Government Can Track Your Car With GPS

A little later than predicted, 2010 is shedding light on a situation all too similar to Orwell’s 1984, where “Big Brother” is always watching.

According to an article by TIME magazine, featured on Yahoo! News, government agents can sneak onto your property in the middle of the night and plant a GPS tracker on your vehicle, making it possible for them to keep surveillance on your car’s every move.

Eight states including California now are implementing this rule in which the government does not require a search warrant to put a GPS tracker on your vehicle whenever they see it necessary.  Supposedly because you don’t have a reasonable expectation of privacy in your own driveway, this waves your 4^th amendment rights.

In a trial in 2007, DEA agents planted a GPS device on suspected marijuana grower/distributor Juan Pineda-Moreno’s Jeep in the middle of the night, which lead to them catching him in the act.  After Moreno challenged the actions of the DEA, a three-judge panel of the ninth circuit in California ruled it to be completely legal.  When asked to reconsider their ruling earlier in the year, they decided to let it stand.

The law actually states that a reasonable expectation of privacy exists in your home as well as the “curtilage,” which is another way of saying the area around your home.

The judges’ ruling reached the consensus that Moreno, who lived in a trailer home, was already open to strangers such as delivery people and children who could also wander across the property uninvited.   They also implied that someone with fences, electric gates or security booths have a larger barrier of privacy.  Basically, if you don’t have enough money to set your house up as a fortress, then it’s ok for the government to put tracking devices on your car.

Chief Judge Alex Kozinski, who did not agree with the ruling, stated that no judge appointed by the state or federal government is considered poor by any standard and therefore are guilty of  “cultural elitism.”  He then continued to speculate that this situation was very similar to that which was predicted in George Orwell’s novel 1984, and warned that soon “we may wake up and find we’re living in Oceania,” the setting of the book in which the government, or “Big Brother,” watches your every move.

Government surveillance is constantly strengthening and we as people must stop this from getting out of hand.  Ten years ago the thought of cameras being posted at intersections and highways, or GPS tracking devices being planted on your vehicle would have been absurd.  How is it that the government can keep pushing the envelope on invading our privacy without the general population standing against it?