Doesn’t it end exactly where private property begins? Can I walk up to your car and put a “Michelle Bachmann For President” bumper sticker on it?
Can I post a “Re-elect Obama!” sign on your fence?
I dunno. IIRC, at least one court drew a distinction between attaching something to the exterior of a car, as opposed to putting it inside the car. So is something attached by a magnet to the exterior of a car “on” your property? You could probably bring in a physicist to explain that there is some about space (a micron or two?) between your car and the magnet sticking to it. How much space is enough space?
The particular case this reminds me of is one in DC. I believe Bricker has done a couple of threads about it. There several issues involved related to police actions and what needs a warrant, and who knows what else because IANAL. As I understand it, the cops attached a tracking device to a car, and they could have collected exactly the same information without the need of a warrant had they been willing to expend to resources to follow these people (on public streets) 24/7 with live cops. Again presumably, if they had some kind of robot helicopter flying after the car 24/7, a warrant wouldn’t have been needed. But instead they stuck a tracker/transmitter under the car to send the same data. So I gotta assume the defense lawyers are bringing up the issue of property rights.
I also have to wonder – what if these guys had cell phones with GPS built in? Could the police have tracked those without a warrant? They wouldn’t even have to attach an external device to do it, as long as the cell phone was turned on.
Either answer the question or not, but don’t change the facts of the question in order to show I am wrong. In the scenario, the car owner knows it is a stranger and he can see that his hands are up under the bumper.
If they mount it on my private property without my permission, yes I have a problem.
Just because some people violate the privacy of others does not strip anyone of his or her right to privacy, no matter how many people “love spying.” Practically everyone dislikes their privacy being invaded. Lots of people punch other people in the nose, too, should we eliminate battery as a crime because so many like to fight?
No, I am not joking, I am wondering if the supposed definition of society here is from the perspective of those who have technology, or from the perspective of those who don’t.
Less than 46% of blacks do not have a broadband connection. Less than 40% of Hispanics have it. Whites and Asians are about 65% and 67% hooked up, respectively.
88% of households with an income over $150,000 have broadband.
35% of households with an income under 25,000 have it.
By the yardstick of Broadband access, if you want to call wealthy Whites and Asians “society” then maybe the statement is correct that society has embraced this technology. I suspect that poor blacks and hispanics would see it differently.
Next up: A car’s engine parts aren’t attached to each other because of tiny fractions of microns between molecules.
The fact is that no police agency in the U.S. has even close to enough manpower to watch the huge numbers of people 24/7 that this technology would allow them to. It is not a case of replacing legitimate police activity that they already do with manpower with technology. It is an issue of expanding police activities with an ability they did not have before.
The right to property includes the right to exclude others from it. Let the government buy their own cell phones. Unless they have a good reason for it, in which case they can get a warrant. I can think of no situation of extended surveillance where there are exigent circumstances…in other words, extended surveillance also means there is plenty of time to get the warrant and they have no worries of destruction of evidence.
The exposure to the public idea means, to boil it down, if the public can do it, then the police can do it without a warrant.
[quote=“David42, post:23, topic:590087”]
What question? What facts? I made up the scenario of a member of the public crawling under a car, and it is FAR more reasonable to assume that someone who glances over and notices this doesn’t see either their face of their hands. You threw in the idea of the owner seeing the person, which AFAICT, is totally irrelevant to the questions you raise in any case. I certainly would have been better for the real car owner HAD he actually witnessed it, as he might have found the tracking device.
Hence my point about the real question – where does your property end and public space begin?
The comment of yours that I was addressing was, “I did suggest that you look outside the perspective of a person who has embraced technology when claiming that society has embraced technology.” You didn’t say anything about privacy rights.
You didn’t even limit the comment to surveillance tech. I decided that’s what you meant, but I was apparently wrong, because all the sudden you started talking about broadband and poverty.
Are you suggesting that poor people don’t like technology because they can’t afford it? What exactly do you mean by “society” “embracing technology”? What is your point with this? I am missing it entirely.
Police do not have the manpower to follow everyone. But the police in a large city like DC DO have the manpower to follow a few people. However, this is not my point. The police position is apparently that attaching this bug was simply a cheaper way of following them, and provided no more information than they could have gotten through legal human surveillance.
Do you also own the radio waves that are emanating from your cell phone and going… everywhere within a couple of miles? The police could tune into that without ever coming near you. There are some privacy laws against listening in on conversations, and police would absolutely need a warrant to do that, but today’s smart phones are transmitting a whole lot more than conversations.
In the broadest sense I agree with you that these police actions are troubling. This leads me to think that privacy laws need to be upgraded and strengthened, not necessarily that courts should simply decide that current law is “close enough” to cover all of these possible scenarios.
