The Glade 4.0

We had a thread on this on the last incarnation of the Glade. It's illegal in 29 states to record police officers in plain view.

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It was on this board I believe, and it was to that thread I was referring in my comment.

And Hopwin, similiar questions have been raised about technology that can bypass what is normally considered reasonable efforts to protect your privacy, such as laser microphones, etc. All those I know of, which I'm pretty sure satellites would fall into, are considered invasions of privacy.

This statement is exactly the content of my original post. I established why the theoretical design function of the GPS itself doesn't breach any privacy thresholds in regards to unwarranted searches or undue seizure or property. But that being the case, it doesn't preclude the ability the GPS from being placed in a manner which did violate such thresholds. It could not be argued, for instance, that you could forcibly enter the vehicle to place the device or remove the vehicle by towing it to a remote location to do so without a warrant because the GPS device does not violate that threshold.

It seems that there were some implications earlier in the thread that simply because the device's function wasn't illegal without a warrant, that there could no be theoretical ancillary actions while placing the device that were.



That makes no sense. Physically placing the device on a vehicle could very well violate an expectation of privacy. It has nothing to do with the device itself. It just depends specifically how they placed it. I don't think in this particular case there was a violation because they would have presented what measures were established to prevent placement of contraband on a vehicle. It doesn't matter that it was a GPS device, it could have been a brick with a magnet in a drilled and sealed cavity or something like that. It has nothing to do with the function of the GPS itself.

But I already established practical reasons why doing this is a bad idea. Obviously obtaining a warrant takes time and evidence. Doing so without a warrant becomes unfeasible because as soon as traffickers, dealers etc. get the idea they will be bugged, they'll just start scanning their cars with RFI/MRI frequency detection units or have countermeasures installed on the car like paneling off the undercarriage so there's no place to put such a device or even RFI/MRI sensitive, magnetic sensitive of tamper detection systems in their car. Once they know a bug has been installed, they can use it to mislead investigators or simply dispose of it. So, this should only be used in limited circumstances to prevent the cost-benefit of such countermeasures or practices from becoming practical. I would think they might as well be able to obtain a warrant in these cases.

And the best place to put such a bug is somewhere between the car's paneling (the door panels or floorboards) and especially in the engine bay since it is harder to use electronic detection there to find it. I don't think there is a court in the country (though I could be wrong) that would say you could get into one of those areas without a warrant.

I personally watched mechanic go through my last car I bought looking for any such devices. This sounds a bit paranoid, but you would not believe the aftermarket **** people install. For instance, my security system is hardwired to the battery (it cannot be severed unless they physically cut the cables) and it controls a master relay that all the car's accessory, ignition and fuel power sources need closed in order to run. There's also a secondary relay for this MCR which can open that relay on command. It's a pretty standard immobilizer type setup. The remote receiver must be paired to a device before it will respond to commands. However, if the manufacturer programmed some backdoor frequency into the security units, one could theoretically obtain this master key and use it as a delayed sabotage mechanism. Basically, an OnStar remote stop theft unit except not GPS based.

It's **** like that and bugs that people don't realize how easily are placed in cars but can be found with little effort.

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"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

No it is not. It's illegal to do it in certain ways.

In any case, maybe it ought to be, given the tendancy of the public to record selectively, publish selectively, and read what they want into videos of the police in order to create assertions of wrongdoing where none exists. I posted in that thread an example of a video taken from a police car that would have appeared to show the police shooting an unarmed man if not for a second car recording from a different angle that showed him firing at the officers.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

These practial problems don't make it a bad idea. They still force the criminals to take these measures, which costs them time and money.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

This thread is the reference thread for those playing catch up.

Yeah, because single point of view recording only affects police officers...

Because someone else knowing where you are located doesn't somehow make you any less secure. The right to be secure doesn't prevent observation of you, it prevents intrusion upon you in order to do so.

