Thread: Oceania, here we come!!!!?!

Government agents can sneak onto your property in the middle of the night, put a GPS device on the bottom of your car and keep track of everywhere you go. This doesn't violate your Fourth Amendment rights, because you do not have any reasonable expectation of privacy in your own driveway - and no reasonable expectation that the government isn't tracking your movements.
That is the bizarre - and scary - rule that now applies in California and eight other Western states. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which covers this vast jurisdiction, recently decided the government can monitor you in this way virtually anytime it wants - with no need for a search warrant. (See a TIME photoessay on Cannabis Culture.)
It is a dangerous decision - one that, as the dissenting judges warned, could turn America into the sort of totalitarian state imagined by George Orwell. It is particularly offensive because the judges added insult to injury with some shocking class bias: the little personal privacy that still exists, the court suggested, should belong mainly to the rich.

The case stems from the DEA trespassing onto private property, then placing a GPS on someone's car (all without a warrant) so they could track his movements, looking for a possible pot farm. I don't think that this is anything short of an extreme intrusion on people's rights to privacy.

But on the bright side, there is this.......

Fortunately, other courts are coming to a different conclusion from the Ninth Circuit's - including the influential U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. That court ruled, also this month, that tracking for an extended period of time with GPS is an invasion of privacy that requires a warrant. The issue is likely to end up in the Supreme Court.
In these highly partisan times, GPS monitoring is a subject that has both conservatives and liberals worried. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit's pro-privacy ruling was unanimous - decided by judges appointed by Presidents Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. (Comment on this story.)
Plenty of liberals have objected to this kind of spying, but it is the conservative Chief Judge Kozinski who has done so most passionately. "1984 may have come a bit later than predicted, but it's here at last," he lamented in his dissent. And invoking Orwell's totalitarian dystopia where privacy is essentially nonexistent, he warned: "Some day, soon, we may wake up and find we're living in Oceania."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/08599201315000

Big brother has to know where you are at all times. I guess its time for everyone to by scanners. Horseshit ruling this better get overturned.

Originally Posted by deathgodusmc

Big brother has to know where you are at all times. I guess its time for everyone to by scanners. Horseshit ruling this better get overturned.

I hope so too. I am pretty sure it will. But scary nonetheless.

Usually I'd be the first to scream foul, but I honestly do not particularly care. Putting bugs underneath peoples cars, eh? If they are bugging my wife's car, they probably have a damn good reason to do so.

Originally Posted by Gumby

This should not be a Republican or Democrat issue. This should not be a left or right issue. This should be an American issue and as Americans, we should all stand up to this sort of blatant trampling of our constitutional rights. We live in a country where the law is pretty clear. Generally speaking, our laws support the philosophy that it is better for 100 guilty men to go free than for one single innocent person to be wrongfully convicted.

True but since when has that been a reality? Sad premis isn't it?

Originally Posted by hawgballs

I don't think that this is anything short of an extreme intrusion on people's rights to privacy.

I would agree; while I understand that there is no expectation of privacy, the thing to take issue with in this case is the entrance of law enforcement onto private property without a warrant or probably cause. The sanctity of the right of property stems directly from the 4th Amendment's protections against unlawful searches and seizures.

While the government may be allowed to monitor your every movement, they cannot and should not be allowed to do so by intruding onto privately-held land without cause.

Draco

Originally Posted by Toker

Usually I'd be the first to scream foul, but I honestly do not particularly care. Putting bugs underneath peoples cars, eh? If they are bugging my wife's car, they probably have a damn good reason to do so.

Well then if they have a damn good reason, they would have absolutely no problem getting a warrant.

Fortunately, other courts are coming to a different conclusion from the Ninth Circuit's - including the influential U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. That court ruled, also this month, that tracking for an extended period of time with GPS is an invasion of privacy that requires a warrant.

Originally Posted by hawgballs

Well then if they have a damn good reason, they would have absolutely no problem getting a warrant.

Yes. The whole thing sounds pretty funny to me.