GPS Tracking Devices May Be Placed on Vehicles by Police Without Warrant, says Madison Judge
WOODSTOCK, IL (May 12, 2009) – Designers, manufacturers and distributors of Global Positioning System (GPS) tracking devices are lauding a Wisconsin court ruling of last week, because it will likely result in their technology being used more frequently, and perhaps with less hesitation, by law enforcement agencies.
The District 4 Court of Appeals in Madison, Wis. concluded that police do not need to obtain a warrant in order to place a GPS tracking unit on the outside of someone’s vehicle. Judge Paul Lundsten said in a statement that GPS tracking is not unreasonable search and seizure and that it didn’t violate privacy rights any more than regular visual surveillance.
The court, however did see the potential for abuse and followed the ruling with a request that state lawmakers pass laws detailing how and when GPS tracking crosses the line.
The case was prompted by a 41-year-old Madison man named Michael Sveum who was accused of stalking a woman. Police did get a warrant and secretly mounted a vehicle tracking device on Sveum’s car while it was parked in his driveway. After five weeks, police retrieved the device and also got a second warrant to search Sveum’s house. He was later arrested.
Sveum’s claimed his Fourth Amendment privacy rights were violated because police secretly placed the vehicle tracking unit on his car while it was parked in his driveway and because the device followed him into his garage, which is private.
The judge said it was legal because a driveway is considered a public area; A garage might be private, he said, but the GPS tracking device made no recordings while the car was idle inside the structure. A warrant was obtained but wasn’t even necessary, because police officers could have gathered the same information had they been there physically observing the activities.
A spokesperson for the Wisconsin branch of the American Civil Liberties Union expressed disappointment in the judge’s conclusion, saying that it was wrong for someone to attach something on another person’s personal property, without court permission.
 Wisconsin is one of the first states in the country to pass a law specifically addressing GPS tracking devices, recognizing their growing importance in investigating criminal activity. It might be looked upon as a legal precedent by courts in other states.
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Tags: court ruling, GPS Tracking, Law Enforcement, police, warrant
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