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 !
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?
Re:What happens if you destroy it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Take a wild guess.
Re: (Score:3)
If I ever found one of these things on my car (which I probably won't), I'd sell it to the highest bidder on ebay.
Then I'd go to jail.
Where I'd write my version of Mein Kampf. And sell it to become a millionaire when I get out. BTW I think it's horrible the US Government was using racial profiling to track this arab student. Apparently it's wrong when the AZ government does it, but it's okay for the US? They should be required to get search warrant FIRST before wire-tapping..... I mean GPS-tapping a ca
Re:What happens if you destroy it? (Score:5, Informative)
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: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:4, Insightful)
Now, if he had an attitude or a temper or a point to prove, and had lots of free lawyer service saved up, he definitely could have played with the fbi guys.
With his background, obviously he fits a "profile" and is one of many many people being tracked.
I remember hearing about East Germany during the heyday. I heard that about 50% of the people were in some way affiliated with the government, so basically each person had another person watching them. Everyone was under surveillance by everyone else. Not sure how true that was, but it can't be too far from the truth, lol.
My point is, the FBI must have an enormous amount of people being watched. How many agents are there who watch all those people? Amazing. And how boring that must be, doing surveillance all day every day. And paperwork after that.
Re:What happens if you destroy it? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What happens if you destroy it? (Score:5, Insightful)
The article is a good read and a little creepy. We're here to recover the device you found on your vehicle. It's federal property. It's an expensive piece, and we need it right now...We.re going to make this much more difficult for you if you don't cooperate"
Summary: not illegal/unconstitutional for the government to track your car, probably a crime if you find tracker and do anything with it.
Re:What happens if you destroy it? (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
As a (former) cop .... Anybody in law enforcement, at every level, is an infantile egomaniac.
If there's one thing I've learned from being a part of large government organizations, it's that any individual can only really speak about himself. Any time you hear a soldier, cop, or politician speak about their field of work, they tell you more about themselves than they do about the organization.
Re:What happens if you destroy it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Hysterical. You even started with: “If there's one thing I've learned from being a part of large government organizations”.
By your own logic, you told me more about yourself than you did about anyone else working for the government.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What happens if you destroy it? (Score:5, Informative)
You're kidding, right? Look at this [slate.com]:
Re:What happens if you destroy it? (Score:4, Funny)
I think I'd send the device "Next Day UPS Air", addressed to Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan. You know, make it interesting.
Re:Finders Keepers? (Score:5, Insightful)
How about the FBI throws you in jail for destruction of government property, obstruction, and any other charges they decide to toss your way (rightfully or not)? 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?
Re:Finders Keepers? (Score:5, Insightful)
... and how about they kiss his ass, seeing as they left their property inside his for surveillance?
He's got every right (IMO) to do what he damn well pleased with it.
Re:Finders Keepers? (Score:5, Informative)
Recall the recent "found" iPhone 4 debacle:
The finder of a thing usually seems to have to make a reasonable attempt at finding the owner of an item (and "reasonable" varies quite a lot from place to place), and if it is unclaimed after 30 days, then they are entitled to keep it.
Generally speaking, YMMV, IANAL, so on, so forth.
But since the FBI asked for their widget back within 30 days, I guess that it's theirs to recover.
(Whether or not I think this is morally right is a different discussion entirely. Personally, I'd like to think that if I find a tracking widget on my car, that it's henceforth mine. However...)
Re:Finders Keepers? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Finders Keepers? (Score:5, Informative)
All laws about this aren't the same. There are three different kinds of laws on this topic.
There's the 'forgot to pick up' law, where you accidentally put something somewhere and forget to get it, like setting your wallet down in a checkout line.
And there's the 'dropped' law, where you did not know it left your possession.
These are, believe it or not, often covered under different state laws.
For example, the rule with the first is often if you find something you think someone has accidentally left, you should keep it there, at least for some specified time. If a customer walks out of a restaurant without their purse, the restaurant should hold their purse for them.
Whereas with the second, if you find a wallet in the middle of the sidewalk, or even if you find one in the middle of the hall in the exact same restaurant, you're supposed to turn it in to the police. 'The Place' gets things left behind, where people can go back and get them, the police get things that just fell there, where people possibly have no idea where they are.
Generally. Of course, laws vary by state, but I thought it would be worth mentioning that even truly 'lost' items get treated differently depending on how they got lost.
And neither of those cover deliberately leaving something somewhere on someone else's property. If such a law exists, it's a different law. As far as I know, you don't have any obligation to take care of people's property and make sure they can find their stuff when they do that, like you do when they accidentally give you possession. OTOH, you can't deliberately break their stuff either.
I still think the best bet is to take the thing apart and claim you thought it was part of the car. (Or, rather, plead the fifth and have your lawyer point out they haven't proven you knew it wasn't part of the car.)
