Re: Big Brother One Step Closer?

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On Tuesday May 13, 2003 11:25, James Richard Tyrer wrote:
> Neil Stevens wrote:
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> > On Monday May 12, 2003 11:31, Andreas Pour wrote:
> >>The Washington Supreme Court is set to hear arguments on whether
> >> police require a warrant to attach a GPS device to a vehicle.
> >>http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/121572_gps12.html
> >>
> >>The facts in the case, unfortunately, are very bad, and unfortunately
> >> it seems as though the government could have obtained a warrant if it
> >> had tried.  Now the government will make some lame arguments about,
> >> "but the killer will get off".
> >>
> >>If a GPS device is OK without a warrant, I see no reason why a
> >>microphone and camera are not also OK without a warrant.
> >>
> >>The race to totalitarianism continues . . . .
> >
> > Do you think that police should need a warrant before following a car?
> > before following a person?
>
> No, I don't as long as it is on public property.

What about following someone in a helicopter?

> The question of the right to privacy in your automobile is not clearly
> settled in US law.  My personal opinion is that a warrant should be
> required to enter your automobile.  So, attaching something to it is
> probably a gray area that needs to be decided by the court.
>
> Note the important distinction here: the GPS device *can* be used to
> follow an automobile on private property without the owner's
> permission.  This is an important distinction.

So can a helicopter.

> The question appears to be if this is any different from attaching a
> RF beeper to an automobile to make it easier to follow.

As I see it, the underlying question is: Do we want to make it easy for the 
police to intrude on privacy in ways that would ordinarily be limited by 
manpower?

- -- 
Neil Stevens - [email protected]
"The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's throat, for which the
sheep thanks the shepherd as a liberator, while the wolf denounces him
for the same act as the destroyer of liberty." -- Abraham Lincoln
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