College Student Finds GPS On Car, FBI Retrieves It 851
mngdih writes with this excerpt from Wired:
"A California student got a visit from the FBI this week after he found a secret GPS tracking device on his car, and a friend posted photos of it online. The post prompted wide speculation about whether the device was real, whether the young Arab-American was being targeted in a terrorism investigation and what the authorities would do. It took just 48 hours to find out: The device was real, the student was being secretly tracked and the FBI wanted their expensive device back ... His discovery comes in the wake of a recent ruling by the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals saying it's legal for law enforcement to secretly place a tracking device on a suspect's car without getting a warrant, even if the car is parked in a private driveway. ... 'We have all the information we needed,' they told him. 'You don't need to call your lawyer. Don't worry, you're boring.'"
Finders Keepers? (Score:5, Interesting)
How about a bit of "finders keepers" and disassemble and report of the technology. Followed up by a "Does it Blend" episode !
Power source. (Score:4, Interesting)
Apparently it is powered by batteries, but I always wondered if you could power one by attaching a peltier module to the exhaust...
What happens if you destroy it? (Score:5, Interesting)
If you just find one of these and don't realize that it belongs to the FBI, and think "doesn't belong" and destory it (or just toss it in a dumpster), are you liable to pay for it when the FBI comes to get it back?
Not hard to guess why he was being looked at (Score:5, Interesting)
Could have been interesting (Score:5, Interesting)
It would be really interesting to see what would have happened had he disposed of it in a lake before the FBI showed up. There's nothing in the photo to indicate that it belongs to the government; it could have been placed by a private detective. As far as I'm concerned, if you attach something to my car without my permission, it's mine.
Re:What happens if you destroy it? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Finders Keepers? (Score:3, Interesting)
How about a theft of government equipment charge, followed by a tampering with evidence charge?
The report on the technology would be pretty boring. Oversized antenna? Check. Battery pack? Check. COTS tracking hardware and software? Check.
I know I've had law enforcement follow me, and eavesdrop on my phone calls occasionally. Well, not randomly occasionally. They were following particular, perfectly legal, events.
They've never told me that I was boring. Judging by the fact I was never taken in for further questioning or charges, they discovered my day to day life is ... well ... boring. :)
Yup, he went to work. Yup, he went home. Yup, he called a few friends, all of whom were just as boring. Oh listen! He's joking about how boring his calls are, and how he feels sorry for us listening to the conversation. Oh it's friday, he went to a bar with his girlfriend. Yup, he drank a little. Nope, he didn't contact anyone nefarious. Yup, he went home.
Re:Replant the device (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Could have been interesting (Score:3, Interesting)
And if putting an FBI sticker made you liable for not destroying it, wouldn't everyone start putting FBI stickers on them?
Re:OUCH (Score:5, Interesting)
grandstanding.
99.9% of us are boring.
so what? people just want to live their lives. terror is over-rated and over-reported.
how much is wasted chasing boogeymen? how many of these chases end up bothing innocent people under a dragnet?
sickening. I hate this aspect of how my country is now acting. its like a child who has not learned from the past and keeps repeating the same 'wolf!' call over and over again.
Golden opportunity lost (Score:2, Interesting)
This guy missed a golden opportunity to mess with the FBI. Like maybe taking the thing up in a plane and throwing it out the window. Or tie it to a giant helium balloon.
Re:Replant the device (Score:3, Interesting)
Interstate truck? That's far too easy. I'm thinking something like slip it in some meat and feed it to a gator in the Everglades.
From the "(Gum)Shoe on the other Foot" Dept. (Score:1, Interesting)
So, is it okay for a "civvie" (ordinary citizen) to place a tracking device on a car belonging to The Authorities? You know, "watching the watchers"....
You never know... (Score:1, Interesting)
it might have been smarter to call the bomb squad when you find an unexpected device attached to your car than to touch it or remove it yourself.
Re:Could have been interesting (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Power source. (Score:4, Interesting)
No. It wouldn't be considered theft--or a trespass. That's an easy call.
It MIGHT be considered a "taking" within 5th Amendment jurisprudence. The 5th Amendment says that you can't take a person's property without just compensation. I'm not going to do the research for a /. posting that even I would urge not to be taken seriously, but the law's not absolutely clear on this.
If the cops rip your house apart pursuant to a judicially authorized search warrant, that is a legitimate exercise of the police power. The government may do that without compensation (in many jurisdictions) without offending the Constitution, because you are not entitled to just compensation for police power activity (think the destruction of your neighbor's house to save everybody else's house in a big fire). Many jurisdictions offer compensation for this kind of stuff because they dont' want the electorate totally pissed at them. But compensation is optional.
Now, if the cops have no probable cause and no reasonable suspicion that the target is engaging in criminal activity, has evidence of it, etc., then it may be debatable whether or not the FBI is engaging in a legitimate exercise of the "police power." This might form the basis of a legal "taking" argument because the government isn't exercising the police power--it's just plain taking.
