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View Full Version : Feds to judge: We still think we can put GPS trackers on cars entering US




TheCount
10-08-2018, 01:25 PM
A top Homeland Security Investigations official has told a federal court that it remains the agency's policy that officers can install a GPS tracking device on cars entering the United States "without a warrant or individualized suspicion" (https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4953590-868fe257-093c-4cca-9444-59288e534040.html#document/p2/a458196) for up to 48 hours.

There is no such time limit, HSI Assistant Director Matthew C. Allen also told the court, for putting such trackers on "airplane, commercial vehicles, and semi-tractor trailers, which has a significantly reduced expectation of privacy in the location of their vehicles."

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HSI Assistant Director Allen's statement (https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4953590-868fe257-093c-4cca-9444-59288e534040.html#document/p2/a458196) was made in a September 28 court filing in a case known as United States v. Slavco Ignjatov et al., which is currently winding down in federal court in Riverside, California.


The government said in a separate September 28 filing that it would soon ask the court to dismiss the charges (https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4953591-e998d249-eec6-45a1-88f2-9f9b8b1d2c21.html#document/p1/a458340) in the wake of Judge Bernal's August 24 ruling, which suppressed evidence found as a result of the illegal search—the installation of two such tracking devices.


As part of the investigation into Ignjatov, an FBI agent, after consulting with two HSI agents, ordered that a pair of GPS trackers be installed on a big-rig truck as it approached a border crossing at Port Huron, Michigan. Authorities believed that this truck and its occupants were involved in smuggling cocaine.


Prosecutors said that investigators tracked the truck from Michigan as it drove 33 hours to Los Angeles (https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/09/judge-to-feds-no-you-cant-warrantlessly-put-a-gps-device-on-truck-entering-us/), where local police confronted the driver and his passenger. In addition to transporting its bona fide cargo of frozen cheese danishes, the truck was found to contain 15 four-pound packages of sugar.


The government believes that these sacks of sugar were effectively a "dry run" for a future delivery of cocaine, particularly as the very same truck had been caught delivering nearly 200 kilograms of cocaine in 2017.


Lawyers for defendants Slavco Ignjatov and Valentino Hristovski filed a motion to suppress, which was successful. When the government chose not to appeal the ruling, the judge eventually ordered that the men be released (https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4955397-bd2ae9fa-749f-4a77-9643-59d8aeaff23a.html) so that they could return home to Canada.


https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/10/feds-to-judge-we-still-think-we-can-put-gps-trackers-on-cars-entering-us/