Supreme Court rules warrant needed for GPS tracking
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/judicial/story/2012-01-23/supreme-court-GPS/52754354/1
Actually a bit surprising to me, this verdict, as well as its being unanimous. The other concurring statements are interesting as they served to broaden the protection. Of course, the reality is that the police just don’t want to be bothered with tracking down and consulting a judge, much like the intelligence community finds is so burdensome to consult with a FISA judge (I have read that for all intents and purposes, the FISA judge grants 100% of requests), so this provides no real protection of your privacy, just the requirement to rope a judge into the decision making process. Sort of like those Law and Order episodes when first the prosecutor has to be convinced to consider finding a judge; if you can’t convince them, how the heck do you expect to convince a jury?
So one tiny victory in the battle against the police state! A momentum changing event? I doubt it. The Justice Dept is careful to keep most of their most reprehensible activity from ever being considered by any judge, let alone the SC.
