Tuesday, August 12, 2008

As an occasional law-breaker & firm believer in personal liberties...

...I have a huge problem with this story. I do believe these actions violate your Fourth Amendment rights.

But as a guy who wants every rapist and murder caught, stopped & destructively removed from society (and the gene-pool) I think this is a great development for law enforcement:


Police turn to secret weapon: GPS device
Privacy advocates say electronic tracking violates Fourth Amendment rights

Someone was attacking women in Fairfax County and Alexandria, grabbing them from behind and sometimes punching and molesting them before running away. After logging 11 cases in six months, police finally identified a suspect.


David Lee Foltz Jr., who had served 17 years in prison for rape, lived near the crime scenes. To figure out if Foltz was the assailant, police pulled out their secret weapon: They put a Global Positioning System device on Foltz's van, which allowed them to track his movements.

Police said they soon caught Foltz dragging a woman into a wooded area in Falls Church. After his arrest on Feb. 6, the string of assaults suddenly stopped. The break in the case relied largely on a crime-fighting tool they would rather not discuss.

Across the country, police are using GPS devices to snare thieves, drug dealers, sexual predators and killers, often without a warrant or court order. Privacy advocates said tracking suspects electronically constitutes illegal search and seizure, violating Fourth Amendment rights of protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, and is another step toward George Orwell's Big Brother society. Law enforcement officials, when they discuss the issue at all, said GPS is essentially the same as having an officer trail someone, just cheaper and more accurate. Most of the time, as was done in the Foltz case, judges have sided with police.




Read the whole story here, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26167805
and decide for yourself if this is good news or bad. I still don't know how I feel....



2 comments:

Unknown said...

i'm sure they needed a warrant, which makes it ok with me. same reason i tell my drug dealers not to worry about using codes and shit on the phone, having worked briefly at the subpeona compliance center at a major wireless carrier i can tell you that if the cops are listening to your cell phone conversations they already have permission from a judge to enter your home, search your car, and take your belongings.

it wasn't talking on the phone that got you a warrant, it was dealing with untrustworthy fucks who rolled over on you when they got popped with an 8th leaving hempfest.

Unknown said...

"Across the country, police are using GPS devices to snare thieves, drug dealers, sexual predators and killers, often without a warrant or court order."

Read the whole article, this is an issue because a lot of the cops and prosecuters and judges are allowing these actions without a warrant.