Cops Challenged on GPS Use

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It seems like grist for a high-tech thriller: Police hide a paperback-sized satellite tracking device in a suspect's car, then wait for him to lead them to the shallow grave where he buried his victim...
In a first-in-the-nation case, the state's high court heard arguments Tuesday on whether authorities had sufficient grounds to install the GPS tracker.

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Full Story: http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,58948,00.html

If the judge issued the warrant, he must not have seen any problems with its legality. If it is unconstitutional, I think the judge would have denied the search warrant application, or made the sherriffs amend it.

my $.02

Any thoughts?

I agree. It would seem to be probable cause for use. In terms of the constitution, I don't know. Everyone makes mistakes. Remember when Judge Jackson talked to the press before the M$ case was over?

I don't really understand why they are now questioning the warrent. Mabey they should instead question the process for getting a warrent. If they issued a warrent, then they (the police) have certain rights to 'invade' (probably not the best word...) the persons privacy. If there wasn't probable cause to begin with, no warrent should have been issued in the first place.

It was the right thing to do in this case, but it wasn't constitutional and seriously invades the persons privacy. Of course after this homeland security act who knows what privacy is anymore?

Soon gps will be standard on all vehicles anyway so in five?ten?twenty? years the point will be moot.

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Originally posted here by gold eagle
Soon gps will be standard on all vehicles anyway so in five?ten?twenty? years the point will be moot.

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Look's like i'm going to be driving this 91 acura for quite awhile then. :p

From the article ....

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Prosecutors said the warrant for the GPS transmitter was sought after blood was found on a pillow Jackson allegedly used to smother his daughter.

Jackson reported his daughter missing the day she died. He was arrested nearly a month later after investigators used the GPS system to map his routes to the burial site. Prosecutors contend Jackson killed Valiree because she didn't get along with a woman he wanted to marry.

Jackson's lawyers say the girl died from an overdose of a prescription antidepressant. He denied killing his daughter, saying he had found her lifeless body in her bed. But he acknowledged burying her in a remote spot outside Spokane and later digging her up and reburying her 50 miles away.

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How do these lawyers sleep at night ... really, they have to be clutching at straws - a member of the family dies of an overdose and rather than call for medical help/paramedics/police immediately you bury them all over the countryside and then report them missing... and you have nothing to hide ??

This man has some serious explaining to do ... but I suppose if the warrant gets thrown out then all the evidence of him going to the burial sites will be inadmissable and then this guy wont have to explain his actions - its a strange world we live in.

Let me ask a simple but possibly naive question..... Did he commit a crime? Then I have absolutely no care inthe world if they invaded his "personal rights" better for me and every law abiding citrizen that he is off the streets and hung up high.

Sorry but if they want to track my movements everyday then I say "Go ahead and bore the hell out of yourselves, I have nothing to hide."

Screw the warrant and the wasting of my tax dollars debating the legality of the warrant and how this guilty S.O.B. is going to get off. I couldn't possibly care less.

KorpDeath, I understand what your saying but you're forgeting what most people are like. We're selling our house and after someone agree to by it pending an insecption my mom made us clean up the house for the insecptor even though she knew the inseptor was looking at the actual house not how neat we are. She was worrying about this person judging her even though in a month she wasn't even going to be in the same country.
People who have secrets like ballet or or a "head Doctor" don't want everyone to know and are worried it will get out if the police in their city know. You have to realise that if we knew for sure that any person had comited a crime then we wouldn't need to follow them now would we.
I say If you have reason to, get a warrent and go at it. If you don't have good reason then too many people would complain so it's best not to.

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Probable cause is where known facts and circumstances, of a reasonably trustworthy nature, are sufficient to justify a man of reasonable caution or prudence in the belief that a crime has been or is being committed. (reasonable man definition; common textbook definition; comes from Draper v. U.S. 1959)

Probable cause is what would lead a person of reasonable caution to believe that something connected with a crime is on the premises of a person or on persons themselves. (sometimes called the nexus definition; nexus is the connection between PC, the person's participation, and elements of criminal activity; determining nexus is the job of a judicial official, and it's almost always required in cases of search warrants, not arrest warrants)

Probable cause is the sum total of layers of information and synthesis of what police have heard, know, or observe as trained officers. (comes from Smith v. U.S. 1949 establishing the experienced police officer standard)

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http://faculty.ncwc.edu/toconnor/315/315lect06.htm
:cool:

besides all this, soon a gps type function will be mandatory in mobile phones too, so then what will the civil libertarians say?

Putting it in cell phones I don't think would help the case as much. You can easily claim you misplaced your cell phone and found it after the time of the incedent. A car on the other hand is most peoples mode of transportation and harder to misplace considering the size.