GPS Tracking

GPS Device Tracks Down ‘Sin Bad’

The Minnesota Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that Sherburne County investigators did not violate the Constitution when they attached a GPS tracker to a burglary suspect’s work vehicle and used it to track him to a burglary scene.

Deputies used the GPS tracking device to track the suspect, Sin Santo Bad, to a residential house as he was cleaning out a safe.

Sin Santo Bad was convicted of first-degree burglary and sentenced to 11 years in prison. Bad appealed the conviction, contending that placing the GPS tracker on a truck he used at work constituted an illegal search, and in direct violation of his Fourth Amendment rights. Bad’s attorneys requested that the evidence investigators obtained after his arrest should be suppressed.

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Charges Dropped for Turtle Lake Driver

A 60-year-old driver for a handicapped transportation service in Turtle Lake, WI, was accused of sexually assaulting a child in his care. However, this past week he had the criminal charges against him dropped after the 11-year-old girl admitted she made up a story that he molested her sexually.

According to a phone interview from District Attorney Dan Steffen, Paul L. Burritt was not just “not guilty” of the accusations made against him, he was clearly “innocent” of all charges. He went on to state that this was “a prosecutor’s worst nightmare.” All charges against Burritt were dismissed on a prosecutor’s motion and Steffen is working to have them expunged from the criminal computer records.

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St. Louis Worker’s Time Sheets Questioned

Fred Robinson seemed to be the ideal employee. Every weekday that he worked in 2010 except one, the St. Louis City Treasurer’s Office employee started work at precisely 7:30 a.m., according to his time sheets. Robinson was hired by the Treasurer’s Office to drive around the city in order to look for broken parking meters and to fine illegally parked vehicles that hadn’t been ticketed.

However, FBI special agent, Monique Comeau, testified earlier this month that this wasn’t necessarily the case based on her investigation into Robinson’s actual work day. She usually found him leaving the house at roughly 9 a.m., spending a about an hour at a local diner, then driving between his second job as the head of a charter school and his third job, where Robinson was the process of establishing his own day care.

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Tracking Burglars Through GPS

The City of Santa Fe, NM introduced a new system designed to track convicted burglars by utilizing GPS devices rather than putting them in jail. The Santa Fe Police began tracking the first offender last week. This new program will start with just five GPS tracking devices in order to gauge its effectiveness and ability to collect data.

According to a report from ABC News, Santa Fe Police Capt. Aric Wheeler, said the idea for the program originated as an alternative to repetitive incarceration, which can get pretty expensive for taxpayers. They also found that jail time did very little to deter these repeat offenders from committing more burglaries.

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A Tragic Murder in Denver, Colorado

According to a report made by Fox News 31 (Denver, CO), a teacher was fatally shot and killed by he ex-boyfriend outside her Denver apartment last Friday (December 16). A GPS tracking device that would have been able to warn the victim that the suspect was nearby was not requested by the Denver District Attorney’s Office.

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High-Tech Cyber-Stalking in 2003

We recently discovered that one of LandAirSea’s GPS tracking devices was featured on NBC’s Today Show on February 2003. The story involved a man by the name of Paul Seidler, who used a GPS tacker to secretly monitor her ex-girlfriend, Connie Adams.

For weeks, when Connie Adams drove her car she knew it wouldn’t be long before her ex-boyfriend showed up. He’d pop up when she was on dates. He’d be outside the cafe where she went for her morning cup of coffee before work. He’d track her down at restaurants she had never visited before.

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GPS Tracking Device Used to Monitor Government Employee

A New York appeals court ruled in favor of the state in its use of a GPS tracking device on a government employee’s private car. The tracking device was placed on former Labor Department director of staff and organizational development, Michael Cunningham, to investigate whether he was skipping work and falsifying time sheets.

In 2008, the Labor Department suspected that Cunningham, a 20 year veteran of the department, was “taking unauthorized absences from work as well as falsifying time records,” according to the decision. The department “had an investigator attempt to tail” Mr. Cunningham when he left his office during work hours, but “the effort was thwarted” when he realized he was being followed, the court wrote.

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GPS Tracking Device Used to Track Suspected Drug Dealer in Tennessee

Much has been written this past week on the United States vs. Antoine Jones case, which was heard by the nine Supreme Court Justices last Tuesday. One of the primary issues at hand is whether law enforcement officials should be required to obtain a court-issued warrant before installing a GPS tracking device on a suspect’s vehicle in order to monitor his or her movements.

Jones’ lawyers are arguing that his Fourth Amendment rights, which prohibits “unreasonable searches and seizures,” were fundamentally violated when police attached a GPS tracking device on his Jeep Cherokee and monitored him for 28 straight days with an expired warrant for the use of the device. Essentially, they are making the claim that law enforcement officers infringed upon Jones’ Constitutional right to privacy.

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Rethinking the Issue of Privacy in a Technologically Advanced World

The rapid advancement of technological tools has changed the manner in which information flows out to the public, how people communicate with one another, and even the meaning of the word “friend,” which has now become a verb – “I friended you…” Teens today prefer texting over actual voice conversations. Through social media sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, we can now publicly broadcast our personal information to hundreds, if not thousands of people, instantly with a click of  button.

Technology has indeed gained a tremendous amount of traction over the past ten years, especially with the accessibility offered to us through the power of the Internet. And not only has technology advanced in rapid fashion, it may potentially gain enough weight and power to rewrite our constitutional protections.

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Big Brother is Watching You

The Supreme Court case involving the use of a GPS tracking device by federal and local law enforcement in monitoring a suspected drug dealer without a warrant, has generated quite a bit of debate from accredited news agencies, columnists, activists, politicians, and even everyday bloggers. The United States vs. Antoine Jones case was intensely discussed and debated between attorneys and Court Justices this past Tuesday (November 8th) in Washington, D.C (more information on this case can be read here).

During the hour-long deliberation, the “Big Brother” in George Orwell’s influential novel, 1984, was referenced 6 times. Now for those of you who are unfamiliar with this book, here’s a just short snippet of the synopsis provided by Sparknotes:

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