Man gets 16 months in prison for GPS stalking
By Peter Rojas 
posted Jan 31st 2005 10:05AM
posted Jan 31st 2005 10:05AM
Wait a second, some dude in California gets 16 months in prison for stalking his ex-girlfriend by attaching a GPS
tracker to her car, but it's perfectly legal for the police
to do the same exact thing without a notifying you or obtaining a court order? Yeah, we know, there are some legal
subtleties involving the right to privacy here, but it seems like if it's illegal for the police to tap your phone or
email without a court order, it should be illegal for them to add a GPS tracker to your car, too.
[Via Online Blog]
They are all hiding behind "bush's" and in trees stalking everyone! Just for fun too!
GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRrrrrrrr...
I wonder...if you discover a police GPS tracker on your car, is it legal to remove it?
How would you know it's a "police" tracker? It probably doesn't have a big LAPD sticker on it. Be my guess anyway. :-)
I think he was arrested for stalking, not for placing the GPS tracker on her car. If he had installed the GPS device but never used it to stalk her, I don't think he would have been convicted. There's really nothing odd about the arrest; just because he used GPS to track her doesn't mean he has the right to stalk her.
first caller id, now no GPS.
what's a stalker to do these days?
it may make you think twice before accepting a cellphone as a gift.
my question is how did he do this?
this could come in handy in the event that i err... lose my cellphone.
there have got to be GPS detectors... right? if you think the police GPS'd your car... i would think it could be discovered easily enough. i would think.
I remember a similar case a few months ago (maybe it was the same one?) where a guy used a Nextel phone to do this. Apparently they offer a service where you can track your own phones (maybe they designed it to keep track of your employees?).
I think it's done by triangulating the phone's position using the cell it's in and the surrounding cells.
Didn't we read here on Engadget about some London based company doing the same?
"I wonder...if you discover a police GPS tracker on your car, is it legal to remove it?"
Of course, they did not use a court order so there is no legal documentation to say that it is being used to track you, they are just giving it to you without your knowledge. Either keep it, or just for fun, take it apart and return it to the police disassembled.
I still don't have all the details but from what I saw on the news here in Los Angeles I know it was a Nextel Motorola phone with GPS that was incased in a box that had magnets so that you are able to attach it to the underbody of the auto and the service he used was probably "TeleNav" it's marketed as a inexpensive navigation system as well as a way to keep track of your kids when they are out of school. The cops can put the GPS on your auto but they are not allowed to use the power supply from your battery. Scott Peterson was tracked with GPS. Welcome to "1984" WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
As usual:
You can use a kitchen knife to cut a cake or to kill someone.
So who's responsible?