Oil change reignites debate over GPS trackers

[Ban Hammer 14,291]

SAN FRANCISCO – Yasir Afifi, a 20-year-old computer salesman and community college student, took his car in for an oil change earlier this month and his mechanic spotted an odd wire hanging from the undercarriage.

The wire was attached to a strange magnetic device that puzzled Afifi and the mechanic. They freed it from the car and posted images of it online, asking for help in identifying it.

Two days later, FBI agents arrived at Afifi's Santa Clara apartment and demanded the return of their property — a global positioning system tracking device now at the center of a raging legal debate over privacy rights.

One federal judge wrote that the widespread use of the device was straight out of George Orwell's novel, "1984".

"By holding that this kind of surveillance doesn't impair an individual's reasonable expectation of privacy, the panel hands the government the power to track the movements of every one of us, every day of our lives," wrote Alex Kozinski, the chief judge of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in a blistering dissent in which a three-judge panel from his court ruled that search warrants weren't necessary for GPS tracking.

But other federal and state courts have come to the opposite conclusion.

Law enforcement advocates for the devices say GPS can eliminate time-consuming stakeouts and old-fashioned "tails" with unmarked police cars. The technology had a starring role in the HBO cops-and-robbers series "The Wire" and police use it to track every type of suspect — from terrorist to thieves stealing copper from air conditioners.

That investigators don't need a warrant to use GPS tracking devices in California troubles privacy advocates, technophiles, criminal defense attorneys and others.

The federal appeals court based in Washington D.C. said in August that investigators must obtain a warrant for GPS in tossing out the conviction and life sentence of Antoine Jones, a nightclub owner convicted of operating a cocaine distribution ring. That court concluded that the accumulation of four-weeks worth of data collected from a GPS on Jones' Jeep amounted to a government "search" that required a search warrant.

Judge Douglas Ginsburg said watching Jones' Jeep for an entire month rather than trailing him on one trip made all the difference between surveilling a suspect on public property and a search needing court approval.

"First, unlike one's movements during a single journey, the whole of one's movements over the course of a month is not actually exposed to the public because the likelihood anyone will observe all those movements is effectively nil," Ginsburg wrote. The state high courts of New York, Washington and Oregon have ruled similarly.

The Obama administration last month asked the D.C. federal appeals court to change its ruling, calling the decision "vague and unworkable" and arguing that investigators will lose access to a tool they now use "with great frequency."

After the D.C. appeals court decision, the 9th Circuit refused to revisit its opposite ruling.

The panel had concluded that agents could have gathered the same information by following Juan Pineda-Moreno, who was convicted of marijuana distribution after a GPS device alerted agents he was leaving a suspected "grow site."

"The only information the agents obtained from the tracking devices was a log of the locations where Pineda-Moreno's car traveled, information the agents could have obtained by following the car," Judge Diarmuid O'Scannlain wrote for the three-judge panel.

Two other federal appeals court have ruled similarly.

In his dissent, Chief Judge Kozinski noted that GPS technology is far different from tailing a suspect on a public road, which requires the active participation of investigators.

"The devices create a permanent electronic record that can be compared, contrasted and coordinated to deduce all manner of private information about individuals," Kozinksi wrote.

Legal scholars predict the U.S. Supreme Court will ultimately resolve the issue since so many courts disagree.

George Washington University law professor Orin Kerr said the issue boils down to public vs. private. As long as the GPS devices are attached to vehicles on public roads, Kerr believes the U.S. Supreme Court will decide no warrant is needed. To decide otherwise, he said, would ignore a long line of previous 4th Amendment decisions allowing for warrantless searches as long as they're conducted on public property.

"The historic line is that public surveillance is not covered by the 4th Amendment," Kerr said.

All of which makes Afifi's lawyer pessimistic that he has much of a chance to file a successful lawsuit challenging the FBI's actions. Afifi is represented by Zahra Billoo of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the country's largest Islamic civil rights group.

Afifi declined comment after spending last week fielding myriad media inquiries after wired.com posted the story of his routine oil change and it went viral on the Internet.

Still, Billoo hopes the discovered GPS tracking device will help publicize in dramatic fashion the issue of racial profiling the lawyer says Arab-Americans routinely encounter.

She said Afifi was targeted because of his extensive ties to the Middle East, which include supporting two brothers who live in Egypt and making frequent overseas trips. His father was a well-known Islamic-American community leader who died last year in Egypt.

"Yasir hasn't done anything to warrant that kind of surveillance," Billoo said. "This was a blatant example of profiling."

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[Obama 2012 1,714]

US Government today... Gotta love 'em!

[nab 74]

while the legalities of gov't use of GPS in profiling people is up in the air, the units can still be used to track cheating spouses.

[Ban Hammer 14,291]

while the legalities of gov't use of GPS in profiling people is up in the air, the units can still be used to track cheating spouses.

whatcha trying to say?

