GPS Monitoring Solutions

RED NOTES BY DAVE SMITH, CFCAMERICA.ORG

The government in America creates laws which allow for citizens to be placed in a revolving door of arrests for crimes created by politicians. No hope for escape of the Revolving Door of the United States Prison System. Publicly branded and humiliated, loaded with rules and regulations and financial burdens placed upon them by the state.. these people are destined to fail.

Any person who has been successfully labeled a sex offender in America is practically unemployable. In the words of Congressman Bobby Scott of Virginia, Once a person is placed upon a public sex offender registry, their life is basically over. Given that information, the company Secure Alert is pushing tax payers to fund their GPS monitoring services and have the Ex Offender pay the bill. If the ex offender committed any sort of sexual crime, even streaking or urinating in public, and this could have been decades ago..and that ex offender is on the public registry then that person will in all probability find it almost impossible to get a job. If that person is required by law enforcement to wear a GPS device and is Required by law enforcement and Secure Alert to PAY A MONTHLY FEE FOR THAT DEVICE then that person will end up in Violation of their parole, probation or sex offender registration laws. What does this all mean? It means that they will be on their way to Prison with a New Charge.. Failure To Register as a sex offender. This will send them to prison and it could be as long as 10 years or more, for simply not having the money to pay for GPS monitoring. 

Who pays for that person to be in prison for 10 years, for simply not having a job? YOU, THE TAX PAYER DOES. Who pays the politician who suckers you the tax payer into this revolving door scheme? YOU, THE TAX PAYER DOES. And one of the saddest things about all this is, GPS TRACKING PROTECTS NO BODY FROM A CRIME BEING COMMITTED.

With budgets continually decreasing, offender/family pay programs from SecureAlert allow your agency to monitor your offenders regardless of the overall budgetary environment. The concept is simple. Offenders or their families pay a fixed amount or a percentage of what they earn to your agency, covering your monitoring and administrative costs.  Basically afreedom tax, SecureAlert pay programs are tailored to the needs of your agency, either augmenting and assisting your staff or fully implementing the program.  Pay programs give an added layer of responsibility andaccountability for the offender, while giving them the opportunity to become a productive member of society. What they are saying here is states can hire Secure Alert to charge ex offenders for being forced to wear their GPS product. Profiting from Ex Sex Offenders.

Standard Offender Pay Services

With Standard Service, your organization is responsible for installation, de-installation, Offender Contract signing, and payment collection activities

Full Offender Pay Services

With the Full Service option, SecureAlert provides onsite personnel to perform all management functions.  This option provides Offender Pay administration including the signing of agreements with offenders and the collection of funds directly from offenders.  There is typically a minimum offender requirement of 100 offenders for the Full Service option in order to make it economically viable; however, for those areas where participation is limited, surrounding communities can work together to create a joint program that includes the benefits inherently found in larger programs.

This company wants ex offenders to be forced to PAY for their own GPS tracking systems.. knowing if they are labeled a sex offender, they will not have any money as all applications now ask if the applicant has ever been convicted of a crime or sex crime.. if sex crime.. NO HIRE is in place. Not only that but just about every apartment or housing office STRICTLY ENFORCES NO RENTING TO SEX OFFENDERS.

So, the jobless, homeless ex offender who is out there trying to do better after learning his or her lesson is now required to pay for GPS monitoring, or face New Charges and Prison… What a revolving door scheme to make money!

August 28, 2010 11:21 PM

Local law enforcement agencies can now legally enter private driveways, install GPS tracking devices onto vehicles there and track the owner without having to get a warrant, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled.

“We do have access to that equipment and there have been occasions when we’ve used it,” said Capt. Eben Bratcher, Yuma County Sheriff’s Office public information officer, adding they only do so where it is allowed by law. “We follow the law in its application in every circumstance.”

The Yuma Police Department also has access to the GPS tracking technology.

“We are aware of the technology but have not used them in the past,” said Sgt. Clint Norred, YPD public information officer.

The 9th Circuit has jurisdiction over Arizona and several other Western states. The ruling was made in January of this year by Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain and N. Randy Smith, 9th Circuit judges, and Charles R. Wolle, senior 9th Circuit judge, after an appeal by Juan Pineda-Moreno, a man convicted of growing marijuana in Oregon who claimed his Fourth Amendment rights had been violated by police.

Over a four-month period in 2007, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents repeatedly monitored Pineda-Moreno’s Jeep using various types of mobile tracking devices to gather enough information to make an arrest, the court stated.

“Each device was about the size of a bar of soap and had a magnet affixed to its side, allowing it to be attached to the underside of a car. Agents installed these devices on the underside of Pineda-Moreno’s Jeep on seven different occasions.”

On two of those occasions, the Jeep was parked in Pineda-Moreno’s driveway a few feet from the side of his trailer, the court revealed.

The three-judge panel stated since the driveway leading up to the trailer was open and agents did not observe any fence, gate or “No Trespassing” signs indicating that they were not to enter the property, they were legally allowed to come onto the property and place the GPS devices.

