pop it in the microwave
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Yeah, I’m puzzled by that one. What was he supposed to do with it? Apparently not store it in a safe place until the “owner” came looking for it, because that’s essentially what he did with it. So the court’s position was that, if you find a strange object attached to one of your possessions, you’re legally required to keep it there?
Hell, even with a warrant, even if he knew there was a warrant, does that mean he was legally obligated to keep it there? The warrant just means they’re allowed to surveil you, not that you have to go along with it, much less make it easy for them. If it were otherwise, a surveillance warrant would mean the cops could just put a camera on your property and you couldn’t do anything about it…
Well…
17 Likes
Time to take the GPS device and use the ol’ wrist rocket to send it over a cliff somewhere. Find it now, suckas!
5 Likes
love to watch a video howto of that
If it had been marked in a way that indicated it was police property drop it in an envelope, stick a few Forever stamps on it, put the police station’s address as both sender and recipient, and toss it in the nearest public mailbox. If it gets mangled by the USPS on the way, well that’s not my fault is it?
If (as a small electronic device that probably has wires attached to it and that was sent to the police station) the bomb squad feels the need to destroy it, again that’s not my fault. I was doing the right thing, returning the police force’s equipment to them.
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Even if the guy had removed it and kept it how is it theft? They left an item on someone else’s property, hidden of course but still.
If you have a BMW, look online for where your “Bluetooth Telematic Module” is located. Then remove it. I can’t vouch for how your car will respond to this operation or even that that functionality is contained in one unit as it is in mine. This is what my 2009 BMW X5 Diesel E70 Lost by removing it:
No bluetooth (duh)
No emergency roadside assistance (cell and gps gone)
No scheduling service from onboard system (cell gone)
Other than that it has worked fine for 10 years.
5 Likes
Police are allowed to lie to civilians during the course of their job. So of course they are going to lie about what the law says. And much of the time, this has the effect of giving them the power to write the law, since most of their clients are not lawyers and don’t have one handy.
It appearantly is up to the courts, at great expense to the public, to push back on this absurd overreach.
9 Likes
Especially if you could sneak it onto a cop car. Even better a federal law enforcement agency or embassy vehicle to some other country.
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They may have wanted the state Supreme Court to decide this, which would establish precedent that every court in the state had to follow. Most likely, only trial courts under that appeals court would be bound by any ruling they made, which means you could have the same issue come up in a different city next year. IANAL (yet), but intermediate appeals courts are somewhat limited in terms of establishing precedent. They’re also limited in their ability to overturn precedent. So if a similar case had previously been decided differently, they may have been forced to follow it.
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This would be ridiculous even in some totalitarian countries. During communist regime in Poland a friend who worked at university discovered a hidden device that had a microphone and was transmitting sound (RF modulated, probably) through a phone line. He just unplugged it and sold it for about one monthly salary. He never had any problems because of that, authorities just pretended that nothing did happen.
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They could have just asked politely…
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On the contrary, if a warrant says that you have to open your safe and give them the relevant documents listed in a warrant, you are obliged to do so. Documents are not covered by the prohibition on self-incrimination. Of course they would have to TELL YOU about the warrant. Until you have been shown the warrant you are not obligated. Presumably, if your car is equipped a GPS logger that has been disconnected from the internet, they could give you a warrant to get the logged information from you. But those examples have to to with telling you to provide evidence of past crimes, not attempts to secretly gather evidence of your current actions.
2 Likes
This makes no sense at all. If you deliberately leave one of your things in one of my things, I now have two things, either of which I can do WTF I want to.
At least, that’s how this should work, in right-way-up-world.
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I doubt a piezo arc would leave any visible marks, just zap all the caps and semiconductor junctions.
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The idea that the Fifth Amendment protects the contents of your mind is important when it comes to encryption because, for instance, that’s where you store your phone passcode or computer password. Under this reasoning, the government can compel you to turn over the key to your safe, but it cannot force you to reveal the combination because only one of those is the contents of your mind
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toss it out the window on a highway
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I would think that cops would not need to search very hard for a freaking GPS tracker, the sole purpose of which is to tell you exactly where it is.
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You overestimate the average cop’s intelligence.
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But if a warrant describes documents(say, the accounts of a business), you are obliged to provide them. You can be cited with comtempt whether those documents are in a safe with a combination, a key lock, or simply buried in your back yard. Warrants must describe what they are looking for, not just where they may be found. The idea is to prevent dragnet fishing expeditions by the police trying to find stuff that you have done that might be illegal. The principle (not always followed) is that they are supposed to have a particular crime that they believe has been committed in mind before they start a search. And that they are supposed to be looking for evidence regarding that particular crime.
