Posted on 09/10/2010 7:44:32 AM PDT by Libloather
Va. court upholds GPS tracking of suspect's vehicle
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: September 09, 2010
Richmond, Va. - The same GPS technology that motorists use to get directions can be used by police without a warrant to track the movements of criminal suspects on public streets, the Virginia Court of Appeals said yesterday.
In a case that prompted warnings of Orwellian snooping by the government, the court unanimously ruled that Fairfax County police did nothing wrong when they planted a GPS device on the bumper of a registered sex offender's work van without obtaining a warrant.
Police were investigating sexual assaults in Northern Virginia in 2008 when they focused on David L. Foltz Jr., a registered sex offender on probation. They attached a Global Positioning System device to the van he drove for a food services company and tracked him as he drove around.
After another sexual assault occurred, police checked the GPS log and determined that the van had been a block or two from the scene at the time of the attack. That prompted officers to follow Foltz in person the next day. They saw Foltz knock a woman to the ground and try to unbutton her pants, according to the appeals court.
Foltz was arrested. A jury convicted him of abduction with intent to defile and sentenced him to life in prison.
Defense attorney Christopher Leibig tried to have the evidence against Foltz suppressed, arguing that the use of the GPS device amounted to unconstitutional search and seizure and violated the defendant's privacy rights. Arlington County Circuit Judge Joanne F. Alper rejected the argument, and the appeals court upheld her ruling.
(Excerpt) Read more at 2.timesdispatch.com ...
Abduction with intent to defile?
Fancy legalese for “attempted rape”.
Mandatory tracking of all government employees (military exempt). Are they working? Where do they hang out? Let's find out the dirt.
Mandatory public exposure of all financial transactions conducted by government employees (military exemp). What are they buying? How much do they spend? Where did that money come from?
Private citizens deserve some privacy. Public servants? We deserve to know the dirty details.
If the vehicle was the defendant's, then the argument might be different.
Why do you want to exempt the military?
Can you point me to this "right to privacy" in the text of the Constitution?
The article doesn’t stipulate whether the van was owned by him or an employer.
He could be self employed and so the ‘work van’ is his.
Either way, I’m glad they caught the jerk.
Ooops.. Never mind..
Should have re-read the second paragraph.
“Food service company”.
Is there any detection equipment to find if a GPS receiver is nearby? Active AM & FM radios produce signals to convert the tuned station to an intermediate frequency and this can be detected even to the point of knowing what station you are tuned to. Is there anything similar in a GPS receiver than can be detected? It would be interesting to mail any GPS equipment stuck to my car to China.
Wouldn’t that require something like a tracking device on their ankle? That would cost a lot for initial purchase, maintenance and monitoring, wouldn’t it? Since they would be govt employees also, who would monitor the monitors? It would also require someway of tracking their finances, wouldn’t it?
You may be right, but the article does seem to imply that it was not his: “... the van he drove for a food services company ...”. I think it would phrased differently if it was the defendant’s.
Truth be told, I think privacy is over-rated -- an argument can be made that society would be a lot cleaner and more moral if people had less privacy. But I choose not to argue in favor of less privacy for most citizens.
What I do argue for is the concept that if government wants to peel away privacy, then that effort must start with the government bureaucrats who are most eager to live in a world without privacy. If it's good for them, then maybe it could be considered for the rest of us as well.
I'd think that the right of the citizens to be free from unwarranted and excessive observation by the government would be adequately covered by appealing to a combination of the 4th and 9th amendments.
Back in the day you couldn’t say ‘rape’ on the air. The newsies would report that a woman had been beaten, stabbed, shoved down a flight of stairs and suffered bruises, broken bones and lacerations, but she hadn’t been ‘criminally assaulted’!
A GPS unit like this one would have some electromagnetic signature. The question is the transmission frequency. I’m sure there are electronic devices that could be used to find it, but my guess is that not all of the them are legal to own, esp. in China.
Oops, I misread your last sentence. I thought you were in China, not sending it to China.
Can you point me to this “right to privacy” in the text of the Constitution?
I’d say it’s an implied right that would fall under the 10th Amendment. Clearly, there is some expectation of a right to privacy, otherwise what basis is there to justify the 4th Amendment?
Abduction with intent to defile?”
Language from about 1810?
Yesterday, Schwarzenegger signed a new law in California, which I believe should be copied in each & every state.
Life in prison without any chance for parole for sex offenders who are the worst of the lot.
The others can be put on parole for life, along with registration, which is more control than just making them register.
Here in Nevada, it is legal for a person who is a sex offender & must be registered to sign themselves up as a TRANSIENT & the sheriff can do nothing about it.
I am working to try & get that changed.
No sense in spending any money on websites & other means of notifying the public ‘where these criminals are’ if they can register as a transient!!
That’s the justification behind the “right” to abortion. Apparently it stems from a “right to privacy” found in penumbras and emanations from the 4th, 9th and 14th amendments.
Do you believe there is a “right” to an abortion as well?
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