According to the court, the agents entered Pineda-Moreno’s driveway between 4 and 5 a.m. and attached the tracking devices to the Jeep. Once in place, the tracking devices recorded and logged the precise movements of the vehicle.

The curtilage is the portions of a homeowner’s property so closely associated with the home as to be considered part of it, explained Alex Kozinski, chief judge of the 9th Circuit.

This includes the walkway leading from the street to the house, the stairs from the walkway to the porch, the porch, attached garage, the detached shed, the front lawn, the driveway and the backyard (if fenced).

The Jeep was parked in Pineda-Moreno’s driveway, which is only a semiprivate area having no features to prevent someone standing in the street from seeing the entire driveway, the panel stated.

Kozinski, who opposes the ruling, was disturbed by that assumption. “The panel holds that Pineda-Moreno was required to separately establish a reasonable expectation of privacy in the curtilage,” he wrote. “That … is like requiring the homeowner to establish a reasonable expectation of privacy in his bedroom.”

The panel that made the ruling also believed since Pineda-Moreno allowed the mail carrier and other workers to walk through his driveway, as well as visitors coming to call, that by default meant the agents could do the same.

“If a neighborhood child had walked up Pineda-Moreno’s driveway and crawled under his Jeep to retrieve a lost ball or runaway cat, Pineda-Moreno would have no grounds to complain,” they stated. “Thus, because Pineda-Moreno did not take steps to exclude passersby from his driveway, he cannot claim a reasonable expectation of privacy in it, regardless of whether a portion of it was located within the curtilage of his home.”

Kozinski disagreed. “The panel’s rationale for concluding that Pineda-Moreno had no reasonable expectation of privacy is even more worrisome than its disregard of Supreme Court precedent,” he wrote.

“There are many parts of a person’s property that are accessible to strangers for limited purposes … This doesn’t mean that we invite neighbors to use the pool, strangers to camp out on the lawn or police to snoop in the garage. The panel authorizes police to do not only what invited strangers could, but also uninvited children — in this case crawl under the car to retrieve a ball and tinker with the undercarriage.”

In conclusion, the panel ruled that the agents did not invade his property, they conducted no search and there was no Fourth Amendment violation since Pineda-Moreno could not prove they had entered a private area.

According to Kozinski, now only the very rich will still be able to protect their privacy with the aid of electric gates, tall fences, security booths, remote cameras, motion sensors and roving patrols.

The next step to appeal the 9th Circuit would be the U.S. Supreme Court.

Should a company that provides GPS tracking service be liable for domestic violence inflicted with the help of that technology?

A Milwaukee County lawsuit claims it should.

The use of GPS by offenders to stalk their victims is nothing new, but advocates for victims of domestic violence on the local, state and national level say they have never heard of a victim suing a GPS service.

The lawsuit claims a Missouri company, Foxtrax Vehicle Tracking Inc., aided and abetted “Jack Doe” to commit assault and battery on “Jane Doe” in 2008, including while she was seven months pregnant. The suit does not state so specifically, but implies that Jack Doe installed a tracking device on Jane Doe’s vehicle.

The civil complaint, filed this week in Milwaukee County Circuit Court, names Jack Doe, Foxtrax and “as yet unidentified co-conspirators” as defendants. It says Jane and Jack Doe had a domestic partnership that began in March 2007, and that he was abusive and threatening toward her, “for the sole purpose of restraining the liberty and freedom of movement” of Jane Doe.

The parties’ real names were not used because Jane Doe fears retaliation, according to the suit.

Her attorney, Thomas Napierala of Bayside, said his client’s fear also prevented her from reporting the assaults to police or seeking a restraining order.

Foxtrax officials did not return calls seeking comment Friday.

Carmen Pitre, who heads the Sojourner Family Peace Center in Milwaukee, said that in the context of an abusive relationship, abusers will use anything at their disposal to control their victims.

“New technology has opened the universe wide and given abusers an array of tools,” she said. “It’s hard to protect against all that.”

The lawsuit also claims that Foxtrax at some point was notified of the situation involving Jane Doe, “but refused to discontinue aiding and abetting” Jack Doe, “purely for the sake of profit.”

If that was proven, Pitre said, it would be even more problematic.

Tony Gilbart, of the Wisconsin Coalition Against Domestic Violence, said a bill in the state Assembly this year would have made it a crime to track someone by GPS without their consent. There was no companion bill in the Senate, he said.

While Gilbart acknowledges abusers would not likely follow that law and notify their targets, he said such a law would provide another enforcement tool against those who would use GPS to stalk people.

Gilbart also said the Milwaukee County lawsuit should remind anyone who thinks they might be subject of unwanted tracking or stalking to have their vehicle checked for a GPS transponder and to call their cell phone company to see if anyone else has access to their location if their cell phone has GPS.

Cindy Southworth, who founded a project that tracks technology with the National Network to End Domestic Violence, in Washington D.C., also said she had not heard of any lawsuits by domestic violence victims against GPS tracking services for vicarious liability.

“I would honestly love to see some,” she said, “especially against those companies that blatantly advertise spying on your spouse.”

That doesn’t appear to be the situation in the Milwaukee County case. According to its Web site, Foxtrax primarily aims to serve companies with vehicle fleets that wish to increase security, efficiency and accountability. But it does indicate that low-level service can be purchased to track a single vehicle.

Napierala said he believes Jack Doe had no other legitimate reason to buy the service other than to follow Jane Doe.

Read more: http://www.sentinelandenterprise.com/local/ci_15778188#ixzz0wsUnVEcO

Related

WASHINGTON — The growing use by the police of new technologies that make surveillance easier and cheaper to conduct is raising difficult questions about the scope of constitutional privacy rights, leading to disagreements among judges.

A federal appeals court, for example, issued a ruling Aug. 6 that contradicts precedents from three other appeals courts over whether police must obtain a warrant before secretly attaching a GPS device beneath a car.

The issue is whether the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable searches covers a device that records a suspect’s movements for weeks or months without any need for an officer to trail him.

The GPS-tracking dispute coincides with a burst of other technological tools that expand police-monitoring abilities, including automated license-plate readers in squad cars, speed cameras mounted on streetlight poles and the widely discussed prospect of linking face-recognition computer programs to the proliferating number of surveillance cameras.

Some legal scholars say the escalating use of such high-tech techniques for enhancing traditional police activities is eroding the pragmatic considerations that used to limit how far a law-enforcement official could intrude on people’s privacy without court oversight. They have called for a fundamental rethinking of how to apply Fourth Amendment privacy rights in the 21st century.

“Often what we have to do with the march of technology is realize that the difference in quantity and speed can actually amount to significantly more invasive practices,” said Paul Ohm, a University of Colorado law professor and former federal computer-crimes prosecutor. “It’s like you keep turning the volume knob and it becomes something different, not the same thing just a little louder.”

Security vs. privacy

Such calls seemed to be answered Aug. 6 by an ideologically diverse panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. It overturned a drug-trafficking conviction because the evidence against the defendant included tracking data from a GPS receiver that the police hid under his sport-utility vehicle without a warrant. The device essentially recorded his whereabouts 24 hours a day for four weeks.

Traditionally, courts have held that the Fourth Amendment does not cover the trailing of a suspect because people have no expectation of privacy for actions exposed to public view.

But the appeals court argued that people expect their overall movements to be private because different strangers see only isolated moments and a police department’s surveillance resources are limited. GPS technology, by allowing police departments to inexpensively track someone’s comings and goings, changes that equation, it said.

“Prolonged surveillance reveals types of information not revealed by short-term surveillance, such as what a person does repeatedly, what he does not do, and what he does ensemble,” wrote Judge Douglas Ginsburg.

“A person who knows all of another’s travels can deduce whether he is a weekly churchgoer, a heavy drinker, a regular at the gym, an unfaithful husband, an outpatient receiving medical treatment, an associate of particular individual or political groups — and not just one such fact about a person, but all such facts.”

Supreme Court review of the decision seems likely. It contradicted decisions in three similar GPS-related cases by appellate panels in Chicago, St. Louis and San Francisco.

In 2007, for example, Judge Richard Posner argued that “following a car on a public street” is “unequivocally not a search within the meaning” of the Fourth Amendment. While acknowledging that “technological progress poses a threat to privacy by enabling an extent of surveillance that in earlier times would have been prohibitively expensive,” he concluded that using a GPS device to investigate a suspect crossed no constitutional line.

The Fourth Amendment “cannot sensibly be read to mean that police shall be no more efficient in the 21st century than they were in the 18th,” he wrote. “There is a trade-off between security and privacy, and often it favors security.”

Posner also cited a 1983 Supreme Court ruling upholding the use of a hidden radio transmitter that helped police trail a suspect. But other judges have argued that the limited power of that device makes it different from the prolonged, automated tracking that GPS devices enable.

“Un-American”?

On Thursday, five judges on the San Francisco appeals court dissented from a decision not to rehear a ruling upholding the warrantless use of GPS trackers. Chief Judge Alex Kozinski characterized the tactic as “creepy and un-American” and contended its capabilities handed “the government the power to track the movements of every one of us, every day of our lives.”

There is no central repository of how many police forces use the devices, which cost several hundred dollars. But there has been a recent spate of cases about them. Several state supreme courts — including those in Massachusetts, New York, Oregon and Washington — have ruled that their state constitutions require police to obtain a warrant to use them.

Related questions have arisen over businesses’ customer records, which courts generally allow police to obtain without a warrant. The appeals court in Philadelphia is considering whether the Fourth Amendment protects location data for cellphones.

The few Fourth Amendment cases involving contemporary technologies to reach the Supreme Court have generally stuck to the principle that privacy rights cover only actions no one else could normally see or hear. In 2001, for example, the court ruled that without a warrant, police cannot point a thermal-imaging device at a home in search of heat associated with marijuana growing.