People who are "taken" from are entitled to sue for just compensation (and if they win they get attorney fees). The FBI didnt' do much damage, but they did assert control over the person's automobile and did take power from that automobile. Even de minimis takings are takings. It could be quite a class action lawsuit (and it may very well turn out to be so).
No wonder the national deficit is getting insanely huge. Investigations of people like this guy, multiplied over and over, are phenomenally expensive. The United States is chasing its tail and it's pitifully embarrassing.
Re:Finders Keepers? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Finders Keepers? (Score:2, Interesting)
You do not have a duty to look after property that someone attaches to you by stealth.
Is the amount of time spent sitting in a cell, the money lost in lawyers fees, and the hassle of going to court really worth it?
If I am blameless, and the authorities are abusing their power, then emphatically YES. Someone has to keep them honest.
Example of why California has strict gun control (Score:4, Interesting)
Someone doing that in my neck of the woods would be greeted by a shotgun-toting homeowner and held for trespassing until the Sheriff showed up.
The Fourth Amendment reads:
``The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.''
If there's no warrant or probable cause or justifiable reason to be there, they had better stay off my property.
Not saying I'm ok with it... (Score:5, Interesting)
Six months ago, a former roommate of his was visited by FBI agents who said they wanted to speak with Afifi. Afifi contacted one agent and was told the agency received an anonymous tip from someone saying he might be a threat to national security. Afifi told the agent he was willing to answer questions if his lawyer approved. But after Afifi's lawyer contacted the agency, he never heard from the feds again until he found their tracking device.
Re:From the article (Score:3, Interesting)
Fits the profile of someone you want to keep an eye on pretty well, actually.
What: having a dad and brothers is bad? David Kaczynski turned in his brother, the Unabomber; should he also be on a watch list for having suspicious relatives?
Re:Finders Keepers? (Score:5, Interesting)
Your in college and find a strange device attached to your car.
I don't know about you but I would have taken it apart to see what it was. I would have figured it was some joke a friend had made.
If it wasn't marked as federal property how should I know?
Re:GPS in a jam (Score:3, Interesting)
someone want to comment on the effectiveness of GPS jammers?
Most likely prohibited by the FCC.
These are definitely prohibited by the FCC / FAA. Even a GPS re-radiation system (for bringing GPS indoors) must be registered with the authorities. I have personally been witness to this situation when a company that makes re-rad devices was not checking that its customers were authorized to use the equipment. The FCC / FAA tracked them down and made them contact all their customers to register their equipment.
Re:Finders Keepers? (Score:5, Interesting)
Especially if you have a family you are taking care of. You have that extra drive to make sure your daughter will grow up in a free country, but that's tempered by the knowledge that certain acts of civil disobedience (or extrapolating to an illegally oppressive government - those may be acts of constitutional obedience) may place you in custody/court for a sufficient amount of time to lose your job. That could result in failure to pay mortgage, inability to obtain another job within your career, etc...
I like to think that my daughter will still think of me as her hero and role model when she grows up, and I know my wife would support me (we'd probably be in trouble together actually) if it were one of the Big freedom issues. So what do you do when it's things like back scatter screening on a field-trip to the courthouse [cnet.com] or driving through a DUI checkpoint in the coldest form of sobriety? [drunkdrivingdefense.com]
This is the insidious danger inherent in the erosion of freedom: not enough to die for, not even enough to make you homeless or hungry or inconvenienced over, but enough, over time, to leave you with a shallow shadow of what our ancestors died for.
Re:Finders Keepers? (Score:2, Interesting)
If the device has a label on it that says "U.S. Government Property. Return to blah blah..." then yes, you'd likely be liable for damaging or losing it, and would certainly have to hand it over when they come to retrieve it.
On the other hand, if I found and threw away or disassembled into uselessness some unlabeled thing on my car, I'd be damned if I accepted their claim that I damaged something that wasn't mine. How was I supposed to know? It's my flippin' car, I have the right to turn every gram of it into a fine powder if I felt so inclined.
Re:What happens if you destroy it? (Score:4, Interesting)
Stick it to some cargo truck going cross country or something similar. A railroad carriage would be fine too.
Even better would be to replicate the device so there are a set of devices claiming to be "it" and send all copies all over the country. Could be a fun game of hide and seek.
Re:What happens if you destroy it? (Score:1, Interesting)
Simple solution:
Attach the tracking device to the car of one of the judges who said it was OK for the government to spy on people without a warrant. When the FBI notices where the device has gone after the judge has driven to work they will assume "The Terrorist" is attacking the Federal courthouse. Hilarity, embarrassment, and an educational experience for everyone involved should quickly ensue.
Re:America (Score:3, Interesting)
Freedom must include freedom to be in a government, or any other organization. If freedom only exists when there is no government, we have a paradox. You cannot be free to be in a government if you cannot have a government.
Secondly, you're only defining personal freedom, not collective freedom or any other kind of freedom. Freedom is not a thing, it is an attribute of a thing. Freedom in the abstract has no meaning, you can only have a freedom of.
Let us say that you are correct that totally free individuals have no government. Then the government, by definition, has no freedom at all. Nor does any other collective. But if you have a dictatorship (the government has total freedom), then neither individuals nor any other collective has freedom. In a total corporate state, it is the collectives that have freedom, not individuals nor government.
This leads to something I stated in a discussion a while back: The sum of all freedoms is a constant. The question is only how you divide the freedom up. There will be some optimal balance. I suspect this is going to work out at something like a 40:40:20 divide of freedom between people:collectives:government. Political scientists have tried to define the "perfect" system for millenia and failed, so I doubt I'll succeed any time soon. Equally, I doubt anyone else will, either.
Re:Finders Keepers? (Score:5, Interesting)
I think you mean "They are already carrying out completely legal operations against you, using the legitimate and constitutional authority granted to them by a court of law," right?
You may not LIKE the authority they're given, but as the law stands today, they absolutely have every right to do it, and it *is* legal for them to do it. If you don't LIKE it, you should vote for legislative candidates who will promise to do something about the issue that concerns you. Or, become a candidate yourself, and educate your fellow citizens about the abuses of power you will correct when you're a representative or senator.
Re:What happens if you destroy it? (Score:5, Interesting)
Are you an official spokesman for the FBI who has firsthand knowledge of this as a fact, or are you making this up as you go along?
After reading the Wired article, we learn many things:
Of course, none of that is illegal, but neither is going to a flight school and asking to taught how to fly. The point being, those who claim he was targeted only because he was half-Egytian or that this is based on profiling aren't looking at the entire picture.
CAIR, in particular, looks a lot like the German-American Bund from pre-WWII days. They claimed to be formed to further German-American relations, but promoted Nazi propaganda and anti-semitism, as well as being a cover for espionage.
The fact he was knowingly driving with expired plates makes him a valid traffic stop by any policeman he goes by.
Re:Gift-receivers Keepers? (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't understand why this doesn't seem to compute. You *cannot* have it both ways - it cannot be a "lost item" and a "malicious device planted on my car by some shadowy third party who is out to do me harm." Either somebody misplaced it, or somebody knows *exactly* where it is and why it's there, and then the only question is whether or not they have the legal authority to place it there -if they do, then you're just destroying government property and extending the list of crimes you're under investigation for; if they don't, then the role of the police is to protect you from these violations, and so you should be putting them to work doing exactly that.
If you want to consider it "lost" property, you must treat it as such - which means you can't destroy it, or do whatever else you want with it, without facing legal consequences. I'll say it one more time: "FINDERS KEEPERS" IS NOT THE LAW, and never has been.
If you want to consider it a "malicious device," then you call the police and report what you've found, and turn the device over for them to investigate what the device is, what its purpose is, and who attached it to your car.
As a third option, only to be chosen if you want to continue to be a complete blithering idiot, keep claiming it's "lost property," and that its status as "found" property somehow allows you to dispose of it as you see fit, or destroy it if you feel like it. This option is completely indefensible from a legal standpoint, but it seems to be oddly comforting to a lot of armchair lawyers here.
Re:What happens if you destroy it? (Score:3, Interesting)
Sorry AC, but I need to bust some chops here.
My dad was a police officer for 26 years. he fits GGP's profile for egomaniac quite well. He is also paranoid, and an "end of the world" nutter.
I grew up hearing stories from his work that would make any sensible person cringe concering civil rights violations of people based on the simple "gut instincts" of police officers, as well as even scarier stories of corruption, racketeering, and conspiracy. (I firmly believe that my dad is a paranoid, power abusing crank BECAUSE of the experiences in his life. Becoming a policeman AFTER being in Korea does NOT a sane mind make.)
The icing on the shitcake you just spun, is that I have had a front seat view of the behind the scenes goings on of these "oh so misunderstood, and noble policepeople." As scary as my dad is, he really WAS one of the LEAST corrupt; That doesnt excuse his behavior any, it is merely a frightening observation. People who are sworn to protect citizens and enforce the law were actively engaged in beating first, and asking questions later, extorting money and information from known prostitues, Covering up criminal activities of wealthy citizens--including murder--etc.
Do I have proof? No. Did these things really happen? Who knows. there is no evidence; and that is kinda the point. I simply know I have heard officers joking and laughing about such things, the way geeks joke about their encrypted porn collections.
Law enforcement attracts a specific kind of person; People that LIKE to enforce. The problem is that these peopel dont always enforce the LAW, but rather their own personal version of it. Again, my dad was no exception.
So, forgive me if I tell you to take your candy coated version of the poor, misunderstood and downtrodden civil servant, and stuff it were the sun doesnt shine. IF such officers still exist, they comprise FAR less than 1% of the active force.