http://archives.chicagotribune.com/2009/may/07/news/chi-ap-wi-gps-police
GPS systems were originally created for individuals to navigate themselves and aid when lost in unfamiliar territory, but today GPS systems are used to find individuals when they do not, necessarily, want to be found. Is this right?
According to a Wisconsin court's ruling in May 2009, police are allowed to place GPS tracking on individual's cars without their consent or obtaining any form of a search warrant. A possible violation of a person's constitutional rights have been brought to attention. The fact that no warrant is necessary seems strange. The judge in the article stated, "Officers do not need to get warrants beforehand because GPS tracking does not involve a search or a seizure." While it may not involve a "search or a seizure" it is still the property of an individual and those property rights should be respected.
Giving police the right to place a GPS on a person's car without gaining permission oversteps the boundaries of privacy. As free Americans we are given rights to come and go as we please without minute to minute monitoring. Tracking people without their prior knowledge is unfair and wrong. If a person is suspected of criminal activities then a lawyer should need to present a valid argument in order to obtain the warrant and proceed from there, just as that lawyer would do to obtain a warrant for a person's place of residence. While the intentions of the GPS placed by the police may be good, it undermines an individual's rights.
2 comments:
This is outrageous. It does present the ongoing issue of protection versus rights. Does protecting the social good trump individual rights? I would agree that it should not. I would not be surprised if this one goes to the Supreme Court.
yeah, right! I agree that protecting the social good should not trump on individual rights. We have individual rights for a reason. While the social good is important, we have ways to keep "good" by our constitution. If our government (in this case the police) puts the social good of the people before the people's rights we are going to have many more problems besides this GPS.
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