SURVEILLANCE USA: Guy Goes For Oil Change- FBI Tracking Device Found Under His Vehicle

[Panaconda]

Oil change reignites debate over GPS trackers

Published: Saturday, October 16, 2010, 8:36 PM
The Associated Press

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.


Yasir Afifi shows a GPS monitoring device he found on his car in Santa Clara, Calif.

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.

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http://www.mlive.com/news/us-world/index.ssf/2010/10/oil_change_reignites_debate_ov.html

[Xipe Totec]

1. Finder's keepers! nt

[HawkerHurricane]

4. "Can you prove it's yours?" nt

[Cirque du So-What]

2. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is supposed to be the 'liberal' one, isn't it?

Scary to think they can be so cavalier about our right to privacy. Sad thing is, the highest court in the land would likely side with them.

[Wickerman]

3. The FBI arrived at Afifi's Santa Clara apartment and demanded the return of their property?

Wow!

[TexasObserver]

5. recommend

[Canuckistanian]

6. I'd love to get my hands on it

In fact, I can tell by the picture what it does and how it does it.

But I'd like to take it apart, determine the exact frequency it's using, how it collects data - and POST the results to the world.

This shit has got to stop.

[madokie]

7. I wish you could get your hands on it too

especially if you know that much about it to be able to figure out the info so you could tell the rest of us so we could help to stop this shit

[maryf]

8. K&R

checking under my car...

[ManiacJoe]

9. Big thread back on the 8th.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=4569015&mesg_id=4569159