Court allows agents to secretly put GPS trackers on cars

[eilen]

By Dugald McConnell, CNN
(CNN) -- 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.
ineda-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.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/08/27/oregon.gps.surveillance/index.html?hpt=T2


Big Brother (or The Corporation for all you Lara Croft fans... ) is here, no doubt about it. That sound you hear? The flushing of your Constitutional rights and a free society.

edited to correct spelling

[RandomThoughts]

1. I have my rights, I never gave them up, nor let anyone take them :)

[Land Shark]

2. Key: Without requirement even of "reasonable suspicion" the court ruling allows GPS

because it ruled the GPS was not a 'search' there's no requirement even of reasonable suspicion much less probable cause

[JCMach1]

3. Should the evidence be disallowed though because police entered his property illegally?

Methinks yes...