For the first time, the Supreme Judicial Court ruled yesterday that the state constitution allows police to break into a suspect’s car to secretly install tracking devices using a global positioning system, provided that authorities have a warrant before they do so. In a unanimous ruling written by Justice Judith Cowin, the state’s highest court upheld the drug trafficking conviction of Everett H. Connolly, a Cape Cod man who was tracked by State Police in 2004 after they installed a GPS device in his minivan.
The court said that using GPS devices as an investigative tool, which can require police to secretly break into a vehicle to install the device, does not violate the ban on unreasonable search and seizure in the state’s Declaration of Rights.
“We hold that warrants for GPS monitoring of a vehicle may be issued,’’ Cowin wrote. “The Commonwealth must establish, before a magistrate . . . that GPS monitoring of the vehicle will produce evidence’’ that a crime has been committed or will be committed in the near future.
Innocent until proven guilty? Not anymore… the heats just been turned up a little higher.
It does state that they can do it only with a warrant. This does have severe privacy implications though, particularly if you’re not found guilty of anything.
They got a warrant for it, so there must have been reasonable grounds. This is nothing new, and has likely been done for YEARS.
Now, if the police start doing this without warrants, then post it.
Signage update.
Warning: Neighborhood Gotcha. If I don’t kill you, my neighbor will.
So how about wiretaps? Are they another example of violating ‘innocent until proven guilty?’
Judges don’t sign these warrants for frivolous reasons. Don’t you watch Law & Order?
Living in Massachusetts, you just need to know whom to pay off ahead of time to avoid this sort of problem.
I’m a pretty liberal kinda guy, but I don’t really have a problem as long as a warrant has been issued.
Do you even need a warrant in most states?
#2 – Wisconsin Courts have ruled that Police can put a GPS on any vehicle without a warrant. In their opinion, they urged legislators to rewrite the law to close the loophole, but they were unable to read the law in a way that would prevent police from doing it right now.
Granted, they probably are limited to the outside of the car, but its still crazy.
Geeee… having to get permission to do surveillance from an established court procedure. What a strange concept. I feel that my safety as an American is being threatened because this does not allow the police to do whatever they want, whenever they want and for no given reason.
They have to have a warrant. Better than Wisconsin. If I found one on my vehicle, I would go for a drive and let it “fall off”.
#3 Buzz
http://whiotv.com/news/21012459/detail.html
Finally a dirtbag picked on the wrong old man.
Benj…put it on someone else’s car.
[Nah… put it on a cross country truck. – ed.]
I don’t see how this is really any different than a wiretap on a phone.
The question I have: Are the police required to destroy the information after either failing bring an indictment. I suppose the answer is the same as what the police do with the wiretap recordings.
#14. i understand that court orders permit tapping and tracking within a jurisdiction and within a designated time frame, and that a charge needs to be issued before the lapse. otherwise, unless national security is concerned, the information is destroyed. if an arrest and a charge happen, then the information is stored indefinitely, in case of a retrial.
#10 I gotta say I agree with you. There is a process here and things are documented. Its not police going off on a wild goose chase, its folowing an established proceedure.
So, at least at this point, I’m with you.
Who has an argument for any other action?
When you make your argument, keep in mind there is only a right to privacy, balanced as all rights are with other valid rights, and is not a right to anonymity.
Your guilty of reading DVORAK punk!
Ummm,
WHY do they need to be IN THE CAR..the device is cheap and simple.. GLUE it under the body.. Under the bumper..
This is a good idea for stalkers and anyone threatening a woman. Although women stalkers deserve a kick in the cunt. I’d decline to prosecute if I could do that, in my Harley boots. I’d drive her cherry so far back up in her ass she could use it as a tail light.
/was stalked
“must establish, before a magistrate . . . that GPS monitoring of the vehicle will produce evidence that a crime has been committed or will be committed ”
Excuse me????? They now violate your rights by predicting the future. Wasn’t there a movie about this crap in the future?
Doesn’t the same outcome get reached if the individual were to be be tailed continuously for the same amount of time.
i have only one question:
what the HELL is going on in Massachusetts?
-s
You’ve never had an expectation of privacy in your car. The Supremes decided that decades ago. This is nothing really new.
The can tap your phone and bug your house with a warrant. Why not your car?
The one that was a little more surprising is that I think they can just stick a tracking device on the bottom somewhere and follow you around without a warrant?
So is it a bad thing if I take off the tracking device and attach it to say, a Possum?