Public Service Announcement

[catsittingstill]

The Feds are apparently allowed to put this tracking device on your car without even getting a warrant:

Isn't that interesting?

Here's the story.

Apparently this is rather an old model--but surprisingly expensive: about $ 4,700. Newer models wire straight to the car's battery and can be made smaller and harder to find, according to the first article.

I just thought you might like to know.

Comments

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

I dunno. I think I might've told them (assuming I was certain I'd got it disabled) I threw it in the lake.... or alternately set it someplace reasonably public and then reported it for a suspicious device... that would've got it blown to smithereens for sure. (What was it, a My Little Pony with a voicebox that the fuzz blew straight to Mars recently?)

As a matter of policy: When someone who has taken an oath of office breaks that oath, he or she is not only automatically, summarily, and instantly relieved of the power and privilege of that office, but, being an oathbreaker and in breach of public trust, becomes somewhat less than the human beings on whose behalf said induhvidual was supposed to ask. In the case of these goddamnrevenooers (where you live, it's one word, and a Fed is a Fed), this definitely entitles them to be Messed With.

[thnidu.livejournal.com]

How about detaching it, then running it over?

"Oops, oops, extravagant curses...
Tracking is tricky and apt to go wrong."

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

If it were to accidentally become detached from the car it would probably wind up in the road somewhere--it is a near-certainty that it would be damaged by passing traffic, poor thing.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm not sure what oathbreaking has to do with this. As far as I can tell, the courts say the police are *allowed* to use this without a warrant. Apparently there's a group hoping to push it up to the Supreme Court.

But with the Right-wing Five I don't know that would do any good.

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

Attaching it, say, to the inside of a garbage dumpster with a power supply has a certain appeal. We can always hope the FBI will come and investigate, and retrieve their device. Although throwing it into a cactus patch or a patch of skunk cabbage is also appealing.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

The courts' attempt to alienate the Fourth Amendment doesn't make your right to privacy absent due process any less inalienable. One's oath in this country is to the Constitution, not to the courts.

That said, you've done precisely the right thing. You've said there is a strong possibility that the Supremes will *not* do the right thing... and thus you've pushed the issue into the court of public opinion. Hopefully the case will not fail there....

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

They're allowed in the jurisdiction of the 9th Circuit (the West), but not in the jurisdiction of the 4th Circuit (Central Atlantic, including D.C.) If the matter is pressed by the ACLU, it will go to the Supreme Court.

And fergoshsakes, we aren't living in Iceland in the time of the Sagas. This is not one of the terrifying harsh places where oaths become a true matter of life and death.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Middens not being generally available anymore...

[dornbeast.livejournal.com]

I have a low sense of humor; I'd mail it back to the FBI.

"You left this on my car; I thought you'd want it back."