FBI allegedly caught using GPS to spy on student

CNN ^ | 10-08-2010 | Kim Zetter

[Stayfrosty]

(Wired) -- A California student got a visit from the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation this week after he found a secret GPS tracking device on his car, and a friend posted photos of it online.

[Paladin2]

Sounds like a SECOND visit.

[beethovenfan]

He should have thrown it in a river.

[Cowman]

Did he yell “Liar!” at an Obama speech?

[Lurker]

The device was real, the student was being secretly tracked and the FBI wanted their expensive device back,

I'd have given it back to them reduced to its component parts by means of a ball peen hammer.

[east1234]

If I ever found one on my car I’d photograph it and then take it to the nearest truck stop. Let whomever think I was heading across country.

[Kimberly GG]

warrantless tracking on an American Citizen. Will the anti-patriot act objectors object?

[Paladin2]

“It is a gift!”

[DTogo]

All active Tea Party participants should go check their cars. Follow the link in the story for a pic of the device (not allowed to be linked per FR rules).

[Responsibility2nd]

From the article....

The answer came when half-a-dozen FBI agents and police officers appeared at Yasir Afifi’s apartment complex in Santa Clara, California, on Tuesday demanding he return the device.

Afifi, a 20-year-old U.S.-born citizen, cooperated willingly
...

and

“We’re here to recover the device you found on your vehicle. It’s federal property. It’s an expensive piece, and we need it right now.”

Afifi asked, “Are you the guys that put it there?” and the agent replied, “Yeah, I put it there.” He told Afifi, “We’re going to make this much more difficult for you if you don’t cooperate.”

__________________________________________________

Hoo boy. I would not have given it back.

I might give back a few choice expletives, but no tracking device.

[Cicero]

Afifi's father, Aladdin Afifi, was a U.S. citizen and former president of the Muslim Community Association here, before his family moved to Egypt in 2003. Yasir Afifi returned to the U.S. alone in 2008, while his father and brothers stayed in Egypt, to further his education he said. He knows he's on a federal watchlist and is regularly taken aside at airports for secondary screening.

I wouldn't be too sure that they shouldn't be watching him. But they got a bit careless, I guess.

[nickcarraway]

Is this part of Cointelpro?

[BocoLoco]

Afifi won’t win this fight because the courts will say he lacks standing.

It works for all the other cases against federal employees.

[CodeToad]

A ship. I think I would actually travel to a harbor and place it on a ship.

[rawhide]

[Dubya-M-Dees]

I would have shipped it to Pakistan via Malaysia and Saudi Arabia.

[Logical me]

Is law enforcement becoming the new American Gestapo?

[bigbob]

What a missed opportunity! After he discovered it he should have just pulled up alongside the Mayor’s car, or maybe the head of the local Democrat party and slapped it on their car. Operation Chaos!

[ScottinVA]

I’d put it on a roller coaster at an amusement park. Imagine the spooks’ reactions!

[BCW]

(1) young Arab-American
(2) son of an Islamic-American community leader who died a year ago in Egypt
(3) ACLU is now involved
(4) A friend of his posted: Afifi’s friend Khaled allegedly wrote a couple of months ago. It had “something to do with a mall or a bomb,”

Uhmm...just a few red flags - probably needs to be tracked by the FBI - for once - they did a good job...