1984: Big Brother in California

Oil change reignites debate over GPS trackers

To read full article click on  "Oil change" above. begin quote below from above article.

SAN FRANCISCO – Yasir Afifi, a 20-year-old computer salesman and community college student, took his car in for an oil change earlier this month and his mechanic spotted an odd wire hanging from the undercarriage.
The wire was attached to a strange magnetic device that puzzled Afifi and the mechanic. They freed it from the car and posted images of it online, asking for help in identifying it.
Two days later, FBI agents arrived at Afifi's Santa Clara apartment and demanded the return of their property — a global positioning system tracking device now at the center of a raging legal debate over privacy rights.
One federal judge wrote that the widespread use of the device was straight out of George Orwell's novel, "1984".
"By holding that this kind of surveillance doesn't impair an individual's reasonable expectation of privacy, the panel hands the government the power to track the movements of every one of us, every day of our lives," wrote Alex Kozinski, the chief judge of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in a blistering dissent in which a three-judge panel from his court ruled that search warrants weren't necessary for GPS tracking. end quote.

Though this sort of thing is illegal in several eastern states it is still legal in California. I think it should be illegal here as well unless there is a specific court order.

The problem is that this sort of thing will be misused. If a GPS magnetic device is magnetized to the underside of one of your cars or your trucks in your driveways or on the street anywhere in the U.S. (both are presently legal to do in California) I think especially during these times of financial inequality in our country that both the poor and the rich  and the middle class will be targeted with these devices. And since even Private eyes use these devices in addition to the police (both without a court order in California) all of Californians are potential victims of this invasion of privacy of all of us. And it is just a matter of time before this type of invasion of privacy becomes fatal (possibly it already has).

I believe that no police or government body should be able to do this without a court order. I believe that  if this is not made illegal in all U.S. states you will see a big court case where because of this it creates the death of someone or  someone  disappears within one year here in California or elsewhere in the U.S. because of this ungoverned invasion of public privacy. Without privacy the people perish(and so do their freedoms and rights).

The civil suit of wrongful death from just one misuse could bankrupt the police department of any locality. Placing these devices under a car or truck and then tracking people by satellite in real time without a court order is only going to cause problems for everyone.

Though there are GPS devices in almost all cell phones, people choose to buy and to use cell phones. In fact, my God Daughter was given a cell phone by her boyfriend and then after they broke up he stalked her with it and eventually beat her up by tracking her with the cell phone he bought her online. If you have been given a cell phone by someone and you break up with them please protect yourselves by throwing it away or having a technician check if your ex (or boss) or someone can track you with that particular phone through their laptop online.

Though this has all been resolved now it was a very difficult experience for everyone. When this man threatened the new boyfriend he handed the phone to  a police officer who happened to be there when the call came in who told the ex he was a police officer over this phone the problem ended permanently because he had just threatened the life of a police officer over the GPS tracking phone.