Supreme Court Rules that Warrants Needed for GPS Tracking (Scalia writes 4th amendment ruling!)

DCist ^ | 1/23/12 | Martin Austermuhl

[Paladin2]

Ah Vermont (a ski technique developed by jck).

Yall git watch'a deserve, given the 'rat leanings.

[Paladin2]

"the students’ actions were pretty outrageous."

Welcome to the 1st Amendment.

[Paladin2]

You need some surplus military overhead cammo nets.

[Paladin2]

You could fertilize a “FUBO” in the yard.

[Nik Naym]

“I was amazed because the students’ actions were pretty outrageous.”

Yes they were. And outrageous speech is protected.

The SC was correct in this instance also.

[Paladin2]

"There’s a big difference between a private company gathering publicly available data about you, and the government tracking your every move with GPS. "

Not really. More a difference of degree.

[moehoward]

"What gives them the right to take a photo of your house, your car and you if you are in the front or back garden or you walking down the road?"

Is that Class Action is the air?

[moehoward]

"The defense attorney,....."

Yeah. It's actually very surprising just how rarely officer reports jive.

[USNBandit]

I find it interesting that the court is so concerned about property that they were willing to give away to anybody that can pay more taxes, like Kelo v. New London.

These warrants aren't hard to get, but it will require more work for investigators who have gotten accustomed to throwing a tracker on anything.

This also should void the 9th Circuit decision that allowed some DEA agents to place a tracker on a vehicle while it was in the target's driveway. I don't know what they were thinking.

[USNBandit]

The answer to that is that the use of IR technology is restricted when looking at a home. You can get a warrant for that. It does not apply to out buildings on te same property. Not sure why, it would seem to be private property to me. That is the precedence.

The visible spectrum is considered open field.

[USNBandit]

The answer to that is that the use of IR technology is restricted when looking at a home. You can get a warrant for that. It does not apply to out buildings on te same property. Not sure why, it would seem to be private property to me. That is the precedence.

The visible spectrum is considered open field.

[bamahead]

Libertarian ping! Click here to get added or here to be removed or post a message here!

[Still Thinking]

I suspect that Scalia is concerned about the rights of citizens against illegal search and seizure,

Hey, even that's progress. His opinions often boil down to "But what if the po-po don't WANT to do...this or that?"

[kevkrom]

I read that one of them called the principal or teacher, whatever, a sex pervert. I would think he would have grounds to sue, at least.

I'd have no problem in the principal or teacher in question followed up with a libel suit. But as an individual action, not punishment from the school if didn't happen on school grounds or using school resources.

Of course, given the stories we see here posted pretty much daily, perhaps he or she really is a sex pervert...

[Still Thinking]

This is shocking to me that liberties and the expectations of privacy have eroded so far in this country, that a case like this even had to go all the way to the supreme court.

How do you figure? The lower level appeals court also found it unconstitutional, SCOTUS affirmed that decision. It wasn't the drug dealer taking this case there, it was prosecutors hoping to have the lower court ruling overturned. So it would be more correct to say they "took it all the way to SCOTUS and the correct decision survived".

[qwerty1234]

>>How do you figure? The lower level appeals court also found it unconstitutional, SCOTUS affirmed that decision. It wasn’t the drug dealer taking this case there, it was prosecutors hoping to have the lower court ruling overturned. So it would be more correct to say they “took it all the way to SCOTUS and the correct decision survived”.

My point was that it never should have even been an issue; of course it is unconstitutional - anyone with half a brain could tell that; but yet we still have a govt (prosecutors in this case), that are hell-bent on increasing the unlimited power of the police state. The police never should have even considered doing this (warrant-less GPS tracking), and it shouldn’t have had to been appealed all the way to the SC to get a final ruling.

[Borax Queen]

LOL, sounds good!

[Boogieman]

No, it’s more than a difference of degree. The Constitutional protections which are imposed on the Federal government don’t apply to private businesses at all. So, there are not really any civil liberties issues when it comes to private companies doing these things.

[BuckeyeTexan]

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

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[Still Thinking]

Well, we’re definitely in agreement about that.