Um, What?

The Government Can Use GPS to Track Your Moves

Government agents can sneak onto your property in the middle of the night, put a GPS device on the bottom of your car and keep track of everywhere you go. This doesn't violate your Fourth Amendment rights, because you do not have any reasonable expectation of privacy in your own driveway — and no reasonable expectation that the government isn't tracking your movements.

That is the bizarre — and scary — rule that now applies in California and eight other Western states. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which covers this vast jurisdiction, recently decided the government can monitor you in this way virtually anytime it wants — with no need for a search warrant.

Go to the link. I came across it here, and my first thought was that it was another alarmist screed from one of our anarcho-leaning libertarian brethren. Imagine my surprise when the link came up at Time.com - where the odds are better (slightly) that the story is legit. At first blush, it's hard to see how this could possibly be legal - government agents slipping onto private property to attach a tracking device, all without a warrant. It appears to be a violation of the fourth amendment at a bare minimum - unless you're the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, that is.

Alex Kozinski, long a favorite of the right, disagreed with the court's decision, but using an almost class warfare appeal:

Chief Judge Alex Kozinski, who dissented from this month's decision refusing to reconsider the case, pointed out whose homes are not open to strangers: rich people's. The court's ruling, he said, means that people who protect their homes with electric gates, fences and security booths have a large protected zone of privacy around their homes. People who cannot afford such barriers have to put up with the government sneaking around at night.

Something tells me that he's arguing more from the equal protection standpoint than class warfare rhetoric, especially given his stance on other issues. It's an intriguing point he makes, though - it crystallizes what has long been held as conventional wisdom; that there are two sets of rules: one for the plebes, and one for the rich/powerful/famous. A ruling such as this one only reinforces that thinking - a rich person can afford measures to prevent this, such as gates, fences, and garages for all vehicles, whereas others cannot. If a ruling can be overcome by a simple application of wealth, how can it possibly be a good ruling?

In any case, it's refreshing to see the double standard brought to light and ridiculed, and it's good to know that there are still judges out there who believe in the Bill of Rights. It's hard to imagine this not being yet another ruling by the Ninth that gets thrown out; however the precedent set is positively chilling. That the agents involved in this mess were not summarily fired, fined, and ideally jailed for such a blatant abuse of power is frightening. Not unexpected, mind you, just frightening.

One wonders which of these "Two Americas" John Edwards falls into - I'd imagine he'd be all for any ruling that he could buy his way out of...

That is all.