Court Says No To Warrantless GPS Tracking

From The Electronic Frontier Foundation a victory for the EFF and the ACLU in a case (US v. Maynard) before the DC appellate court:

“Washington, D.C. – The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit today firmly rejected government claims that federal agents have an unfettered right to install Global Positioning System (GPS) location-tracking devices on anyone’s car without a search warrant.

In United States v. Maynard, FBI agents planted a GPS device on a car while it was on private property and then used it to track the position of the automobile every ten seconds for a full month, all without securing a search warrant. In an amicus brief filed in the case, EFF and the ACLU of the Nation’s Capital argued that unsupervised use of such tactics would open the door for police to abuse their power and continuously track anyone’s physical location for any reason, without ever having to go to a judge to prove the surveillance is justified.

The court agreed that such round-the-clock surveillance required a search warrant based on probable cause. The court expressly rejected the government’s argument that such extended, 24-hours-per-day surveillance without warrants was constitutional based on previous rulings about limited, point-to-point surveillance of public activities using radio-based tracking beepers. Recognizing that the Supreme Court had never considered location tracking of such length and scope, the court noted: “When it comes to privacy…the whole may be more revealing than its parts.”

The court continued: “It is one thing for a passerby to observe or even to follow someone during a single journey as he goes to the market or returns home from work. It is another thing entirely for that stranger to pick up the scent again the next day and the day after that, week in and week out, dogging his prey until he has identified all the places, people, amusements, and chores that make up that person’s hitherto private routine.”

“The court correctly recognized the important differences between limited surveillance of public activities possible through visual surveillance or traditional ‘bumper beepers,’ and the sort of extended, invasive, pervasive, always-on tracking that GPS devices allow,” said EFF Civil Liberties Director Jennifer Granick. “This same logic applies in cases of cell phone tracking, and we hope that this decision will be followed by courts that are currently grappling with the question of whether the government must obtain a warrant before using your cell phone as a tracking device.”

“GPS tracking enables the police to know when you visit your doctor, your lawyer, your church, or your lover,” said Arthur Spitzer, Legal Director of the ACLU-NCA. “And if many people are tracked, GPS data will show when and where they cross paths. Judicial supervision of this powerful technology is essential if we are to preserve individual liberty. Today’s decision helps brings the Fourth Amendment into the 21st Century.”

Attorneys Daniel Prywes and Kip Wainscott of Bryan Cave LLP also volunteered their services to assist in preparing the EFF-ACLU brief.

For the full opinion:
http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/US_v_Jones/maynard_decision.pdf

For more information on the case, formerly known as U.S. v. Jones:
http://www.eff.org/cases/us-v-jones

Contacts:

Kevin Bankston
Senior Staff Attorney
Electronic Frontier Foundation
bankston@eff.org

Cindy Cohn
Legal Director
Electronic Frontier Foundation
cindy@eff.org

Related Issues: Locational PrivacyPrivacy

3 thoughts on “Court Says No To Warrantless GPS Tracking

  1. The lowest range of the electromagnetic spectrum has become a battlefield in the United States. Over one thousand victims have signed a petition to the United Nations

    begging for help (I have a copy on my memory stick). Under the guise of “experimenting with weapons of war”, military contractors have been pumping out free electromagnetic

    weapons for “testing” and “experimentation” on United States citizens. Only one heroine, Julianna McKinney, the FIRST administrator of this NSA/CIA program, stood

    up and quit her job as soon as she read the stories of a few of us early victims who snail mailed our stories to her as she requested. She resigned, walked out, and

    herself became a USA victim who is hiding out, hopefully still alive. Julianne launched FFCHS (Freedom From Covert Harassment and Surveilliance), a web site for victims

    to compare notes, see what works and what fails. Many victims, like myself, are being burned alive, blistered in our own beds, bloodied or found dead at home, on

    freeways (mysterious car accidents caused by electromagnetic attacks on the brain or on the electrical parts of cars), or chased around the USA as they flee, seeking

    one safe place.

    I am 72 years old, was fortunate to find Julianna McKinney’s 300+ pages of victim advice on the web (I still have the file on my memory stick, and printed on paper). My life has been

    saved sofar as I learned to use copper scrubbers as a head shield, wear copper inside several thicknesses of Kotex (to prevent burns of the anus and blistered vagania).

    I have photos of facial burns, one eye doctor that attempted to save my vision from electromagnetic destruction was scared out of her office location and disappeared.

    Many others are dying and looking for a safe place which does not exist.

    But NONE OF US HAVE BEEN ABLE TO PERSUADE ANY ATTORNEY TO TAKE OUR CASE TO COURT. ..even though, in my case, I have 2 BANK VAULTS FULL OF EVIDENCE! Evidence

    that extends from copies of Medicare billings by 3 doctors who, from 3 locations, scanned my brain nonconsenually. (Local police broke in my locked home door, dumped me

    On a gurney, carried me to Norwalk, CT hospital…down to a deep basement lab where a ct scan was made and the still-wet scan was handed over to a neurologist I had

    never met or visited…her name is Dr. Amy Knorr and she is still in practice a Norwalk, CT hospital, preparing more USA citizens for a lifetime of torture!)