OTOH, if you really wanted to screw with the 'lost property' stuff, you put your car inside a giant metal box and hide it in a warehouse somewhere. You have not damaged their tracker at all.
And by them attaching the tracker, they've just admitted that they're recording the location of your car. So there's no way in hell they can force you to reveal the location of your car, because, duh, that's testifying against yourself. (Think about it for a second. If the FBI is collecting 'the location of the car', then 'the location of the car' is clearly being used as evidence in an investigation, presumably against you, so if you're forced to tell them 'the location of the car'...)
Now, a court could demand you turn it over, or be in contempt, but they're actually have to go through the court to do that. And you're still have a pretty interesting argument, namely, that you're not willing to remove something they attached to your car, as you have no experience in that sort of thing and they've threatened to sue you if you damage it .(And you still can't be forced to tell them where the car is.) So, while you'd like for them to get their tracker back, there appears to be no way to actually accomplish that.
Re:Finders Keepers? (Score:5, Insightful)
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: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Finders Keepers? (Score:5, Funny)
Better yet, park your car outside a government building and then call the police saying there is a suspicious device attached to your car. Hey, you did the right, thing, right? How can they fault you? You didn't put it there, don't know what it is or what it does, so you called the police. I mean really, the thing looks like a transmitter attached to a pipe bomb, what would you think? The resulting traffic jam and media coverage of shutting down part of town while the city's bomb squad recovers an FBI tracking device (or, possibly blows up your car just to be safe) would be pretty embarrassing for the FBI. Would kinda suck to loose the car though.
Re:Finders Keepers? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, but how does he know that it is actually theirs?
Perhaps they are just trying to get their hands on other people's property.
Are they prepared to provide a receipt for returning the item, or some proof of ownership that he can retain a copy of to protect himself from liability.
-- Menachem
Re:Finders Keepers? (Score:5, Insightful)
So what you're saying is that we've gone from "give me liberty or give me death" to "don't throw me in jail because it will make me uncomfortable".
As to your last question. YES IT IS WORTH IT. Liberty is always worth the penalty for it, the other option is to acquiesce to slavery. This is no different. Tyranny must be fought with everything we have, because the other options aren't pretty.
Re:Finders Keepers? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not that I disagree with you, but there is a pretty wide gap between saying something like this on the Internet and actually following through with it in the real world.
There's obviously no way for me to know your level of life-experience but if a person is not normally subjected to direct pain and suffering or is blissfully unaware of it the amount of effort required to force them into acquiescence is minimal. Withstanding that kind of pressure isn't as simple as you make it sound.
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:5, Insightful)
Re:Finders Keepers? (Score:5, Insightful)
1776: "We lack representation in government and have no other recourse."
2010: "We are the government and have recourse to change laws."
Re:Finders Keepers? (Score:5, Insightful)
2010: "The government habitually plays big brother (and just did)."
Re:Finders Keepers? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Forming the red-neck militia and stocking up on canned bacon isn't the way to go about changing it. We have laws. We have law makers. Getting one to change the other is the way. Oh, you can't get rid of your local politician because everyone else votes for him? Well, that doesn't give you the right skip the democratic process just because you don't like the results. "It's not tyranny when I do it" just doesn't cut it.
Um, you do know how the United States became an independent country, no? I suppose it's a matter of opinion whether the founding fathers should have fought it out in Parliament instead of on the battlefield the Revolutionary War, but their choice WAS the foundation of the country.
An excerpt from the Declaration of Independence:
Re:Finders Keepers? (Score:4, Informative)
As a colony America did not have representation in Parliament. They tried to get representation before the war, but Britain wouldn't give in to one of their colonies.
Believe it or not, political means were tried before military means.
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:Finders Keepers? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (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
Re:Finders Keepers? (Score:5, Insightful)
actually, I would define subversive activities such as putting a GPS device in someone's car to track them without their consent as terrorism.
Your TomTom is a GPS receiver not a GPS tracker. (Score:5, Informative)
Your TomTom is a GPS receiver not a GPS tracker.
A GPS receiver knows where the GPS receiver is but doesn't have a mechanism to send that information to a remote location.
It doesn't do the FBI any good.
A GPS tracker contains a GPS receiver but also some communication method (cellular, sat, other wireless technology) to periodically or continually send location information to a remote location.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
What's interesting is that they said newer models are placed in the engine compartment. It would seem wise to bug your own engine compartment so you know when the hood has been raised.
Re:Finders Keepers? (Score:4, Informative)
My guess is they likely go in from underneath, not through the hood. It's quicker, doesn't involve having to open the door, actually go inside the car (where someone is much more likely to notice that something has been tampered with), etc.
