SAN FRANCISCO, Kalifornia (PNN) - February 25, 2012 - The Fascist Police States of Amerika (FPSA) Supreme Court’s recent ruling overturning the warrantless use of GPS tracking devices has caused a “sea change” inside the FPSA InJustice Department, according to FBI General Counsel Andrew Weissmann.
Weissmann, speaking at a University of San Francisco conference called “Big Brother in the 21st Century” on Friday, said that the court ruling prompted the FBI to turn off about 3,000 GPS tracking devices that were in use.
These devices were often stuck underneath cars to track the movements of the car owners. In U.S. v. Jones, the Supreme Court ruled that using a device to track a car owner without a search warrant violated the law.
After the ruling, the FBI had a problem collecting the devices that it had turned off, said Weissmann. In some cases, the FBI sought court orders to obtain permission to turn the devices on briefly - only in order to locate and retrieve them.
Weissmann said the FBI is now working to develop new guidelines for the use of GPS devices. He said the agency is also working on guidelines to cover the broader implications of the court decision beyond GPS devices.
For instance, he said, the agency is now wrestling with the legality of whether agents can lift up the lid of a trashcan without committing trespass.
He said the agency is also considering the implications of the concurring justices - whose arguments were largely based on the idea that a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy in the totality of his or her movements, even if those movements are in public.
