Third Court Rules On Right Of Due Process And Right To Privacy

From Newsmax:

Latest Ruling Adds to GPS Tracking Controversy




A third court has handed down a ruling on the legality of using a GPS device to track a suspect’s movements without first obtaining a warrant.



As the Insider Report noted last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in January ruled in a case involving a suspected marijuana grower. The court, which covers California and eight other Western states, said Drug Enforcement Administration agents without a warrant did not violate the suspect’s Fourth Amendment rights protecting him from unreasonable search and seizure when they attached a GPS device to a Jeep parked in his driveway.



The three-judge court ruled that the California suspect’s driveway was not private property, and in August a larger group of judges decided to let the ruling stand.



But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has ruled that tracking a person for an extended period of time with a GPS is an invasion of privacy that requires a warrant.



Now the Virginia Court of Appeals has ruled that police can use a GPS device to track a vehicle without a warrant.



The case involved David Foltz, a suspect in a series of sexual assaults, who was tracked using a GPS device and apprehended during an attempted assault on Feb. 6, 2008, the Washington Examiner reported.



In upholding Foltz’s conviction on charges of abduction with intent to defile, Judge Randolph Beales wrote that “police used the GPS device to crack this case by tracking the appellant on the public roadways — which they could, of course, do in person any day of the week at any hour without obtaining a warrant.”



Adam Cohen, an attorney and former member of the New York Times editorial board, wrote in Time magazine that the California decision brought the United States “one step closer to a classic police state.”



But the Virginia case differs from the California case in that the device was placed on Foltz’s vehicle while it was parked on a public street rather than in a driveway.



Foltz had no expectation of privacy on a public street, the Virginia court said.



The issue could ultimately be decided by the Supreme Court.