GPS Tracking

Are Laws Keeping Pace With Science?

Under what circumstances can a police officer slap a global positioning system (GPS) Tracking device on your car to gather evidence against you in a legal matter?

To what lengths can an authority figure go, to hide a high-tech vehicle tracking device on your personal property?

If you’re looking to the courts for a legal opinion about GPS tracking, keep looking. Two states recently addressed the issue in court, but ended up with very different, if not opposite, results.

Courts Conflict on Legality

Both considered government placement of GPS tracking devices, specifically, in what cases the action would be unjustified and an intrusion. At the heart of the matter is whether vehicle tracking units can be installed on private vehicles without a warrant. A warrant is a court-approved search in which officers specify the reasons behind the surveillance or search. It details the place to be searched and the person, things or information that is sought.

The first week of May, 2009, 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. A 41-year-old Madison man was arrested for stalking after police secretly used GPS tracking on his car for a period of five weeks.

The judge 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.

Several days later, a New York Appeals Court disagreed, saying police cannot use GPS tracking devices without a warrant. Police used a GPS tracking unit on a van belonging to a Latham man and tracked his vehicle’s every move for 65 days. The evidence helped convict him of a K-Mart burglary. The New York case was a very narrow decision, 4 judges to 3; proving that, when it comes to GPS tracking, a citizen’s privacy is not easily defined.

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Tags: cou, court ruling, GPS Tracking, law enforment, legal, Vehicle Tracking

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 20th, 2009 at 1:04 pm and is filed under All Articles, GPS Tracking, GPS Tracking Legal Issues, Vehicle Tracking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.