There is good news today for Americans who care about the liberty that’s guaranteed to them by the Constitution of the United States of America. The U.S. Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia has ruled that government spies do not have the right to place GPS tracking devices on Americans’ cars without a search warrant.
The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution reads, “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” The Obama Administration had asserted that prolonged, secret GPS tracking of Americans was not unreasonable. The Court of Appeals disagreed.
The specific case had to do with the placement by the FBI of a GPS tracking bug on a car while it was on private property. The GPS bug then sent signals indicating the location of the car, every ten seconds, for a whole month. The FBI did not seek to obtain a search warrant authorizing the tracking. The opinion provided by the Court of Appeals stated,
“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.”
In its arguments defending the warrantless GPS spying by the FBI, Obama Administration lawyers asserted that it’s perfectly all right for the government to track every movement of an American with GPS devices, without any proof of cause to believe that the person targeted is involved in criminal activity – just so long as the GPS spying is targeted against individuals, and not against groups of people. Is that practice in accord with the hope and change American voters were promised by Barack Obama back in 2008?
No!
It’ll be appealed and probably have no effect anyway – the jack-booted thugs of the CIA and NSA obey only their own rules. After Congress granted the telecoms RETROACTIVE IMMUNITY from any prosecution for all this ILLEGAL AND UNCONSTITUTIONAL surveillance, what should we expect? More of the same, exactly. So don’t get your hopes up, it’s probably not going to work out for us.
Tom, let’s be fair. The thugs at the CIA don’t actually wear jack boots.
HA! Great one F.G.! (and you’re probably right)