(Image source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch / Wikimedia Commons)
BY ADAM FALK
ANCHOR GARY COTTON
A Missouri federal judge has ruled it was OK for the FBI to secretly attach a GPS device to a suspect’s car and then track his position for the next two months.
According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Fred Robinson was suspected of collecting as much as $175,000 in paychecks without ever going to his job at the St. Louis Treasurer’s Office.
Although the GPS data supposedly proved the FBI’s claims, the Post-Dispatch reports...
“Lawyers for Fred Robinson claimed that the GPS tracking results should be tossed out for various reasons, including that agents failed to get a warrant and that the tracking violated his Constitutional rights.”
The judge, of course, disagreed. Here’s what he said...
“Here, installation of the GPS tracker device...was not a ’search’ because defendant Robinson did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the exterior of his [car].”
Still, a writer for Forbes says, we’re talking about the FBI here. Was GPS tracking really their only option?
“It seems like the FBI could have come up with an alternative way to prove this: by asking colleagues about how often he tends to show up at work or measuring the amount of dust built up at his desk, for example.”
But this ruling might be a bit premature. The U.S. Supreme Court has yet to release its decision another case that raises the same legal question. However when that case was debated in November, Justice Stephen Breyer said...
“If you win this case, there is nothing to prevent the police or government from monitoring 24 hours a day every citizen of the United States.”
As for the Missouri case, Wired notes the judges ruling mirrors the Obama administration’s position on the issue.
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