In any case, a lot of these comments seem to be based on the idea that polcie will somehow go around placing GPS devices on cars at random and then building some case based on where the person went. That's silly; it's a total waste of time and resources, especially the resources needed to analyze the movement data. There's no reason for one to be placed until reasonable suspicion exists from other sources. Doing otherwise would be utterly pointless; information overload would see to that.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Utterly irrelevant.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Ahh, yes, the thread where we pointed out that it's 12 states, not 29, and it relies on the police trying to interpret a certain law a certain way and get a sympathetic judge to go along with it, which has happened in only 3? Based on an article written with incredible levels of bias and agenda?

Yes, that thread.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Of course it is irrelevent that a cop suggests video police encounters should be illegal because it might make them look bad, or be used against them. Makes perfect sense to only allow cops to record the encounters...

And, of course, we shouldn't concern ourselves with the GPS trackers, either. Because, really, all police are fundamentally trustworthy. No police officer has ever abused their authority in the United States, so any argument that suggests that such a preposterous thing could come to pass is utterly irrelevant.

In fact, why don't we just do away with this whole warrant business entirely? The fourth amendment seems to be based on the idea that police will somehow go around searching or seizing peoples' property at random and then building some case based on what they find. That's silly; it's a total waste of time and resources, especially the resources needed to analyze the search results. There's no reason for anything to be searched until reasonable suspicion exists from other sources. Doing otherwise would be utterly pointless; information overload would see to that.

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Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

Single point of view recording is only a problem in cases of coincidence (like the case I cited) or when someone edits or otherwise selectively records an encounter. Cruiser cameras don't work like that. They come on when you turn on the lights, and the entire thing is timestamped, so any attempt to shut it off or edit it will be obvious.

In any case, like the other thread pointed out, it isn't illegal; in three states there have been attempts to apply the law that way, but they are of questionable merit.

I don't actually think it should be illegal, but the fact is that recording the police by anyone else isn't a case of "might" be used to make them look bad, it's a case of "almost certianly will be, regardless of what the facts actually were."

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

The fact that some police officers have abused their position in some way isn't somehow an arguemnt that GPS trackers shouldn't be used because they could be abused. The police do not need to be perfect.



Quit being silly. A search is totally different from merely knowing one's location; you could simply go into someone's house on a fishing expedition. You could then build a case from whatever you found. GPS provides access to one, and only one kind of information, which is not incriminating in and of itself, nor is it the sort of information to which privacy protections inherently apply. With searches, you could simply target those places you know you've got a good chance someone is doing something wrong at and find something, anything, incriminating. GPS can't do that; location isn't incriminating by itself.

Furthermore, a search takes at a bare minimum one person physically at the location, while GPS just puts a tracker on something and feeds it into a computer. You wouldn't get information overload from searches because the number of searches would be self-regulating. With GPS, you'd have to identify some reason why any particular movement or pattern was suspicious out of millions in the absence of any other information.

The fact that putting the cart before the horse doesn't work very well is not an argument that you shouldn't put the horse before the cart.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I never said that GPS trackers shouldn't be used at all. I don't think anyone is saying that. I'm perfectly fine with their use -- with a warrant. "Some police officers/depArtments/federal agencies might abuse this" is a perfectly good reason why their use should be regulated via a warrant process to, you know, validate that it's use is warranted. Tampering with private property and tracking a vehicle within the bounds of private property not visible from public space are unacceptable without a warrant.

If a private citizen were to do this, it would be an illegal invasion of privacy. I don't think it's unreasonable that the police should at least have to ask permission before they do this.

Also, not that it's necessarily apropos to anything, but alol at the idea that automated data combing and geographical processing of data from GPS transponders would result in "data overload". You seem to be forgeting that we have these nifty inventions called computers. Hint: go read the "pre-crime technology" thread. If someone were so inclined, this would be cake.

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Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

Ok this is getting long and drawn out.
I have unlimited access to about 45,000 acres of private property scattered around the state of Az. Do the police have the rights to track my movements on private property?
They legally can't enter the property with out cause.
to visually observe me would require a helo. that would be rather obvious.
Hell I can travel to places in the national forests around here that even the park rangers don't know exist. when In these remote areas do I have a reasonable expectation of privacy? When physical observation would be revealed
Gps tracking gives information that they don't have a right to with out a warrant.

