Techotic

We want our privacy, in fact we need it. Its the only thing that separates us from having a government who has to abide by rules rather than one who has absolute power over its citizens (think China and North Korea). But what happens if you can invade someone’s privacy to catch them?

That’s exactly what police did in Fairfax County VA. The same county plagued a few years earlier by those grisly sniper attacks. Police attached a GPS unit to a suspects vehicle and actually caught him in the act of his crime.

The criminal: David Lee Foltz Jr. who had previously served 17 years for rape was once caught again and is currently being charged for numerous assaults and muggings on women.

My only problem with the case, who gave them the right to use GPS? I heard no such thing of a court order.

Across the country, police are using GPS devices to snare thieves, drug dealers, sexual predators and killers, often without a warrant or court order. Privacy advocates said tracking suspects electronically constitutes illegal search and seizure, violating Fourth Amendment rights of protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, and is another step toward George Orwell’s Big Brother society. Law enforcement officials, when they discuss the issue at all, said GPS is essentially the same as having an officer trail someone, just cheaper and more accurate. Most of the time, as was done in the Foltz case, judges have sided with police.

[via msnbc]