The GPS   COPS  &  YOU

*Justice Samuel Alito observed that "in the pre-computer, pre-Internet age, much of the privacy that people enjoyed was not the result of legal protections … it was the result simply of the difficulty of traveling around and gathering up information."

Jones' lawyer, Stephen Leckar, countered that GPS constitutes a "robotic" and pervasive intrusion on people's lives that greatly threatens personal privacy. "GPS in your car, without a warrant," he said, "is like (being) unable to get rid of an uninvited stranger." [on point]

Justices referred to the sweeping nature of GPS but worried about how to distinguish it, for example, from government's use of cameras on public streets. [Cameras are not attached to your personal property the GPS is - its just that simple].

Police use of GPS tracking clearly makes Supreme Court justices nervous — as the many scenarios they posed Tuesday showed.

"You could tomorrow decide that you put a GPS device on every one of our cars, follow us for a month, no problem under the Constitution?" Chief Justice John Roberts asked doubtfully.

Deputy U.S. Solicitor General Michael Dreeben, defending Global Positioning System surveillance, said yes, if federal agents wanted to track the nine justices on public streets, agents could do so without a warrant.

Could agents monitor people through cellphones that "emit signals that police can pick up and use to follow someone, anywhere?" Justice Sonia Sotomayor asked.

Not if they go into private residences, Dreeben said, only in public places.

As the Supreme Court took its first-ever look at GPS tracking Tuesday, the justices raised plenty of daunting situations involving high-tech surveillance. Yet there was no clear consensus for a rule that would govern such cases, including the one before them involving the attachment of a GPS device to a car.

The Global Positioning System relies on a constellation of satellites that transmit signals to receivers on the ground. It can be used to follow a person 24 hours a day, weeks on end, in a way that would be extremely costly and nearly impossible with usual police manpower.

Such pervasive satellite tracking of a driver's every move prompted several references Tuesday to George Orwell's futurist novel 1984 and to "Big Brother" government. It also raised questions of how people's expectations of privacy may be changing in contemporary America.

Justice Samuel Alito observed that "in the pre-computer, pre-Internet age, much of the privacy that people enjoyed was not the result of legal protections … it was the result simply of the difficulty of traveling around and gathering up information."

The court was hearing the Justice Department's appeal of a lower-court decision that said officers need a warrant before they may attach a GPS device to a vehicle, based onFourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures.

The case began in 2005 when federal agents secretly attached a GPS device to the Jeep of Antoine Jones while it was parked in a public lot. They used the evidence of Jones' travels over four weeks, including to a stash house in Fort Washington, Md., to help win a conviction for conspiracy to distribute cocaine.

The Justice Department contended its surveillance was valid under United States v. Knotts, a 1983 Supreme Court decision that declared the use of a beeper to track a suspect driving to a drug lab was not a search under the Fourth Amendment.

During a vigorous hour of arguments Tuesday, Deputy Solicitor General Dreeben sought to quell justices' worries about blanket tracking.

"This case does not involve 24-hour surveillance of every citizen of the United States," he said. "It involves following one suspected drug dealer as to whom there was very strong suspicion."

Jones' lawyer, Stephen Leckar, countered that GPS constitutes a "robotic" and pervasive intrusion on people's lives that greatly threatens personal privacy. "GPS in your car, without a warrant," he said, "is like (being) unable to get rid of an uninvited stranger."

Justices referred to the sweeping nature of GPS but worried about how to distinguish it, for example, from government's use of cameras on public streets.

Chief Justice Roberts noted that police can obtain much more information from a GPS device than from intermittent tracking of a suspect in a squad car. Yet he grew frustrated at Leckar for failing to offer a clear standard about people's expectations of privacy under the Fourth Amendment.

"I don't know what society expects," Roberts said.

Justice Anthony Kennedy was among those who voiced concerns about police secretly attaching the device to Jones' Jeep in the first place. "I have serious reservations about the way in which this beeper was installed," he said.

