Court forces FBI to turn off 3,000 GPS monitoring devices

FBI GPS tracking device

The Supreme Court recently overturned the  warrantless use of GPS tracking devices.

The "U.S. v. Jones" decision has caused a big changes  inside the U.S. Justice Department.

FBI General Counsel Andrew Weissmann presented to a University of San Francisco conference called “Big Brother in the 21st Century." He said that the court ruling prompted the FBI to turn off about 3,000 GPS tracking devices that were in use.

The Supreme Court ruled that using a device to track a car owner without a search warrant was a violation of the law.

An Egyptian student found the device in the graphic under his car when he took his car to a mechanic for an oil change. 

Prior to the Supreme Court ruling, the Ninth Circuit in California and 8 other states said there was no requirement for a warrant prior to this kind of tracking.

Law enforcement could come onto your property and plant a tracking device on your car since you have no reasonable expectation of privacy on your driveway.

Now the police must first tray to get a warrant form a judge which means the police first have to provide justification for tracking a vehicle.

graphic source: http://www.securitygeneration.com

sources: WSJ and Cryptlogon

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Police are using warrantless GPS tracking devices on vehicles

Look for one of these under your car 

Wired has reported on these before and a young man in California found two of these  on his SUV. 

If you have a cell phone that supports GPS (most do), the police can track you through your cell phone and likely listen to your calls with the Harris Kingfish system. 

Rightardia  got this information on the harris Kingfish from a US Army sole-source contract solicitation. 

*Harris KingFish, 1-Channel, Dual Mode Package systems that can be operated in two separate modes; Man-Portable and Vehicular Mounted. The Man-Portable system mode is battery powered CDMA, GSM and iDEN Interrogation Tracking and Location, and Signal Information Collection System. The Vehicular Mounted system mode is portable, 12VDC powered CDMA, GSM, iDEN Interrogation, Tracking and Location, and Signal Information Collection System. 

The term "Signal Information Collection System" suggests Kingfish can do more than just track you. It suggests the police can eavesdrop in you intimate phone conversations. Another Harris WGS system, Amberjack can direction find the phone.and determine how far the phone is from a squad car by silently dialing your phone.

The information that Kingfish collects is so sensitive that the police destroy all of it prior to a trial so the capabilities of the system won't be disclosed in a trail.

Rightardia suggests you use a low cost Tracfone when you travel. Most of them don't contain a GPS chip, but read the phone's spec before you purchase.

You can also pull the battery out of you cell phone to increase secruity and replace it when you are finished with your business.

sources:

 http://boingboing.net/2011/11/09/new-fed-warrantless-gps-trackers-discovered-in-the-wild.html

https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=fd03ebae781f3a3fdb7633699bc1e351&tab=core&_cview=1

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Rightardia by Rightard Whitey of Rightardia is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at rightardia@gmail.com.