    Four victims, that I know of, live in CT. One is a prominent STOCK MARKET ANALYST/BROKER. I am retired but my son, also a stock market analyst and his wife and 3 children

    are constantly threatened if I don’t “cooperate” in my own death by electromagnetic torture.

    The problem with getting an attorney, is that EVERY VICTIM, LIKE MYSELF, IS SURVEILLED 24 HRS PER DAY. I am surveilled at this moment, at the Darien Public Library where

    I use a computer (all my computers were destroyed at the disk error level). To PROTECT ANY ATTORNEY THAT WOULD TAKE ON ONE OF THESE CASES, IT IS ABSOLUTELY

    ESSENTIAL THAT MY EYES DO NOT SEE, MY EARS DO NOT HEAR THE NAME OF ANY ATTORNEY willing to file a case.

    The EASIEST LEGAL CASE TO MAKE is actually here in CT where I live…i.e. CT CONSTITUTIONAL LAW PROHIBITS SURVEILLIANCE! So I have prepared a way to transfer

    2 bank vaults of evidence to any attorney who I should not see or know or meet. I would like to arrange for an attorney unknown to me to pick up my keys to 2 BANK VAULTS

    OF EVIDENCE and take that evidence for use in preparing a CT case against “Central Intelligence Agency” for illegal SURVEILLIANCE . I will leave the 2 keys to my bank vault

    with my bank and instruct them verbally and in writing, to deliver these keys and access to any or all evidence found in my 2 vault boxes to that person, who, I hope will

    be one of your trusted members of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Your representative must only provide 2 pieces of I.D. that are uniquely available ONLY to

    Electronic Frontier Foundation for review by any attorney of your choice.

    Since I am a legal resident of CT and own (along with my son) the home in which I live at 33 Arnold Lane, Norwalk, CT 06853,

    I grant you authority to give me a date only for leaving my key and authority to access my 2 bank vaults at Darien Rowayton Bank (located near the Highway 95

    Freeway). You are welcome to surveil my street, the electrical lines that carry electromagnetic signals to my home (although my torture gang is getting

    Frightened right now and might pull out before you get here. My torturers also have a taste for credit card crime and have unlawfully used my

    Credit card number at a downtown Norwalk restaurant (Chase Credit Card Co. is already investigating that). I could also leave you a key to my house

    So that you could document some of the PROPERTY CRIMES electromagnetically inflicted on my house and garage (garbage disposal burned out electromagnetically

    Following CIA’s announcement of their intent to destroy property). My car’s electrical ALTERNATOR has been destroyed multiple times…last time was

    replaced by parts only available at a junk yard. Give me a date and I will give you my car keys and take a taxi to the library so that my eyes can not see or

    my ears hear you as you investigate safely. (You are safe until such time as you too are KIDNAPPED and a CT SCAN made of your brain for use in

    targeting you for electromagnetic torture or invasive auditory sound. The problem is that unless the CT SCAN is totally removed from all “CIA”

    computerized access procedures, the invasive access to all thoughts and eyesight(s) is permanently enabled until such time as I die.

    My medical Dr., Dr. Walsh of Cos Cobb CT has discovered a EMPIRICAL WAY TO PROVE WHAT PERSON IS OR IS NOT SUBJECT TOO “INVASIVE” PHYSICAL AND

    AUDIBLE TORTURING…i.e. persons who are targeted electromagnetically HAVE NO SYSTOLIC AND NO DIASTOLIC BLOOD PRESSURE READINGS. This is

    A critical fact to establish in court as far too many sane, innocent people are being treated as if they are psychotic…and while in the hospital,

    Without their own consent, are forcibly made to listen to any “C.I.A.” auditory content or lies.

    Fortunately, the first Administrator at NSA/CIA of this program (Julianna McKinney) wrote a 300+ page explanation that can save lives of victims with copper

    Shielding of the brain and body areas targeted.

    Please email your answer to me.

    Sincerely,

    Mary Crockett

    mary.crockett54@gmail.com

  2. Pingback: Matt Simmons, BP Oil Spill Pessimist Dies Of Heart Attack | LILA RAJIVA: The Mind-Body Politic

  3. I obtained my undergraduate degree in biochemistry from Cornell, graduated from Medical School and was
    Chief Resident during my Family Medicine residency.
    Celery as a high blood pressure remedy can help to fight hypertension by getting rid of different toxins that cause high
    blood pressure. With time, generally if the force of the
    flow of blood is often elevated, the tissue that comprises
    the wall surfaces of blood vessels gets stretched beyond its healthy
    limit.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *