Across the country police departments are turning to GPS technology to track and apprehend criminals. The Global Positioning System is the latest secret weapon helping to control and reduce the incidence of criminal activity. Some departments have even set up an electronic surveillance section specializing in the ways in which GPS tracking can be useful to the police.
We owe a debt of gratitude to GPS devices as thieves, drug dealers, sexual predators and killers have already been captured, often without a warrant or court order. As one would expect, privacy advocates argue that tracking suspects electronically constitutes illegal search and seizure and violates Fourth Amendment rights of protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, calling this another step toward the Big Brother society of George Orwell.
Nevertheless, by contrast, law enforcement officials, when they discuss the issue at all, say GPS is essentially the same as having an officer trail someone, just cheaper and more accurate. Most of the time, judges have sided with the police. Advocates of GPS explain that the police have no need to obtain a warrant to track suspects electronically on public streets because the device provides the same information as physical tracking. According to Attorney Richard E. Trodden, “A police officer could do the same thing with his or her own eyes. It helps to cut down on the number of police officers who would have to be out tracking particular cars.” As further evidence of its effectiveness, FBI agents successfully used a GPS device while investigating an embezzlement scheme to steal from District taxpayers, attaching one to a suspect’s Jaguar.
Worth mentioning here is the fact that on December 10, 2010, the US Air Force celebrated the GPS satellite’s 20th year in orbit. It remains under the purview of the US Air Force and has become critical to the American infrastructure for use by the government, private business and the general public. We now have 31 satellites in the constellation of GPS.
Thus far, the U.S. Supreme Court has not weighed in on unwarranted GPS tracking, but supporters point to a 1983 case that said police do not need a warrant to track a car on a public street with a beeper, which relays the car’s location to police. Lower courts that have addressed the issue have not all agreed. The Washington state Supreme Court has ruled that police must obtain a warrant to use the device in that manner, but courts in New York, Wisconsin and Maryland, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit in Chicago, have held that a warrant is not needed.
Having the courts’ blessing, and with the ever-declining cost of the technology, many analysts believe that police will increasingly rely on GPS as an effective tool in investigations and that the public will hear little about the matter.