California Ruling Enables Cops to Use GPS Tracking Systems Without a Warrent

Recently, a federal judge in California ruled that police can place a GPS on a person's car without their knowledge and, without seeking a warrant. According to AOL, Juan Pineda-Moreno's appeal was rejected for the third time in early August by the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. This court covers nine West Coast states.

Pineda-Moreno claimed that Oregon DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) agents had violated his privacy by sneaking onto his property and placing a GPS tracker on his Jeep. The agents did this because they had cause to believe that he was growing marijuana, an illegal drug.

The DEA supported their case against Pineda-Moreno by using data gathered by the device, such as the latitude and longitude of where the Jeep had been driving, and how long it had stayed there.

Pineda-Moreno will continue serving his 51-month sentence. However, not everyone agrees with the court's ruling. “The vast majority of the 60 million people living in the Ninth Circuit will see their privacy materially diminished by the panel's ruling,” wrote Chief Judge Alex Kozinski in his dissent of the case. Also, Marc Rotenberg, the executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, told CNN that the ruling was “Orwellian,” referring to George Orwell, the controversial science fiction author of books such as “1984” and “Animal Farm.” He refers to government as “big brother.” Because they are always watching. In his books he describes scenes where the government has knowledge and control of everything. That might seem far-fetched, however, with all these rulings such as the one described above, we're actually moving toward his predicted society.

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This ruling comes less than a month after a D.C. U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that police should attain a warrant before engaging in GPS tracking.

The problem with such rulings is the simply prudence. If you have good reason to believe that a person is a murderer, I'm not going to tell you that you should waste any time in getting a warrant before you gain more evidence that could lead to preventing death. The whole problem with law is simple the question where you must draw the line. In law, there has almost always been the white side, the black side and the simple gray area. That gray area is where most people operate. For some it's good, for some it's bad. It really depends on the circumstances.

The opposing rulings between the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and the D.C. U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals suggest that the constitutionality of warrentless GPS tracking will be tested in the Supreme Court.

However, in some ways, GPS tracking isn't very different from parking down the street from somebody and trailing them. The only major difference is that with a GPS you can operate remotely and monitor precise coordinates.