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| Snooping by satellite Police suspected the lawyer of ties to a local Hells Angels Motorcycle Club that was selling methamphetamine, and they feared undercover officers would not be able to infiltrate the notoriously tight-knit group, which has hazing rituals that involve criminal activities. So investigators stuck a GPS, or Global Positioning System, bug on Moran's car, watched his movements, and arrested him on drug charges a month later. A federal judge in New York ruled last week that police did not need court authorization when tracking Moran from afar. "Law enforcement personnel could have conducted a visual surveillance of the vehicle as it traveled on the public highways," U.S. District Judge David Hurd wrote. "Moran had no expectation of privacy in the whereabouts of his vehicle on a public roadway." Last week's court decision is the latest to grapple with the slippery subject of how to reconcile traditional notions of privacy and autonomy with increasingly powerful surveillance technology. Once relegated, because of their cost, to the realm of what spy agencies could afford, GPS tracking devices now are readily available to jealous spouses, private investigators and local police departments for just a few hundred dollars. Not all uses are controversial. Trucking outfits use GPS boxes to keep track of their drivers' locations, and companies sell software to dispatchers that instantly calculates which taxi is closest to a customer. OnStar uses GPS tracking to provide roadside assistance to owners of many General Motors vehicles. What's raising eyebrows, though, is the increasingly popular law enforcement practice of secretly tagging Americans' vehicles without adhering to the procedural safeguards and judicial oversight that protect the privacy of homes and telephone conversations from police abuses. "I think they should get court orders," said Lee Tien, staff counsel for the Electronic Frontier Foundation . "We're in a world where more and more of our activities can be viewed in public and, perhaps more importantly, be correlated and linked together." GPS devices work by listening for radio signals from satellites and calculating how long the signals take to arrive. The result of that calculation provides a highly accurate estimation of latitude and longitude. Depending on the type of GPS tracker, that information is beamed back to an eavesdropper's computer through the cellular network or quietly recorded and divulged when the device is retrieved a few days or weeks later. Voluntarily agreeing to automotive GPS tracking can be a bargain for some consumers. Progressive Casualty Insurance began a pilot project
Police Don't Need Warrant for GPS Times Union | January 11, 2005 In a decision that could dramatically affect criminal investigations nationwide, a federal judge has ruled police didn't need a warrant when they attached a satellite tracking device to the underbelly of a car being driven by a suspected Hells Angels operative. The ruling by U.S. District Judge David N. Hurd clears the way for a federal trial scheduled to begin next month in Utica in which seven alleged Hells Angels members and associates, including several from the Capital Region, face drug-trafficking charges. The use of satellite tracking devices has stirred controversy and Hurd's ruling differs from a decision last spring by a Nassau County Court judge, who decided police needed a warrant when they used the technology to follow a burglary suspect. The biker case broke open here last year with a series of raids and arrests across upstate New York. The case began in Utica, but was expanded to include an organized crime task force that spent more than a year building a methamphetamine-trafficking case against a group of alleged outlaw bikers from Troy to Arizona. During surveillance of the group, detectives attached a global positioning satellite device to a vehicle driven by Robert P. Moran Jr., an Oneida County attorney and Hells Angels associate with a law office in Rome. They put the device on Moran's car for two days in July 2003 after he returned from a one-day trip to Arizona, where police say he purchased a large quantity of methamphetamine. Over those two days, Moran drove across New York state and allegedly made drug deals with suspected Hells Angels members in places such as New York City and Troy, according to court records. Hurd opined that authorities wouldn't need a warrant had they decided to follow Moran, so using a GPS device was merely a simpler way to track his car "as it traveled on the public highways," he wrote. "Moran had no expectation of privacy in the whereabouts of his vehicle on a public roadway. Thus, there was no search or seizure and no Fourth Amendment implications in the use of the GPS device." Hurd's ruling follows a line of reasoning that's widely supported by many law enforcement agencies. Police contend using tracking devices is no different than if they followed a suspect's vehicle in their own cars or by using helicopters. Kevin Mulroy, Moran's attorney, said the issue, which has brought conflicting rulings across the nation, is unsettling. "I think it's something the Supreme Court of the United States is going to have to hear," said Mulroy, a Syracuse attorney who was formerly an Onondaga County Court judge and assistant prosecutor. "One would think that before the police could install devices on your property, to monitor your movements, they would need a court order." A similar controversy arose in Washington two years ago, when that state's Supreme Court determined police had the right to attach a satellite tracking device to a murder suspect's car, but only after obtaining a warrant. Detectives attached a GPS device to the man's car for almost three weeks. When they downloaded the data, it indicated he had driven to an isolated area north of Spokane. Police searched the area and found the body of the man's 9-year-old daughter. He later was convicted of her murder, and the verdict was upheld. GPS devices are increasingly becoming a tool for law enforcement. Still, their use has been controversial because police agencies are not routinely obtaining court orders to install the devices, which rely on orbiting satellites and cellular phone networks to pinpoint their target. In many states, law enforcement agencies also are using them for less surreptitious missions, such as tracking sex offenders and parolees who are enrolled in electronic monitoring programs. It's not clear what effect Hurd's decision will have on their use, but it's apparently the first federal ruling regarding GPS devices and the need for search warrants. Assistant U.S. Attorney David Grable, who is prosecuting Moran and the others, did not return a telephone call for comment. The use of GPS devices by police most recently made national news in the Laci Peterson case. Scott Peterson, the Modesto, Calif., woman's husband, was convicted of murdering her on Christmas Eve 2002. In that case, police obtained a court order to attach tracking devices to three vehicles driven by Peterson, who drove to a waterfront near where the bodies of his wife and the baby boy she was carrying were later found. While the GPS data was admitted in the Peterson case, courts across the country are tackling the issue as defense lawyers challenge their reliability and whether police have a right to install them without a warrant. Similar technology helps police track cellular telephones, which also are being used by police to find fugitives and others.
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