Supreme Crt 2 rule on Big Brother surveillance
Sept 14, 2011 16:09:35 GMT -5
Post by shann0 on Sept 14, 2011 16:09:35 GMT -5
www.homelandsecuritynewswire.com/supreme-court-rule-age-big-brother-surveillance
Law enforcement technology
Supreme Court to rule on age of "Big Brother" surveillance
Published 13 September 2011
This November the Supreme Court is gearing up to hear a landmark case which will decide how far law enforcement agencies can pry into an individual's private life; federal judges argue that the use of GPS surveillance by law enforcement is an "Orwellian intrusion" into private life and violate the Fourth Amendment; meanwhile police say GPS tracking is simply a more efficient way to tail a suspect's car or track their movements, things they can currently do without a warrant
This November the Supreme Court is gearing up to hear a landmark case which will decide how far law enforcement agencies can pry into an individual’s private life.
In recent years GPS enabled phones and devices have proven to be a treasure trove of personal data, beaming constant round the clock updates on an individual’s activity. With the increasing ubiquity of these devices, their legality has become the center of a hot debate that has divided the nation’s lower courts. In several recent rulings, judges have called the devices “Orwellian” or Big Brother-esque and worried that they violate the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable search and seizure.
For instance in April, Judge Diane P. Wood of the federal appeals court in Chicago wrote that using GPS surveillance would “make the system that George Orwell depicted in his famous novel, ‘1984,’ seem clumsy.”
More recently, Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis of the Federal District Court in Brooklyn refused a government request for 113 days’ worth of location data from cell phone towers. Garaufis called the request an “Orwellian intrusion” and that courts must first “begin to address whether revolutionary changes in technology require changes to existing Fourth Amendment doctrine.”
In United States v. Jones, which the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear in November, the nation’s top judges will address whether law enforcement officials are legally able to attach a GPS device to a suspect’s car and track their movements for weeks at a time.
More broadly, the Supreme Court’s decision will ultimately decide the limits of the Fourth Amendment in a technological age populated with devices that continuously record an individual’s location whether it is in with a cell phone, toll plaza, or transit system.
“The Jones case requires the Supreme Court to decide whether modern technology has turned law enforcement into Big Brother, able to monitor and record every move we make outside our homes,” said Susan Freiwald, a law professor at the University of San Francisco.
Echoing Frewald’s sentiments, Magistrate Judge James Orenstein of the Federal District Court in Brooklyn wrote in an opinion last year, “Technology has progressed to the point where a person who wishes to partake in the social, cultural, and political affairs of our society has no realistic choice but to expose to others, if not to the public as a whole, a broad range of conduct and communications that would previously have been deemed unquestionably private.”
At the core of the Jones case is if using a GPS device without a warrant qualifies as a search or if it is considered intrusive and reaches beyond traditional surveillance tactics used by law enforcement like stake outs and tailing cars.
Law enforcement officials maintain that using the devices is simply a more efficient way to track a suspect and is no different than assigning officers to stalk an individual’s car or follow their movements, which police can do without warrants. Federal appeals courts in Chicago and San Francisco have approved the use of GPS tracking devices without warrants.
In further defense of GPS technology, a government brief argued, “Law enforcement has not abused GPS technology. No evidence exists of widespread, suspicionless GPS monitoring.”
In addition, the brief added that requiring a warrant to attach a GPS device to a suspect’s car “would seriously impede the government’s ability to investigate leads and tips on drug trafficking, terrorism and other crimes.”
But Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg, a federal judge with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit who originally ruled on the Jones case, argues that GPS surveillance provides law enforcement information with more information than existing methods.
“Repeated visits to a church, a gym, a bar, or a bookie tell a story not told by any single visit, as does one’s not visiting any of those places in the course of a month,” Judge Ginsburg wrote. “A person who knows all of another’s travel can deduce whether he is a weekly churchgoer, a heavy drinker, a regular at the gym, an unfaithful husband, an outpatient receiving medical treatment, an associate of particular individuals or political groups — and not just one such fact about a person, but all such facts.”
The case about to be heard by the Supreme Court stems from the investigation of Washington, DC nightclub owner Antoine Jones, who was suspected of selling cocaine. Police sought to place a GPS device on Jones’s car and due to the uncertain nature of existing laws surrounding their use, prosecutors obtained a warrant.
The warrant required police to install the device within ten days and within the District of Columbia, but the police did not do it until eleven days later and in Maryland. Police then said no warrant was required and tracked Jones’s movements for a month, eventually using the evidence gathered to convict him of conspiring to sell cocaine. Jones was sentenced to life in prison.
Law enforcement technology
Supreme Court to rule on age of "Big Brother" surveillance
Published 13 September 2011
This November the Supreme Court is gearing up to hear a landmark case which will decide how far law enforcement agencies can pry into an individual's private life; federal judges argue that the use of GPS surveillance by law enforcement is an "Orwellian intrusion" into private life and violate the Fourth Amendment; meanwhile police say GPS tracking is simply a more efficient way to tail a suspect's car or track their movements, things they can currently do without a warrant
This November the Supreme Court is gearing up to hear a landmark case which will decide how far law enforcement agencies can pry into an individual’s private life.
In recent years GPS enabled phones and devices have proven to be a treasure trove of personal data, beaming constant round the clock updates on an individual’s activity. With the increasing ubiquity of these devices, their legality has become the center of a hot debate that has divided the nation’s lower courts. In several recent rulings, judges have called the devices “Orwellian” or Big Brother-esque and worried that they violate the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable search and seizure.
For instance in April, Judge Diane P. Wood of the federal appeals court in Chicago wrote that using GPS surveillance would “make the system that George Orwell depicted in his famous novel, ‘1984,’ seem clumsy.”
More recently, Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis of the Federal District Court in Brooklyn refused a government request for 113 days’ worth of location data from cell phone towers. Garaufis called the request an “Orwellian intrusion” and that courts must first “begin to address whether revolutionary changes in technology require changes to existing Fourth Amendment doctrine.”
In United States v. Jones, which the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear in November, the nation’s top judges will address whether law enforcement officials are legally able to attach a GPS device to a suspect’s car and track their movements for weeks at a time.
More broadly, the Supreme Court’s decision will ultimately decide the limits of the Fourth Amendment in a technological age populated with devices that continuously record an individual’s location whether it is in with a cell phone, toll plaza, or transit system.
“The Jones case requires the Supreme Court to decide whether modern technology has turned law enforcement into Big Brother, able to monitor and record every move we make outside our homes,” said Susan Freiwald, a law professor at the University of San Francisco.
Echoing Frewald’s sentiments, Magistrate Judge James Orenstein of the Federal District Court in Brooklyn wrote in an opinion last year, “Technology has progressed to the point where a person who wishes to partake in the social, cultural, and political affairs of our society has no realistic choice but to expose to others, if not to the public as a whole, a broad range of conduct and communications that would previously have been deemed unquestionably private.”
At the core of the Jones case is if using a GPS device without a warrant qualifies as a search or if it is considered intrusive and reaches beyond traditional surveillance tactics used by law enforcement like stake outs and tailing cars.
Law enforcement officials maintain that using the devices is simply a more efficient way to track a suspect and is no different than assigning officers to stalk an individual’s car or follow their movements, which police can do without warrants. Federal appeals courts in Chicago and San Francisco have approved the use of GPS tracking devices without warrants.
In further defense of GPS technology, a government brief argued, “Law enforcement has not abused GPS technology. No evidence exists of widespread, suspicionless GPS monitoring.”
In addition, the brief added that requiring a warrant to attach a GPS device to a suspect’s car “would seriously impede the government’s ability to investigate leads and tips on drug trafficking, terrorism and other crimes.”
But Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg, a federal judge with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit who originally ruled on the Jones case, argues that GPS surveillance provides law enforcement information with more information than existing methods.
“Repeated visits to a church, a gym, a bar, or a bookie tell a story not told by any single visit, as does one’s not visiting any of those places in the course of a month,” Judge Ginsburg wrote. “A person who knows all of another’s travel can deduce whether he is a weekly churchgoer, a heavy drinker, a regular at the gym, an unfaithful husband, an outpatient receiving medical treatment, an associate of particular individuals or political groups — and not just one such fact about a person, but all such facts.”
The case about to be heard by the Supreme Court stems from the investigation of Washington, DC nightclub owner Antoine Jones, who was suspected of selling cocaine. Police sought to place a GPS device on Jones’s car and due to the uncertain nature of existing laws surrounding their use, prosecutors obtained a warrant.
The warrant required police to install the device within ten days and within the District of Columbia, but the police did not do it until eleven days later and in Maryland. Police then said no warrant was required and tracked Jones’s movements for a month, eventually using the evidence gathered to convict him of conspiring to sell cocaine. Jones was sentenced to life in prison.