OUCH (Score:5, Funny)
When the FBI tells you that you are boring...just WOW!
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Yeah... makes me doubt the story... i might be reduce to R'ing TFA.
Re:OUCH (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah... makes me doubt the story... i might be reduce to R'ing TFA.
I did that once, Slashdot was never the same again. Please don't make the same mistake, you have your whole life ahead of you still.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
No kidding...especially the same day they raided an auction house [csmonitor.com] to recover the fingerprint card of a guy who has been dead for like 25 years
Re:OUCH (Score:5, Insightful)
Also: Don't believe it. Call the fucking lawyer.
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.
America (Score:5, Funny)
* Some conditions apply. See in-country for details. Void where prohibited. No cash value. Offer expires September 11, 2001.
Re:America (Score:4, Informative)
Freedom is just a state granted regulated monopoly on your own free will.
Re:The funny thing is... (Score:4, Informative)
WTF are you talking about?
1. GP was quoting from the Declaration of Independence, not the Bill of Rights.
2. The Bill of Rights are the first 10 *AMENDMENTS TO THE CONSTITUTION*. By definition, they are part of it.
Re: (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
Dont' call your lawyer? (Score:5, Insightful)
Hint: It's not your mom.
Re:Dont' call your lawyer? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Dont' call your lawyer? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Dont' call your lawyer? (Score:5, Funny)
Ghostbusters?
Wasted opportunity (Score:3, Funny)
What a wasted opportunity to attach it to a bus.
Re:Wasted opportunity (Score:5, Funny)
Or to the chief's car
Re:Wasted opportunity (Score:5, Funny)
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...
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.
Not hard to guess why he was being looked at (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Not hard to guess why he was being looked at (Score:5, Insightful)
And? I travel often for business, have family in Indonesia (in-laws), and often send large sums abroad (which is where I live). Does that warrant people investigating me? No. Not everyone with money who travels is suspect.
Re:Not hard to guess why he was being looked at (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I used to be thankful I don't live their, but that was until the G20 in Toronto. Looks like your country's government's attitude towards citizen's rights its (respective) constitution has started infecting ours as well.
Re:Not hard to guess why he was being looked at (Score:4, Insightful)
So get a warrant.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Entirely normal
Normal depends on the level of detail you apply. If you report it as "sending money to family" maybe. If you report it as "sending money to Egypt" well how many Americans regularly send money to Egypt? Not many as a percentage.
The fact that he's a college student himself probably makes it very unusual. How many students send money to their families rather than vice versa? Could definitely be accepting money from one group and forwarding it on himself.
Replant the device (Score:5, Insightful)
Now that we have pictures we can identify future devices.
When you find one, wander over to a freeway gas station and replant it on an interstate truck. At least make them work to recover it.
Re:Replant the device (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Replant the device (Score:4, Informative)
Uh, do that, go straight to jail, do not pass go, do not collect $200.
Re:Replant the device (Score:5, Funny)
Third, wouldn’t they have seen it coming?
Re: (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.
Re:Replant the device (Score:4, Funny)
I was just thinking of tossing it in the back of the garbage truck when it comes by to collect my garbage. Wading through my boy's old diapers would be an appropriate quid pro quo.
In Soviet America... (Score:5, Funny)
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: (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:Could have been interesting (Score:5, Interesting)
it's okay if the car is/was in your driveway? (Score:4, Funny)
I think if I found someone crawling under my car in my unfenced, ungated driveway, placing some device on my car, I'd be cueing up the track of a shotgun being pumped on my MP3 player, then playing it real loud for the perp under my car.
Friend "wrote something stupid" (Score:5, Informative)
If you look further in the article, you can reconstruct a hypothetical scenario which, from the FBI's point of view, looks completely normal:
It's of course a bit scary to have people tracking you when you didn't do anything wrong; and it sounds like there was some annoying bullying (TFA: "[The FBI agent] told Afifi, “We’re going to make this much more difficult for you if you don’t cooperate.”) But it sounds like there's an explanation of how this could have happened by-the-book, and the FBI is doing their job.
Re:Friend "wrote something stupid" (Score:5, Insightful)
I have no problem with the FBI putting tracking devices on people on whom they are conducting a legitimate investigation. I have a huge problem with the fact that they can do it now on minimum suspicion and without a warrant.
Re:Friend "wrote something stupid" (Score:4, Insightful)
First, given all the trouble [washingtonpost.com] the FBI has had issuing legal National Security Letters, I wouldn't assume that there's a valid warrant until I read it.
Second, if stalking immigrant kids is the FBI "doing their job", they should find a different job. Getting a warrant requires "probable cause". Probable refers to probability. How many of these fishing expeditions has the FBI gone on? If less than 50% of them lead to arrests, they are getting warrants for improbable causes. That's unconstitutional.
