Police turn to secret weapon: GPS device

[Juha-Matti Laurio <juha-matti.laurio () netti fi>]

The Washington Post article describes the crime and continues:

"To figure out if Foltz was the assailant, police pulled out their secret weapon: They put a Global Positioning System 
device on Foltz's van, which allowed them to track his movements.
....
"We don't really want to give any info on how we use it as an investigative tool to help the bad guys," said Officer 
Shelley Broderick, a Fairfax police spokeswoman.
"It is an investigative tool for us, and it is a very new investigative tool."
Across the country, police are using GPS devices to snare thieves, drug dealers, sexual predators and killers, often 
without a warrant or court order.
Privacy advocates said tracking suspects electronically constitutes illegal search and seizure, violating Fourth 
Amendment rights of protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, and is another step toward George Orwell's 
Big Brother society.
Law enforcement officials, when they discuss the issue at all, said GPS is essentially the same as having an officer 
trail someone, just cheaper and more accurate.
Most of the time, as was done in the Foltz case, judges have sided with police."
--clip--

More at
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/12/AR2008081203275.html?hpid=topnews

Juha-Matti
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