In a short term surveillance, this is true. However, Police themselves point out that long term 24/7 manual surveillance isn’t possible. Sooner or later, they do lose track of their quarry, as long as they aren’t willing to blow their cover. Once their suspect or person of interest knows what’s going on, the game is up and the cop’s hand is forced. Suspects identifying undercover surveillance means no more information is going to be had by that technique, generally. Of course here and there someone is really stupid and continues his activities…
Let’s say the GPS on your phone is inside your house. Can they just triangulate it like that, or do they need a warrant to determine whether or not you are in your home? First they’d need to know you where in public, and then locating you by your phone’s GPS might be ok. But to continually monitor it would mean eventually they are searching for the telephone in your home.
It probably is time to reexamine the thinking behind searches and seizures as they relate to mass technology. The reasoning employed worked alright for the limited technology it was conceived for, but its beginning to not work out so well.
I would point out that some states, such as California, have passed laws that the police must obtain a warrant before attaching a GPS device to a private automobile.
Car alarms, which go off by near proximity of a person to a car who doesn’t even have to touch it, are apparently reasonable. They may be annoying when they are too sensitive, but it seems we have weighed that annoyance against the right to secure your property and found the right to secure your property to be more weighty than the annoyance.
If we haven’t, why haven’t car alarms been outlawed as a public nuisance?
What would an undercover cop do if he trips a car alarm in attempting to attach a GPS? I’m betting he cancels his plans, runs, and hopes the car owner doesn’t see him or thinks he is a common criminal. He sure isn’t going to try to further blow his cover. Again, game is over when their cover is blown.
This question. Please answer or not, as you choose, but don’t change the question and then answer.
So I work in an auto shop and probably see the underside of my car more often than most people.
If I have my car on the hoist and find a tracking unit can I legally remove it? Throw it in the trash? Put it on the car on next hoist? Smash the shit out it with a BFH?*
(and no I don’t need answers fast)
*big fucking hammer
I took this post to be you changing my scenario, which was posted first.
However, I will answer.
Since your scenario explicitly says the stranger is looking for a key, my response would be entirely based on whether there was in fact a key to be found. If there was, I would call the cops in a probably vain attempt to catch him before he left, though frankly I don’t know if the cops would have the right to search him for my key. And if he stole the car while I was waiting for the cops to show up, then I would call them again and report that.
Most likely I would get the locks changed. What else would one do?
I have a vague recollection of a case of someone being prosecuted for detroying a police listening device, so I wouldn’t take a hammer to it.
I dunno, call the cops and report a suspected bomb? Just point it out to the owner? Keep your mouth shut? Good question.
I can’t wait for the case wherein the suspect finds the GPS and puts it on someone else’s car.
I think we got a bit mixed up here. Someone said that all this police technology is ok for the reason that “society” has embraced technology. I’d have not argued against what society has embraced if instead “A large segment of our society has embraced technology,” had been said.
I think generally once you attach something to someone else’s property it becomes theirs. I know this is true in Landlord/tenant law in my state–for instance, if you change all the light fixtures on a rental property they have to stay when you leave.
But Imagine this: A person places a bumper sticker on someone’s car but claims to retain ownership of the bumper sticker. What a fool when he says “Hey, I want to take my bumper sticker home now. Since your car is attached to it, I am gonna have to drive your car now in order to exercise control over my bumper sticker. Hand the keys over, I’d like to take my bumper sticker home now.”
I would think that attaching something to someone’s car means you have gifted them whatever you attach. it’s the only logical way to handle the bumper sticker scenario. Now if this is true, then the police are now using your GPS to monitor you. And if they retrieve the GPS they have then clearly seized it.
To me that is absurd. It would be akin to a cop issuing you a speeding ticket because you are traveling at 186,000mph. After all, that’s the speed at which the earth (with you on it) is traveling around the sun.
Or if I go inside an airport carrying a gun, I could explain to security how I am really not carrying the gun because several micrometers separate it from my body.
What I said in response to your Big Brother hysteria was that technology has made privacy an illusion. That’s the trade off we’ve made for efficiency and convenience. The technology is out there and there isn’t any going back. Demanding laws to protect what can’t be protected is pointless.
I had thought you created this thread to discuss the wheres and whyfors of the surveillance technology since you specifically stated that you weren’t interested in the legal aspects. Instead, you want people to answer your bumper fondling question, so I’ll be on my way.
You mean for YOU privacy is an illusion. Many of the rest of us aren’t interested in throwing away the fourth amendment.
Of course, if you wind up on the wrong end of a prosecution and you’re looking at the fourth amendment or prison, you will see it quit differently.