to install every one of them.”
Since the feds own two of the Big 3, they’ll nod-nod, wink-wink mandate factory installation of trackers, which will electrically shock you, or something, should you attempt to remove them.
After a real quick search, they seem to be very common and not too expensive -
http://www.brickhousesecurity.com/gps-car-tracking-vehicle-logging.html
It will be a "road use" tax.
The fed-gov will know your every move through by-the-mile taxing based on GPS.
And since it is a "tax" issue, all the data must be transmitted to the feds for "accurate billing."
The Federal Highway Administration's highway trust fund is spending much more than they are taking in. NOW the federal utopia geniuses are figuring out the coal powered Government Motors magical flying carpets don't pay ANY fuel tax as they run on electrons, not molecules.
It is the government's own doing because CAFE laws are increasing fuel economy, therefore they and individual States are pushing to enact GPS and cell phone tracked "road usage" taxes by-the-mile.
http://www.cnn.com/2011/11/18/travel/pay-per-mile-transportation/index.html
http://www.gpsworld.com/gps/news/the-business-mileage-based-road-tax-gets-pumped-6917
It will be just "coincidence" that the system can track your exact location every foot of the way.
I can hear the BS now... "it will not be abused."
.
Maybe someone should check out Holder’s law degree. He seems pretty notorious for issuing bad ideas and judgments about what’s legal and what’s not legal.
“It will also have dramatic ramifications on the attempt to replace gasoline taxes with a per-mile driven tax. Most of those proposals rely on GPS technology. And it’s gonna get kind of sticky if they are forced to go and get a search warrant to install every one of them.”
While I would just LOVE to agree with you on this, I don’t think the opinion goes quite that far. For example, the government could contract out to private company that would do all of the monitoring. If the government wanted to snoop, they would need a warrant.
The idea of being tracked the moment you leave your driveway DISGUSTS me as an American (sorry if I offend the Perry supporters). I think that Americans MUST be free to move around anonymously, unless they are shown to have a criminal intent...and ‘private’ monitoring, to me, is no different than government monitoring, particularly when databases are developed as the result of that tracking.
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