Court allows agents to secretly put GPS trackers on carsBy Dugald McConnell, CNNAugust 27, 2010 9:26 a.m. EDT

(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.

Pineda-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.

The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the appeal twice -- in January of this year by a three-judge panel, and then again by the full court earlier this month. The judges who affirmed Pineda-Moreno's conviction did so without comment.

Latto says the Ninth Circuit decision means law enforcement can place trackers on cars, without seeking a court's permission, in the nine western states the California-based circuit covers.

The ruling likely won't be the end of the matter. A federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., arrived at a different conclusion in similar case, saying officers who attached a GPS to the car of a suspected drug dealer should have sought a warrant.

Experts say the issue could eventually reach the U.S. Supreme Court.

One of the dissenting judges in Pineda-Moreno's case, Chief Judge Alex Kozinski, said the defendant's driveway was private and that the decision would allow police to use tactics he called "creepy" and "underhanded."

"The vast majority of the 60 million people living in the Ninth Circuit will see their privacy materially diminished by the panel's ruling," Kozinksi wrote in his dissent.

"I think it is Orwellian," said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, which advocates for privacy rights.

"If the courts allow the police to gather up this information without a warrant," he said, "the police could place a tracking device on any individual's car -- without having to ever justify the reason they did that."

But supporters of the decision see the GPS trackers as a law enforcement tool that is no more intrusive than other means of surveillance, such as visually following a person, that do not require a court's approval.

"You left place A, at this time, you went to place B, you took this street -- that information can be gleaned in a variety of ways," said David Rivkin, a former Justice Department attorney. "It can be old surveillance, by tailing you unbeknownst to you; it could be a GPS."

He says that a person cannot automatically expect privacy just because something is on private property.

"You have to take measures -- to build a fence, to put the car in the garage" or post a no-trespassing sign, he said. "If you don't do that, you're not going to get the privacy."

I was pondering this yesterday. Is it that much different than tailing someone in an unmarked vehicle? Not sure how I feel yet.

Except GPS Transponders can be altered to transmit more data than your location.

Taskiss:

I'm just pointing out that the potential for abuse is far greater than a digital transponder of any sort than a human "tail".

Except GPS Transponders can be altered to transmit more data than your location.

Eh, I think you guys underestimate how much surveillance creep has taken place with our government over the last decade. For instance, they can start recording/observing you 24 hours before a warrant is acquired according to Federal standards. And even if the warrant is denied, that 24 hours of surveillance is still admissible. This kind of creep really is a slippery slope taking place. The fact that people have no expectation of privacy in a car indicates that much. A car is a self-contained piece of private property. If measures are taken to prevent internal surveillance, that's now illegal (and has been for the better part of 20 years). I find this all problematic for the law abiding citizen, since such measures are proven not to deter actual criminal behavior.

Such as?

In any case, there have been rulings for a long time that your reasonable expectation of privacy does not erect some magic curtain around your open property. If they had actually snuck into his garage that would be a different story, as it would if he'd put a fence up.

In fact, the device wasn't even necessarily attached when he was on his own property. Lots of people park on the street. Practically everyone parks in a parking lot at some point.

Not to say it's not problematic, it's just that I am not affected in the slightest. Kinda hard to give a damn about this topic.

Eh, I think you guys underestimate how much surveillance creep has taken place with our government over the last decade. For instance, they can start recording/observing you 24 hours before a warrant is acquired according to Federal standards. And even if the warrant is denied, that 24 hours of surveillance is still admissible. This kind of creep really is a slippery slope taking place. The fact that people have no expectation of privacy in a car indicates that much. A car is a self-contained piece of private property. If measures are taken to prevent internal surveillance, that's now illegal (and has been for the better part of 20 years). I find this all problematic for the law abiding citizen, since such measures are proven not to deter actual criminal behavior.

And Window Tinting laws cover the rest of the argument: Window coloration and one-way mirroring that prevent easy external visibility are regulated in every state.

That seems counter-intuitive to me since an officer cannot search your car without your permission unless he has probable-cause?

Which is irrelevant because merely looking into a vehicle is not searching it. Searching is things like opening compartments and looking under the seats or other places not visible without making special effort to look at them.

The fact that people have no expectation of privacy in a car indicates that much. A car is a self-contained piece of private property.

And those rulings are wrong, both philosophically and ethically. Quite simply, the police have no reasonable right or expectation of information from me in any way, shape, or form.

I know, well enough by now, that you believe the police have the right to demand certain information; I know you believe that giving police increased surveillance power is a good thing; and I know you refuse to accept that police misbehavior and abuse is growing in the United States. None of that changes the fact that these rulings are problematic for the law abiding citizen. And none of it changes the fact that warrants are now allowed to be granted after the fact.

t doesn't matter where the vehicle was parked, because the vehicle constitutes a reasonably secured piece of private property itself, which is a ruling the Federal Courts upheld when they validated Georgia's updated Conceal and Carry laws. You know, the one's that allow people to keep fire arms in their cars at work, even if that work place is a Federally prohibited fire arms zone.