Discovery of GPS tracker becomes privacy issue

10-17-2010 • AP

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.

1 Comments in Response to Discovery of GPS tracker becomes privacy issue

Comment by Ross Wolf

Entered on: 10/18/2010 11:41:52 AM

Increasingly Americans resent and are concerned about police, without warrants attaching GPS tracking devices to their cars, sometime for long periods of time, reveling every nuance of someone’s life including visits to doctors, unveiling private relationships, the clients a person legally does business, which attorneys they see. Citizens should equally resent and resist Obama’s recent attempt to curtail the Fourth Amendment, by allowing the FBI warrant-less wiretapping of all Americans’ electronic communications including no warrant searches of Internet Activity and emails. No doubt that will make Citizens afraid to communicate by phone or email and worry, someone might say something inappropriate during a phone call or send email that will cause their arrest if they don't report it to police. Under Obama’s no warrant proposal anything said on a phone or in an email can be used by government against someone in a trial or civil proceeding, e.g. an asset forfeiture proceeding, the latter requiring only a civil preponderance of evidence to forfeit property, little more than hearsay.

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