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Posted on 01/23/2012 9:47:35 AM PST by Recovering_Democrat
In a case that stemmed from an investigation by D.C. police and the FBI of a local drug dealer, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously today that police across the country need a warrant if they want to track suspects using GPS monitors.
In the ruling, which was written by Justice Antonin Scalia, the court found that even though the case involved a GPS unit that was attached to a car that was out in the open, it still constituted a "search" under the language of the Fourth Amendment:
It is important to be clear about what occurred in this case: The Government physically occupied private property for the purpose of obtaining information. We have no doubt that such a physical intrusion would have been considered a “search” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment when it was adopted. The case grew out of a 2005-2005 investigation into Antoine Jones, a D.C. club owner who was suspected of drug trafficking. As part of the investigation, police were given the green light to place a GPS tracker on Jones' car within 10 days and inside city limits. The GPS tracker was placed outside of the city and the time-limit allowed by the warrant, but Jones was still arrested after he led police to a Maryland stash house in which they found cocaine, crack and $850,000 in cash. Jones was later convicted for conspiracy to distribute illegal drugs.
Jones appealed the conviction, saying that the use of GPS on his car violated his Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure. On August 6, 2010, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit agreed with him, overturning his conviction. Beyond the issue of the GPS being placed on Jones' car outside of the scope of the warrant, the court found that "prolonged GPS monitoring reveals an intimate picture of the subject's life that he expects no one to have --short perhaps of his spouse."
In today's decision, the Supreme Court sustained the lower court's opinion.
In a concurring opinion, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote: "The Government usurped Jones’ property for the purpose of conducting surveillance on him, thereby invading privacy interests long afforded, and undoubtedly entitled to, Fourth Amendment protection."
In his own concurring opinion, Justice Samuel Alito said that while short-term searches may be permissible, the extent of the GPS monitoring Jones was subjected to made it qualify as a search:
[T]he use of longer term GPS monitoring in investigations of most offenses impinges on expectations of privacy. For such offenses, society’s expectation has been that law enforcement agents and others would not—and indeed, in the main, simply could not—secretly monitor and catalogue every single movement of an individual’s car for a very long period. In this case, for four weeks, law enforcement agents tracked every movement that respondent made in the vehicle he was driving. We need not identify with precision the point at which the tracking of this vehicle became a search, for the line was surely crossed before the 4-week mark. It goes without saying that this case would never have come to be had the GPS tracker been placed on Jones' car a day earlier and within city limits.
tell them that you want your house and car removed due to the fact you do not want certain people to see where you live or what you drive.
Google earth is a perverts paradise and I remember hearing about a county in long island who used it to see if people had paid for permits for things in their yards, What on earth so now my wife is now not able to go out sunbathing without maybe some perv looking on the internet to check our back garden out.
If you need help to take your house and property off Google form the street view then just drop me a line and I’ll be happy to help.
From the Article: “In a concurring opinion, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote: “The Government usurped Jones’ property for the purpose of.....”
Going to remember that one for the future knowing how Leftists love usurping property, anything for their benefit.
I'm 54 years old. When I started driving and up till I started buying 1990's era vehicles I could do all of my own repairs including rebuilding the engine if I had too. Now every trip to a mechanic with the computer to do diagnostics cost $1000 one way or the other. Last summer a stupid Crank Position Sensor on our van left us stalled in a very dangerous place with no way for my wife to even get out due to her wheelchair.
Unions do add a lot of cost to a vehicle. But likely not near as much as the EPA and other agency mandates does. It needs to stop NOW! BTW I drive 90's era vehicles still. I sure can't afford any new ones.
There was a case a year or two ago in which some judge ruled our driveways on our properties were public access, not private property. Our eyebrows raised up to the ceiling, bounced off, and crashed to the floor. We installed fences, and gates on our “public access”, NOT that we do anything illegal, but what about all those unnamed groups that come around with their flyers, and bother us that might injure themselves on said “public access” that we’ll be responsible for especially now that the Fed has ruled are public giving them rights they didn’t have before.
That ruling painted one huge target on every home owners butt. I believe it was this case we read about in this thread in which the Judge made said ruling.
That is very nice of you, thank you so much, manc! I’ll keep you posted... (and yup, I sooo agree with you about the sunbathing, sick freaks, they and their comrades at TSA should go to perverts’ prison)
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 wish I were as sure as the rest of you that 0bamacare will be declared unconstitutional. The GPS case is a criminal case, where the Court still has some recognition of the Rule of Law and restraint on the power of the government as against the rights of the people.
0bamacare is more of a civil and economic case, and for the most part the Court abandoned Constitutional restraints on the power of the government when FDR threatened to pack the Court. Schechter Poultry v. US was really the last gasp of the Constitution before it died. I fear that the 0bamacare decision will be little more than a long autopsy report on an already dead patient.
There’s a big difference between a private company gathering publicly available data about you, and the government tracking your every move with GPS.
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.
OF COURSE THIS WAS UNCONSTITUTIONAL! Did we really need the SC to tell us that?!? God help us.
LOL Don’t get me started on the TSA
fotflol
I’m not quite sure what the law is on overhead views, but I’m pretty sure there is one. I think Google gets their “satellite views” from other sources such as the government. I know that many property appraisers also use overhead views and they are available to the public. If you think your rights have been violated, then see a lawyer. If you think the law is wrong then start a movement to change it.
no they have their own and it is the Govt who has used Google.
Now that is an interesting question.
Consider the following:
In NMSA 30-7-2.4 it makes it a crime to carry firearms on/into "the buildings and grounds of a university, including playing fields and parking areas of a university, in or on which university or university-related activities are conducted." Obviously this includes student housing and the general campus.
The NM State Constitution says the following, in Art II, Sec 6:
No law shall abridge the right of the citizen to keep and bear arms for security and defense, for lawful hunting and recreational use and for other lawful purposes, but nothing herein shall be held to permit the carrying of concealed weapons. No municipality or county shall regulate, in any way, an incident of the right to keep and bear arms.
Now, because of NMSA 30-7-2.4 prohibiting the students from carrying weapons in student housing the law is obviously prohibiting both keeping and bearing of arms (by citizens)... but the statute even prohibits students from carrying arms to defend themselves, all of which are prohibited from being laws by Art II, Sec 6 of the NM Constitution.
So, if I were to open carry on campus, or even keep a weapon in student housing, would I be breaking the law?
Whoever knowingly or willfully [...] teaches the duty [...] or propriety of overthrowing or destroying the government of the United States or the government of any State, Territory, District or Possession thereof, or the government of any political subdivision therein, by force or violence, or by the assassination of any officer of any such government; [...] Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both, and shall be ineligible for employment by the United States or any department or agency thereof, for the five years next following his conviction.
The Declaration of Independence quite clearly states:
[...] when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.Now, if you take a look at the link, it is the House's own copy of the US Code from which this is being pulled; so, the Declaration of Independence is law.
Now, is the teacher guilty or not of this felony? I will remind you that "ignorance of the law is no excuse."
Well, no... that's not the issue. What is the issue is that the GPS tracking was done outside the parameters that were imposed by the warrant. This is the civil equivalent of a military superior saying "you can only go up to 20 miles away, and no alcohol, because you are on-call" and then the subordinate went 40 miles away and got piss-drunk.
If the USSC does rule it UnConstitutional I don't think it would stop this administration nor a number of members of congress including GOP from making it law. Some big Corp wants involuntary insurance mandated because it vastly increases their profit margins.
Faraday was apparently WAY ahead of his time. Arrange for a few cages.
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