[nab 74]

hey dont tazz me bro! (i love that)

to clarify:

GPS units have their uses but gov't stepping on the privacy of people shouldnt be one of those.

snooping should be left to the professionals.... suspicious wives

[Heracles 417]

US Government today... Gotta love 'em!

...

They didn't have GPS back then.

Do you think this may have something to do with the monitoring of illegal activities? Though I am sure a bleeding heart libertarian like yourself would like to take that avenue away from law enforcement as well.

Edited October 16, 2010 by Heracles

[Obama 2012 1,714]

They didn't have GPS back then.

Do you think this may have something to do with the monitoring of illegal activities? Though I am sure a bleeding heart libertarian like yourself would like to take that avenue away from law enforcement as well.

Placing GPS devices on private property without a warrant is pushing a lot of limits. I hope any cop/agent that would dare invade that private property gets what he has coming to him.

[mawilson 2,133]

Two days later, FBI agents arrived at Afifi's Santa Clara apartment and demanded the return of their property — a global positioning system tracking device now at the center of a raging legal debate over privacy rights.

Not their property anymore, once they voluntarily attached it to someone else's car.

[Heracles 417]

Placing GPS devices on private property without a warrant is pushing a lot of limits. I hope any cop/agent that would dare invade that private property gets what he has coming to him.

Based on a number of your post regarding police, sounds like you want them disbanded. Surely libertarians are not that crazy, I mean, we know the ideology is batshit crazy but that borders insanity.

Edited October 17, 2010 by Heracles

[Obama 2012 1,714]

Based on a number of your post regarding police, sounds like you want them disbanded. Surely libertarians are not that crazy, I mean, we know the ideology is batshit crazy but that borders insanity.

My posts on police have been on abusive officers. There's a difference.

[nab 74]

Based on a number of your post regarding police, sounds like you want them disbanded. Surely libertarians are not that crazy, I mean, we know the ideology is batshit crazy but that borders insanity.

disbanded? hmmm no one said that.

having them stay within the law they are supposed to be upholding? yes. imagine that, law enforcement staying within the law... i know it's beyond the mind to comprehend, but try.

[Heracles 417]

disbanded? hmmm no one said that.

having them stay within the law they are supposed to be upholding? yes. imagine that, law enforcement staying within the law... i know it's beyond the mind to comprehend, but try.

I think we know why you personally are possibly upset by this. Rest assured, a certain fellow poster will be here soon too.

Unfortunately this is not the middle east or Pakistan; therefore, the police here are required to collect evidence and build a case against a suspect. An integral aspect of this lengthy and often tiresome process, to satisfy the US legal system, requires surveillance.

[nab 74]

I think we know why you personally are possibly upset by this. Rest assured, a certain fellow poster will be here soon too.

Unfortunately this is not the middle east or Pakistan; therefore, the police here are required to collect evidence and build a case against a suspect. An integral aspect of this lengthy and often tiresome process, to satisfy the US legal system, requires surveillance.

you certainly like to read more in to oher's posts than what is actually there... maybe you should get some, it might improve your mood a little. so, to address your subtle attack:

"personally", as an AMERICAN, yes i suppose i should be "upset" but am not surpised by this at all ... the sheep have run to give away our rights since 9/11. also, 'law enforcement' breaking the law has become so commonplace i guess it would be more accurate to say i am becoming immune/numb to this garbage rather than "upset". the sheep seem to outnumber the educated and rational citizens so wont be long till we all will be implanted with GPS/tracking devices.

first it'll be criminals to track them... and no one will care because that has nothing to do with "us", right?

then the homeless... no one cares about them, and of course, doesnt affect "us" does it?

how about next we implant welfare receipients, they're just deadbeats, right?

well how about people in jobs where 'national security' could be an issue...

how about all gov't workers...

well we're implanting everyone else, why is joe american so against this? eveyrone else is implanted; what's he got to hide?

-----

evidence collected ILLEGALLY is not supposed to be used in the "US legal system".

where do you see this man is a "suspect" in anything...??? just because he is from middle east he deserves to be profiled??

bigot

[mawilson 2,133]

Unfortunately this is not the middle east or Pakistan; therefore, the police here are required to collect evidence and build a case against a suspect. An integral aspect of this lengthy and often tiresome process, to satisfy the US legal system, requires surveillance.

Sure, but that doesn't mean they can install a camera in your bedroom as part of their "surveillance" operation.

[nab 74]

from "1984", which SHOULD be mandatory reading for all students but is often on the banned list instead:

"There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live—did live, from habit that became instinct—in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized."

and just as depressing...

"We shall abolish the orgasm. Our neurologists are at work upon it now. There will be no loyalty, except loyalty towards the Party. There will be no love, except the love of Big Brother. There will be no laughter, except the laugh of triumph over a defeated enemy. There will be no art, no literature, no science. When we are omnipotent there will be no need of science. There will be no distinction between beauty and ugliness. There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always—do not forget this Winston—always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever."