Comments

1
So did he keep the tracker, or what?
2
What you do is tie it to a dog. Then hilarity ensures. I saw it in a movie.
3
No, you put it on an airport taxi. Then REAL hilarity ensues.
4
@2, I fear "tie it to a dog" has become FBI slang for "secretly track an innocent Arab-American".
5
Yeah, he's innocent. Sure he is. Aren't they all?
6
#5: Some Muslims are up to no good, but there are far more old white gun nuts up to no good. Track them all!
7
@3: Zomg, Joe. That's great.

This reminds me of recent announcement that the government wants backdoors built into all internet communications so they can maintain their wiretap capability across all platforms. The articles always state "And while it arouses suspicion from privacy advocates, the government spokesperson repeatedly stated such searches would require a warrant." And then I fall over laughing.
8
Until proven guilty, I heard somewhere. Matlock or something.

Srsly - it's not hard to get a warrant, so not bothering is super fucking out of line, shady and designed to keep judges from learning what you're up to.
9
"I'm sure all the limited government proponents in the Tea Party will be outraged by this."


That's a funny line; No, all the 'limited government' advocates in the Tea Party are only interested in limiting the parts of government that provide social services. They have no interest in limiting the power of the Police State to protect them from scary people who look and act differently from them.

Selective outrage is the order of the day for that lot.
10
This has been fascinating to watch unfold on Reddit

Good further reading:

Here's the original post from when he got his car back from the mechanic where they found the thing:
http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comme…

Original comment that apparently sparked further tracking
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/commen…

He makes a theoretical statement with really good points that should have value in a democracy (he's questioning the real threat of terrorism, etc.)

Priceless that he ends that comment with "yeah now I'm surely bugged"

11
Next: Subcutaneous chips implanted at birth... "It's for your own safety."
12
Still illegal in WA state.

We have stronger constitutional protections against this.

I always put it under a bus. Takes them a while to clue in.
13
Libertarians are only "libertarian" about shit that they're cuckoo-insane over, like taxes and guns.
14
Or taxing guns.
15
@8

you don't need a warrant to surveil someone from a police cruiser; this is just a more efficient version of that. it's not as if recording devices were placed in areas where this guy had a reasonable expectation of privacy.

plus, i can see why they might have wanted to investigate him:

"One of the agents produced a printout of a blog post that Afifi’s friend Khaled allegedly wrote a couple of months ago. It had “something to do with a mall or a bomb,” Afifi said. He hadn’t seen it before and doesn’t know the details of what it said."

http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/commen…
16
So 15, you're saying that anybody who pontificates as to why no malls have been blown up in America on an internet blog should expect to be tracked by the government?

That's outrageous.

Further, have you ever heard of the chilling of free speech?
17
It would have been fun to mail it back to the FBI, but to one of their offices in oh-I-don't-know, Key West FL?
"He's on the move!" "Quick everyone, pack up, we're following him!"
18
15, continued:

don't forget that the fact that surveillance in the past required a police cruiser and man hours to watch us...this was a fiscal impediment that helped keep the blanket surveillance of innocent US citizens at a minimum. Nowadays this is changing because it is so cheep to keep tabs on anybody they want to.

am I a suspect now for challenging this? Maybe I shouldn't be pontificating or questioning our government.

19
@15

Your opinions are incorrect. I think it's time for you to think of some new ones.
20
I'm afraid I don't see any "opinions" there, either correct or incorrect. His facts, however, are quite correct.
21
If anyone has one of these they want to get rid of, I'll be happy to drive it around for you.

But first I'm going to need gas money.

Lots and lot's of gas money.
22
@20- "you don't need a warrant to surveil someone from a police cruiser; this is just a more efficient version of that."

Italicized part is an opinion.
23
Not really, Dwight. There are court rulings using that as the basis of their decisions. It's not an opinion, it's the law.
24
@16 and @18

yes, i have heard of freedom of speech. but we only have freedom of speech to a point. you can't yell "fire" in a crowded theater. of course, his 1st amendment rights weren't violated. his speech wasn't infringed upon. his speech was investigated because there may have been a concern that this person could carry them out into actions.

what happened here was an investigation. and just because cops have new tools by which to do it doesn't make it illegal. this guy wasn't arrested. he wasn't held. the physical location of his car was tracked. which, without analysis (man hours) is by itself meaningless.

also, @19 here's some good reading on the 7th circuit court of appeals declaring gps tracking of suspects legal from a 4th amendment standpoint. though they do agree that mass surveillance of the populace should raise questions about privacy, the court states that law enforcement, investigating a suspect, can use gps tracking. not my opinion, fact.

"The Supreme Court has held that the mere tracking of a vehicle on public streets by means of a similar though less sophisticated device (a beeper) is not a search."

and

"...police trying to follow a car in their own car, and, on the other hand, using cameras (whether mounted on lampposts or in satellites) or GPS devices. In other words, it is the difference between the old technology—the technology of the internal combustion engine—and newer technologies (cameras are not new, of course, but coordinating the images recorded by thousands of such cameras is). But GPS tracking is on the same side of the divide with the surveillance cameras and the satellite imaging, and if what they do is not searching in Fourth Amendment terms, neither is GPS tracking."
25
@3. Well done

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