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History of the Condom
In 1272, the Muslim Arabs invented the condom, using a goat's lower intestine.
In 1873, the British somewhat refined the idea, by taking the intestine out of the goat first.

I seem to recall "potential for abuse" being used as the justification for harsh punishment for other crimes. Like when we had the discussion about that Navy captain that got dishonorably discharged for prostitution. That's an incredibly harsh punishment for just prostitution, but it was justified by the fact that the potential for her to reveal sensitive information to clients made it serious enough to warrant that punishment.

Incidentally...

Never mind altering it -- just take the derivative.

If anyone has any doubts that this sort of technology would be somehow "too expensive" to deploy randomly, stop and ponder how this could be turned into an easy stream of constant revenue for the police. Then consider that, per this court ruling, there would apparently be nothing illegal about that whatsoever.

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Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

Ladas: Is this where the satellite tracking discussion was? Also was this decided by the group or is it illegal?

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The provided thread was where it was discussed that recording the police was illegal in some areas.

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Darksiege
Traveller, Calé, Whisperer
Lead me not into temptation; for I know a shortcut

Opps, sorry Hopwin, that was a link to the thread about video taping cops.

I don't know that we have discussed satellite surveillance before.

Which has nothing to do with this situation. The relative potential for abuse and the consequences of it are much higher, and the benefits are to no one but the individual concerned. The mere existance of potential for abuse is not a reason, relative potential for abuse is what matters, which is why in this case I do not think such transponders should be deployed without resonable suspicion articulable in court.

Then of course you're talking about a military person, who has agreed by joining the military to abide by UCMJ, whose focus is the good order and discipline of the military, and which does not permit conduct predjudicial to that even if it is conduct permitted to the general populace. It's doubly true for officers. Acting as a prostitute is predjudicial to good order and discipline becuase of the social stigma attached to it, especially for an officer, and should not be permitted.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

And I don't see a need for a warrant as long as there is a reasonable suspicion that can be articulated in court, the same as the reasonable suspicion the courts require to justify other investigative actions. If we took the sum total of all the things people here think you should need a warrant for it would be impossible to obtain a warrant.



I don't see any good reason why the police should not be permitted to do it just because a private citizen can't. Private citizens also cannot issue traffic tickets and may or may not be able to make arrests. A privagte citizen also will not be called upon to justify their actions in court.



I realize that perfectly well. It is not the processing of data that would be the problem, but rather the bandwidth involved in receiving constant reports from these, the cost of deploying them (and no, they cannot be made into a constant stream of revenue) and most importantly, somehow extracting suspicion from mere location data. As it is they have enough problems trying to nail cops with GPS data for screwing off on shift.

"Why were you sitting in that parking lot at Black River Rd and State Rt 123 for half an hour?"
"Well Sarge, nothing else was going on so I thought I'd watch for someone running the red light."
"You were probably sleeping"
"No Sarge I was not."

He may or may not have been sleeping.

GPS has all kinds of weaknesses; it isn't the absolute that you guys seem to think. Even JDAMS has a CEP up to 13 meters.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Incorrect.

http://reason.com/blog/2010/05/29/maryl ... ts-illegal

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

I don't buy that logic. You don't quantify what measures they are forced to take and the resulting cost in terms of resources (time and money) to criminals. And not relative to the cost of deployment and costs associated with tampering to mislead investigation (cost of wasted time and money).

The best case scenario is the cost to detect and remove such a device is significantly less than to install one covertly. Criminals have the luxury of control and no time pressure their woes because they own the vehicle. Investigators do not. They have to find the vehicle to begin with, find a time frame they can do so without the owner or a random inquisitive bystander finding out and before that all happens, scout the design of the vehicle itself to figure out a secure way to attach it before any of that takes place.

I don't think you are giving due respect to lengths in which investigators must go to attach such a device. As I previously mentioned, most such devices are installed inside paneling or in the engine bay. Since that option is not available to investigation without a warrant, they have to attach it somewhere else. That is not simple.

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"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones