The question of whether probable-cause warrants issued by a judge are needed is an open one because the high court stopped short of answering it. The court ruled in January, 2012, that attaching the device amounted to a constitutionally protected search because it was a trespass on a private vehicle.
March 19, 2013
"The President Barack Obama administration is claiming that authorities do not need court warrants to affix GPS devices to vehicles to monitor their every move."
"The administration maintains that position despite the Supreme Court’s infamous decision last year that concluded that attaching the GPS devices amounted to search protected by the Constitution."
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This is how freedom is lost and tyranny is born: in one incremental step after another, each seemingly insignificant, until we find ourselves with no protections at all against the state's power.
The SCOTUS reference is to United States v. Jones.
It is a reminder that the Federal government's ongoing assault on civil liberties was born from the drug war.
The war on terror just continued what the drug war kicked off.
The kids on the left temporarily woke up when George Bush was president then went back to sleep again.
Given the Benghazi debacle are we really comfortable trusting this administration to make the distinction between enemies of the state versus "enemies" of the administration? Do we need to worry about an unholy alliance between, say, GOOGLE and GPS when GOOGLE monitors are posting locations using the same technology whether satellite or cell towers?
The GPS makes it much easier for the drones to find them later.
Isn't the horse already out of the barn here?
If you're carrying a cell phone, you are already being tracked, in or out of your car.
Amusingly, one of the car insurance companies is offering to give its customers a tracking device with the pitch that it might lead to lower rates.
Drug war, terrorism, what next? Suspicion of holding a bad opinion of Obama?
Forward two steps, pushed back one;
Forward two steps, pushed back one;
Forward two steps, pushed back one;
Onward toward ultimate victory,
The State marches onward.
On the law, the SCOTUS did leave some wiggle room, but the whole approach by the Obaman's toward civil liberties would cause riots in the streets if there was an (R) after the POTUS's name.
Isn't it lucky for the left that there will never be another conservative president? The won't have to worry about all that power in the hands of the enemy.
ST beat me to the horse/barn line.
I gave up on this years ago.
I can find out your SS# in ten minutes, your DOB in ten minutes, and what color underwear you have on in fifteen minutes, if I want to (OK, maybe not the underwear).
Privacy is dead. Unless you're willing to live your life totally off the grid, maybe not even then.
This is how freedom is lost and tyranny is born: in one incremental step after another, each seemingly insignificant, until we find ourselves with no protections at all against the state's power.
Agreed, but if we err on the side of caution and remain a well-armed populace, this will hopefully not become a problem :)
Robert Cook said...
This is how freedom is lost and tyranny is born: in one incremental step after another...
Yes, it is how freedom is lost. We are well on our way already as this is not the first case, recently, of the administration ignoring the court...at any level now. The administration is ramping up ignoring congress on budget matters...already effectively a joke.
Welcome to the new autocracy. V-e-r-y shortly the Executive Branch will determine all spending authorizations and determine all juridical merits.
And we have sat here and watched it happen....even enabled it in our laziness, or desire to be served...not realizing it is all paid for by us.
Robert Cook said...
This is how freedom is lost and tyranny is born: in one incremental step after another, each seemingly insignificant, until we find ourselves with no protections at all against the state's power.
Yes comrade Bob.
But all industries need to be regulated by the selfsame government you claim to abhor.
Here's a hint comrade Bob.
Never depend on the state to regulate anything for the peoples benefit because the whole purpose of the state is to perpetuate the state by any means possible.
Again Cookie, I agree with you
Sorry everyone, but this has been building up for a long time and evidently, the majority of voters just don't care.
What's the possibility of the next POTUS, Hillary Clinton reversing this practice?
Shouting Thomas said...
Isn't the horse already out of the barn here?
Yes but I voluntarily own a cell phone . I voluntarily give certain personal information out to, say, a mortgage company.
That doesn't mean I give the government permission to monitor me.
Big difference.
The rule of law is all but dead in this country.
The fog comes in on little cat-feet..
Free stuff is all the freedom some folks need.
Rusty said...
The rule of law is all but dead in this country.
Speaking as someone who served in this federal government of ours, I can assure you that you are correct. "Laws" no longer matter, "rules" do...and rules are not legislated, they are written by bureaucratic cake eaters who seek to perpetuate the state's reach, just as you said earlier.
And, as AllenS has said...this situation has been building for a long time, and voters have enabled it. We've forgotten the admonition to "be careful what you wish for, you might get it."
We have.
As for a future POTUS reversing the trend? Very little chance...the power of government per se is vested in the institutionalized bureaucracy.