Re:Friend "wrote something stupid" (Score:5, Informative)
Just for interests sake, here's the "something stupid" that his buddy Khaled wrote on a 'blog'.
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/ciiag/so_if_my_deodorant_could_be_a_bomb_why_are_you/c0sve5q [reddit.com]
bombing a mall seems so easy to do. i mean all you really need is a bomb, a regular outfit so you arent the crazy guy in a trench coat trying to blow up a mall and a shopping bag. i mean if terrorism were actually a legitimate threat, think about how many fucking malls would have blown up already.. you can put a bag in a million different places, there would be no way to foresee the next target, and really no way to prevent it unless CTU gets some intel at the last minute in which case every city but LA is fucked...so...yea...now i'm surely bugged : /
If that post gets you FBI monitoring... The FBI has WAYYYY too much time on their hands. But one has to laugh at the irony of the "I'm surely bugged"...
Re:Friend "wrote something stupid" (Score:5, Insightful)
He saw through the security theater and openly questioned it. Pretty dangerous, huh?
And so, the war against common sense and intelligence dutifully continues.
Re:Friend "wrote something stupid" (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
A couple of pieces of commonsense advice. (Score:3, Insightful)
(1) When a cop investigating you acts friendly toward you, don't assume that means he's your friend.
(2) [corollary] When a cop who's been investigating you tells you that you don't need to talk to your lawyer, *talk to your lawyer*.
After reading TFA... (Score:4, Insightful)
After reading the TFA (yeah, I know) the FBI actions seem warranted, even though they didn't have a warrant.
Score 1 for the FBI. Epic fail for the 9th circuit. Even though they were right, they still should have gone through the proper procedure.
I don't know about you, but I'm willing to pay an extra $1/year in taxes so the FBI follows proper procedure and gets a warrant. If everybody pays that, it's about $300 million. I doubt it would even cost that much to actually do what the Constitution requires. You know, that document that you SWORE TO UPHOLD AND DEFEND?
Top Ten Things to do with FBI Tracking Devices (Score:5, Funny)
9. Place it on a train.
8. Place it on a freighter carrying electronics to be recycled in China.
7 Place it in your carry-on luggage and watch the fun at airport security.
6. Dial 911 and tell them you've found a bomb on your car. Invite TV news crews to come watch the fun.
5. Give it to your local ACLU and tell them to make the FBI prove it's theirs before handing it back.
4. Pretend you don't know it's there, and drive to as many Tea Party events as possible.
3. Build an autonomous flying drone capable of carrying it and program it to fly around in circles all day.
2. Hack its logic to input arbitrary coordinates and make virtual visits to places you've always wanted to see.
1. Pretend it's not there and go on a tour of the most patriotic American landmarks to demonstrate your loyalty to the United States.
Simple solution (Score:4, Insightful)
"Hello, Police? Yes, my mechanic has found what appears to be a pipe bomb attached to the underside of my car. Could you please send some units, and bomb disposal, here immediately, I am concerned for my life."
It's a long black pipe, sealed at both ends, with an antenna wire hanging out of it, and magnets to secure it in place. While it may be a GPS tracker, it could just as likely been a pipe bomb with a remote trigger. Best let the authorities blow that sucker up. And if the FBI come by asking for their tracker back, you can have them arrested for instigating an act of terror on American soil by planting their "pipe-bomb" on your car.
And then the legal system disappears up it's own fundamental orifice.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
someone want to comment on the effectiveness of GPS jammers?
Most likely prohibited by the FCC.
Re:GPS in a jam (Score:5, Informative)
A large radio station had a badly-tuned transmitter that jammed the lower half of the FM band in a major city for years, affecting radio reception in the (poor) quarter of the city badly, and making those low-power personal FM transmitters (for use with ipods) useless within 30 miles.
The residents of that neighborhood heard (shitty) gospel music over their land lines, the signal leakage was so bad.
It took the FCC repeated complaints and 10 years to do anything.
Re: (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: (Score:3, Funny)
Or better, call in the police bomb squad because someone has "attached an electronic device to your car", get the government to blow it up for you :)
Re:Retribution? (Score:5, Insightful)
Imagine further if you as a citizen had planted the device on the car of a US Senator. Imagine the trouble you'd be in.
This kind of invasive aggressive action against citizens who have done nothing (no court order) should not be tolerated.
Re:What if he had simply thrown it in the trash? (Score:5, Insightful)
Imagine if an FBI agent shows up to your house and hold you responsible for a missing tracking device you didn't know was on your car.
Re: (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:From the article (Score:5, Insightful)
Fits the profile of someone you want to keep an eye on pretty well, actually.
In which case, getting a warrant should be a piece of cake.
Re:Tailing your car? (Score:5, Funny)