It is legal to follow a vehicle, and externally monitor it. As long as the device is external and causes no damage(i.e. mounting damage, drain on power, etc) then it should be legal.

I know in my state it is legal for people to lift your wiper blade and place advertisements on your windshield, using the wiper to pin it. As long as the wiper is not damaged, it is legal.

If the police use a magnetic gps tracking device on the under carriage of the vehicle, then I suppose it is about as damaging.

As was pointed out, following a signal is not considered an invasion of privacy, nor do you have an expectation of privacy as to where you go when you are driving.

Just my 2 cents.

I see that as the difference between this situation and the Knotts case. The Knotts case was more of a sting operation, installing a tracking device with the “current” owner’s permission. In this instance, the cop essentially vandalized a private citizen’s car and the case should be decided with that in mind, even if most people would want it to be otherwise.

A cop that breaks the law is no better than the criminal he is trying to stop.

It’s simple: If an officer has information to believe that a crime has been, is being, or will be committed, he should have the right to attach a GPS tracking to the vehicle.

Police officers don’t have rights, individuals have rights. Police officers have jobs. The police officer’s job is to uphold those laws that protect individual rights and to defer to the courts’ judgment when those rights need be infringed upon in the enforcement of those laws.

Semantics on “rights” aside, I’ve got no problem with your argument that police should have the authority to put a GPS on a suspect’s car as long as they present the probable cause to a judge and get a warrant to do so. When officers, however, decide that they’re the ultimate arbiters of what our rights are and feel they don’t need to go through the court system to seek permission when they violate individuals’ rights in the course of an investigation then those police officers are nothing more than vigilantes and criminals themselves.

The officers in this case were wrong because they were lazy and because they cut corners in doing their job, and as such may have helped to allow a known sex offender to get away with what he’s done (if he gets competent counsel) by using tainted evidence…and if they get away with their tactics they’ve undermined the rights of law-abiding citizens in the process. The officers in this case deserve to lose their jobs for what they’ve done, even if they thought they were doing it for the right reasons.

The same rule already applies to vehicle searches, which by the way, police don’t need a warrant for during a traffic stop. Applying a GPS Tracking System to a vehicle is less intrusive than a physical search of the vehicle or suspect. So, why wouldn’t gps tracking by police be permissible without a warrant?

While I think we both agree on how this case should be decided, do you agree with me that, given the current make up of the Supreme Court and their rulings to date on 4th Amendment issues, that the Supremes would be unlikely to declare this an illegal search and seizure ?

Here’s hoping that the court that takes this case is more sane than the one you wrote about, then.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the courts are going to side with the defendent here…and the police handling the case should be fired (even though they likely did catch a rapist). The police, without warrant, essentially placed a tap on the vehicle. Sure, the guy is likely guilty of the crimes…but what if he wasn’t? What if he’d had nothing to do with it? What if the cops had bugged the car of an innocent person and tracked where that person went, who he talked to, what his business was? If the police are allowed to circumvent the warrant process as a matter of convenience in this case, what’s to stop them from doing it in other cases where maybe the motive isn’t to stop a criminal but to engage in harassment of law-abiding citizens because of department corruption, like what happened in Manassas, VA?

http://www.theagitator.com/2006/12/22/manassas-park-smears-a-businessman/

Once you ignore the police violating civil liberties to catch someone who probably merited being pursued, you open the door to allow police to do it to people who don’t deserve it as well…and I have a hard time believing the courts are going to miss a point that obvious.

And it’s unbelievable that the cops in Fairfax County didn’t realize that this would come back to sink their case either. They had probable cause…they couldn’t go talk to a judge or prosecutor and get a warrant for this? I generally appreciate the police, believe they’re necessary and understand that their job can be difficult, but either the cops’ evidence on this suspect was so weak that they knew there was no way they’d get a warrant or the police officers of Fairfax County are some of the dumbest fucking people on the planet (and that’s saying a lot).

Also, I suspect that even if Foltz is exonerated he’s not going to go free as the state will likely do what it can to have him committed to psychiatric care. Best of all possible worlds, the courts rule against the police, Foltz gets committed to an institution, and the police responsible are either suspended or fired.