Only a radical overturning of the Congress, by voting real "representatives" and the bureaucracy by demolition of redundancies, will anything change. It make take a very aggressive mass rebellion to accomplish.
Why does the author call it an "infamous decision"? Although I like to get all the bad guys, there must be limits to police powers. Maybe we need the feds attaching GPS systems to university professor's and MSM reporter's cars we'll get their attention.
Rusty,
We need government. I don't abjure government qua government.
But government must be in service to the people, the representation of the people's will.
When the people allow those who purport to serve us to make decisions without our knowledge or consent, when we surrender our will to their claimed "better judgement," (as in, "they have inside knowledge unavailable to us so they know best how to protect us against the monsters!"), we have given away our sovereignty to those with ambition to power.
"John Marshall has made his decision: now let him enforce it!"
Old Hickory
This, the NLRB case, these guys think they can do whatever they want, the courts be damned.
Shouting T.....I have to laugh, then agree with the gist of what you say about barn doors.
Simple example: Walgreen's requires you have one of their coupon cards to receive discounts now, and they ask your full name, phone number, and date of birth to issue it.
You can refuse to provide the DOB and they won't object...but most folks just go ahead and provide it. Viola'...any and every clerk and stock checker at Walgreen's nationwide can see you information just by entering your phone number. Bingo. Faster that Facebook...you are naked.
With your full name and date of birth, you no longer have any secrecy....as Tank says. You don't have much now anyway...unless your mother was good enough to give you a name shared by a few thousand others, ...and you're quick enough not to publish your DOB widely.
Full name & DOB...it is what the cops use to keep track of criminals.
I belong to an ancestry web site. Believe me, I can find out your date of birth, your father and mother's (maiden) name. When you were married (no matter how many times) and when you divorced. Also the maiden names of the partner that you married. New and old addresses with phone numbers.
WWRPD?
Robert Cook said ...
But government must be in service to the people, the representation of the people's will.
Of course, that is the ideal. When was the last time it was the case in our government?
Read what I said earlier about institutionalized bureaucracy. I'm speaking from experience as a former executive within it. The "people's will" is the very last thing considered and representation is barely available via Congress unless you are a politically powerful and wealthy special interest group.
I guarantee you that the NRA "represents" my interests far more than my Congressman.
The President Barack Obama administration is claiming that authorities do not need court warrants to affix GPS devices to vehicles to monitor their every move.
Why didn't they just write The Obama Administration?
Birth 13 Nov 1942
This is how freedom is lost and tyranny is born: in one incremental step after another, each seemingly insignificant, until we find ourselves with no protections at all against the state's power.
This may come as a shock to you Robert, but when you demand a big government, don't be shocked when it starts throwing its weight around.
AllenS said ...
Believe me, I can find out your date of birth, ....etc.
I believe you. Using similar websites I was able to identify a "Linda" who was apparently using my phone number at Walgreen's...all I had was her first name, really. Now I have her full name, address (she lives 4 blocks north of me), DOB, phone number...and her Walgreen card is canceled.
Walgreen's couldn't explain how it happened so I had to explain to them how their shitty database uses a ODBC function to screen phone numbers as listed in "White Pages" and by AT&T....and in this case AT&T had my phone number listed for "Linda."
Chances are pretty good ole "Linda" had no idea Walgreen's had created a card and reward system for her.
The "barn doors" are wide open all over the place...and errors abound.
"The question of whether probable-cause warrants issued by a judge are needed is an open one because the high court stopped short of answering it. The court ruled in January, 2012, that attaching the device amounted to a constitutionally protected search because it was a trespass on a private vehicle."
How can both of these sentences be correct?
FleetUSA said...
Why does the author call it an "infamous decision"?
My gut told me its the typical press reaction to any decision either written by Scalia or that goes against the Obama administration.
But at the link the decision is referred to as "convoluted" and "unwise" (Alito's words).
I think the word the writer was looking for is closer to "unresolved" or "contentious".
But government must be in service to the people, the representation of the people's will.
Of course, that is the ideal. When was the last time it was the case in our government?
When is it in the case of any government? There is a reason our Constitution was created as a limit on government power but leftists have been eroding those limits for decades.
Robert Cook will tell you we need government, which we do to an extent but leftists want government to provide for cradle to grave sustenance so its no surprise that it has the tendency to act like an abusive parent.
AllenS ... good one. :-))
Now see if you can figure out my ex-wife's ancestry.
Seriously. I messed a bit with one site but wasn't satisfied as all it had was census records it seemed...not good enough in my case.
I would like to put together a better history for my daughter to have of where she came from so to speak. You can email me.
Cook is right in his initial comment, but this is the preferred tactic of his people for a century, so he's hardly the one to lecture.
"Flexibility" in action.
I knew you'd like that, Aridog.
I'd have to get your ex to spit in a test tube, or an inner mouth swab. Then, no problem.
Colonel Angus ....I'm very aware of Mr Cook's ideas. My point, poorly made perhaps, was I find it ironic that he states clearly what representative governance should be, while still oblivious as to how it has gone away from the ideal....let alone how and why. My time as a "Fed" informs me as much as it frustrates and irritates me.
The "Beltway" is really a vortex that holds whoever ventures inside...once ensconced, the participants never leave....unless to go "TDY" to Wall Street or some academic slot temporarily. Both parties have career beltway insiders and it is merely musical chairs from time to time.
I once had a Congressman who likely held opposing views on about 95% of the issues from the views held by me. Never-the-less, he was "representative" and served me very well, protecting me when necessary in "whistle-blower" instances....which served his constituency, not necessarily him personally.
I doubt I'll ever have such a representative again...I doubt there are any.
AllenS said...
I'd have to get your ex to spit in a test tube ...
All righty then, I'll forward you her address! :-))
first cars, then clothes, then injected at birth.
Isn't it lucky for the left that there will never be another conservative president?
Yes, it is.
I've been waiting for someone to post a "mark of the beast" comment.
drozz comes close..
Just how far away are implanted chips, anyway? Just sayin'..
And if anyone thinks it's fantasy,
people are already hard at work on the hip as an adjunct to memory=knowledge. Think of being able to down-load the hist of the world, or all mathematical knowledge available for "total recall." People will be standing in line for the "embed." And from there it will be a short-step for a govt requirement for a tracking id capability to be assoc w. the chip. "Do you want this knowledge capability or not? Just sign the waiver.."
But the right to privacy is in the Constitution, right? That must be only for abortions. It certainly isn't for cars and emails.
Robert Cook said...
Rusty,
We need government. I don't abjure government qua government.
But government must be in service to the people, the representation of the people's will.
When the people allow those who purport to serve us to make decisions without our knowledge or consent, when we surrender our will to their claimed "better judgement," (as in, "they have inside knowledge unavailable to us so they know best how to protect us against the monsters!"), we have given away our sovereignty to those with ambition to power.
Then blame FDR and Lyndon Johnson The biggest purveyors of government over the individual.
Those that have the least government are the happiest. Those who depend on government for their happiness are the most miserable.
And remember government never does anything for your own good. Government always does whatever it does for its own welfare. Remember that when you want government to regulate something. What it is regulating is you.
The question of whether probable-cause warrants issued by a judge are needed is an open one because the high court stopped short of answering it. The court ruled in January, 2012, that attaching the device amounted to a constitutionally protected search because it was a trespass on a private vehicle.
Apparently the administration has a reading comprehension problem. Or they are impressively arrogant.
If we had a small government that was limited to enumerated powers that cell phone in your hand wouldn't be such a liability.
The question is whether enough Robert Cookes will wake up before we are past the point where low information voters team up with big government to create a permanent kleptocracy.
Rusty said ...
Remember that when you want government to regulate something. What it is regulating is you.
So simple, yet so little understood.
Achilles said...
If we had a small government that was limited to enumerated powers that cell phone in your hand wouldn't be such a liability.
The question is whether enough Robert Cookes will wake up before we are past the point where low information voters team up with big government to create a permanent kleptocracy.
3/19/13, 11:55 AM
Short answer is no. They will be just like the bolsheviks who believed if only Stalin knew they would be spared execution.
Actually this general subject really irritates me and I could rant on for hours. That is because I have time and experience with it first hand to understand how malevolent the rule making, budget avoidance, and ignoring of court decrees actually is in government.
I apologize for being testy about it, when I am, ....it is because in my experience most people, including those here, really don't grasp it at the scale it occurs. That is, of course, unduly arrogant on my part...hence my apology. I really am very biased on the topic.
Uncle Sam could say....driving is a privilege, don't agree to a tracker on your car, no car, no license, just get the other gov't ID.
Unless the Supremes get creative and find a right to drive in The Constitution.
Trackers on cars, that would be interesting for illegal immigration and drug dealing.
Progress is an ambiguous concept. It must be qualified to have a qualitative direction. It's only virtue is that it is monotonically increasing and therefore predictable.
Hey, AllenS, that mouth swab thing costs about 200 bucks, at least that's what it cost me. National Geographic is running a special on it.
Just one of many things he claims, or will claim, to need no authorization for.
...how malevolent the...ignoring of court decrees actually is in government.
In the case where the NLRB, by continuing rule-making activities, is ignoring the DC Circuit's finding in Noel Canning v. NLRB, why can't the Court hand down contempt citations (and send in US Marshals) to enforce its ruling?
Uncle Sam could say....driving is a privilege, don't agree to a tracker on your car, no car, no license, just get the other gov't ID.
...or they could just access one's OnStar account.
These fuckers are so far off the leash that they don't care to hide it any longer. They make me wonder whether a dictator can sort of sneak in and eventually surprise the inattentive majority with an open declaration that they now rule by decree and if you don't like it they've got ways to deal with that. Whether it happens in slow motion or overnight, it's always the result of popular demand for a strongman. We've been asking for it.
"I'd have to get your ex to spit in a test tube ..."
"All righty then, I'll forward you her address! :-))"
I think Ari and Allen have just invented a new form of internet dating...
Oh, and Ari--I like your rants! Please don't hold back.
furious_a said...
... why can't the Court hand down contempt citations (and send in US Marshals) to enforce its ruling?
The U S Marshall Service works for the Justice Department...e.g., Eric Holder.
What chance is there that Holder et al. would enforce contempt citations and a court ruling being ignored by the administration?
I can't believe I live in a world, technically the United States, where this is even being discussed.
"They make me wonder whether a dictator can sort of sneak in and eventually surprise the inattentive majority with an open declaration that they now rule by decree and if you don't like it they've got ways to deal with that."
Ummm...Eustace, that's kind of what's already happened.
I was going to comment that I thought this had been settled, but then I read the article.
This is amazing. The SC court ruled, but instead of adjusting to the decision, because the authorities didn't like it, they'll keep on pushing that rope uphill.
I can't believe this administration! In all my six decades, I've never lived under an administration like this. Their every response to any attempt at restraint is stop me if you can. We're the executive. We're the one's with the power and boots on the ground. All you have is black robes and hot air. How do you get those who control the police power to police themselves? Its a miracle that the executive branch has functioned honorably as long as it has.
We are witnessing a slow motion executive coup before our very eyes that makes all the pearl clutching over previous attempts, both R and D, pale in comparison.
At this point, cue Robert Cook to say "THAT'S what I'm talking about!".
Hey --- free shit. Who cares if your rights are violated with impunity.
You get free shitty cell phones, America! You should be THANKING Obama.
Amusingly, one of the car insurance companies is offering to give its customers a tracking device with the pitch that it might lead to lower rates.
The Progressive Moron Stick. Yeah, cannot believe anybody would buy that bullshit.
"Hey, Mike, looks like you went 62 in a 60. I think that should warrant an increase in your rates, you scofflaw!"
Of course, that is the ideal. When was the last time it was the case in ANY government?
FTFY.
As far as sending in the US Marshall Service, Holder will never do it.
I'm wondering if Obama was a Fascist, what, exactly, would he do differently than what he has done thus far?
Government agencies operate under the theory "Just do it, it's easier to beg for forgiveness than to ask for permission". And now, they don't bother with begging for forgiveness.
"The President Barack Obama administration is claiming that authorities do not need court warrants to affix GPS devices to vehicles to monitor their every move."
Well the 'administration' can claim anything they want but right is right and wrong is wrong.
If they can put a GPS on anyone's car then I can put one on theirs.
This 'most transparent' administration is just that, transparent. Transparently crooked.
And when Obama says he is not a dictator, well that was just his subconscious trying defend itself from the truth it knows is true. He WANTS to be a dictator.
"And when Obama says he is not a dictator, well that was just his subconscious trying defend itself from the truth it knows is true. He WANTS to be a dictator."
Aren't you thinking of Bush, who said it would be so much easier if he were dictator? Or isn't it just that Bush and Obama are brothers from a different mother?
Robert,
It was Obama who said he envied the red Chinese leaders' ability to do whatever they wanted. I don't remember W saying anything similar.
You must not have been paying attention.
You're right, I'd never heard that before. But listening to it, Bush was clearly joking. Was Obama?
@Robert Cook: Why not provide the context for the quote from Bush in its entirety instead of just part of it?
"CHRIS BLACK, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPON-DENT: Frank, President- elect George W. Bush came to Capitol Hill today for the first time since the election intending to listen to congressional leaders, the bipartisan congressional leadership. But he also made it clear to them, in more than two and a half hours of meetings, that he intends to stand by his tax cut proposal and other planks in his campaign agenda.
GOV. GEORGE W. BUSH (R-TX), PRESIDENT-ELECT: I told all four that there were going to be some times where we don't agree with each other. But that's OK. If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator."
From the full text, where he acknowledges there will be differences with Congress and says "that's OK", and also from the sound of Bush's muffled laugh on the audio file, it's obvious he was joking.
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