GPS is a space-based global navigation satellite system that provides reliable location and time information. In California and several other states, it is now legal for government officials to use clandestine measure to sneak on to private property and plant a GPS device on your vehicle and track your every location in real time.
This is what happened in 2007, when Drug Enforcement Administration agents wanted to track Juan Pineda-Moreno, for allegedly growing marijuana. Pineda-Moreno, an Oregon resident had a GPS devise placed on his car by agents who trespassed and snuck onto his property without a warrant. He later challenged the DEA’s actions. This past January a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit ruled it was perfectly legal.
The opinion, which was written by Judge Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain acknowledged that “Pineda-Moreno’s Jeep was parked within the curtilage of his home when the agents attached the tracking device” but that his driveway was “only a semiprivate area” according to United States v. Magana, 512 F.2d 1169, 1171 (9th Cir. 1975).
The judge concluded “Pineda-Moreno cannot show that the agents invaded an area in which he possessed a reasonable expectation of privacy when they walked up his driveway and attached the tracking device to his vehicle. Because the agents did not invade such an area, they conducted no search, and Pineda-Moreno can assert no Fourth Amendment violation” according to California v. Ciraolo, 476 U.S. 207, 211 (1986).”
As a result of the ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit decided the government can monitor any citizen via GPS anytime it sees fit without the requirement of a search warrant. The question is whether or not this violates the Fourth Amendment which states “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized..”
This means that no one should have the expectation of privacy in your own driveway. Orwell in 1984 warned of massive totalitarian states, is this the future for America? I guess we should all ask, “who is that peeping in my window?”