Several justices raised examples with emerging technologies.

"There are now satellites that look down and can hone in on your home on a block and in a neighborhood," Sotomayor said as she pushed Leckar for a clear theory on what high-tech methods police could invoke without a warrant.

"This case does not require us to decide those issues of emerging technology," Leckar insisted. "It's a simple case at the core."

He urged the court to rule that police may not put a GPS device on a person's car without a warrant.

A decision in the case of United States v. Jones is likely by the end of June when the justices usually recess for the summer.

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DC Govt can really lie

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First it was the Jews

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DC had filed to strike language from Herzfeld’s amended complaint accusing city officials of falsely stating that even if the election had fallen on Christmas Day, they would not have been able to change the date ???

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Without taking sides in this matter before the court and taken in the context with DC Govt statement it can only be said that DC's rapidly growing moslem population can and will schedule elections on major Christian holidays to deny Christians the rights to vote ~ first it was the Jews.

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Meaning of "High Crimes and Misdemeanors"

by Jon Roland, Constitution Society

The question of impeachment turns on the meaning of the phrase in the Constitution at Art. II Sec. 4, "Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors". I have carefully researched the origin of the phrase "high crimes and misdemeanors" and its meaning to the Framers, and found that the key to understanding it is the word "high". It does not mean "more serious". It refers to those punishable offenses that only apply to high persons, that is, to public officials, those who, because of their official status, are under special obligations that ordinary persons are not under, and which could not be meaningfully applied or justly punished if committed by ordinary persons.

Under the English common law tradition, crimes were defined through a legacy of court proceedings and decisions that punished offenses not because they were prohibited by statutes, but because they offended the sense of justice of the people and the court. Whether an offense could qualify as punishable depended largely on the obligations of the offender, and the obligations of a person holding a high position meant that some actions, or inactions, could be punishable if he did them, even though they would not be if done by an ordinary person.

Offenses of this kind survive today in the Uniform Code of Military Justice. It recognizes as punishable offenses such things as refusal to obey orders, abuse of authority, dereliction of duty, moral turpitude, and conduct unbecoming. These would not be offenses if committed by a civilian with no official position, but they are offenses which bear on the subject's fitness for the duties he holds, which he is bound by oath or affirmation to perform.

Perjury is usually defined as "lying under oath". That is not quite right. The original meaning was "violation of one's oath (or affirmation)".

The word "perjury" is usually defined today as "lying under oath about a material matter", but that is not its original or complete meaning, which is "violation of an oath". We can see this by consulting the original Latin from which the term comes. From An Elementary Latin Dictionary, by Charlton T. Lewis (1895), Note that the letter "j" is the letter "i" in Latin.

periurium, i, n,, a false oath, perjury.

 

periurus, adj., oath-breaking, false to vows, perjured. iuro, avi, atus, are, to swear, take an oath.

 

iurator, oris, m., a swearer.

 

iuratus, adj., sworn under oath, bound by an oath.

 

ius, iuris, that which is binding, right, justice, duty.

 

per, ... IV. Of means or manner, through, by, by means of, ... under pretense of, by the pretext of, ....

By Art. II Sec. 1 Cl. 8, the president must swear: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." He is bound by this oath in all matters until he leaves office. No additional oath is needed to bind him to tell the truth in anything he says, as telling the truth is pursuant to all matters except perhaps those relating to national security. Any public statement is perjury if it is a lie, and not necessary to deceive an enemy.

Foreclosure & compliance with the Constitutional obligation of due process of law

April Charney :

. . . show me you own my loan and that you possess the right to foreclose is nothing more or less than compliance with the Constitutional obligation of due process of law - notice and opportunity to be heard - one of the fundamental things that make us the United States of America.  Do we really want to tinker with that over this?

Is there really a legal solution here?  I don't see one yet.

http://legaltimes.typepad.com/blt/2011/08/court-upholds-ban-on-foreign-citizens-donating-to-candidates-.html

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