Will the police state bust you?

jtsanders
Wed, 09 Nov 2011 00:25:44 +0000
General Discussion

There is an interesting case at the US Supreme Court today. A drug dealer was busted by DC police when he was found in a house with 200 pounds of cocaine and oodles of money. How did they get the tip? GPS. They got a warrant and attached a GPS device to his car to keep tabs on him. They followed him all around DC and Maryland. But by the time they got around to bugging his car, the warrant had run out. And Maryland is not their jurisdiction. The defense argues that surveillance like this violates the 4th amendment, prohibiting illegal search an seizure. But the State argues that because he was in public, he had no rights to privacy and that they didn’t even need a warrant to plant the device.

I’m torn on this one. On on hand, the government had a real reason to believe that he should be watched closely. But then again, paranoid JT wonders if JEdgar Hoover is reincarnated, will we all end up with Big Brother’s GPS device on our cars. What do y’all think?

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