SCOTUS rules that a warrant is required for GPS surveillance!

"In all, five justices said physically attaching the GPS device to the underside of a car amounted to a search requiring a warrant. Four justices, however, said the prolonged GPS surveillance in this case — a month — amounted to a search requiring a warrant, but was silent on whether GPS monitoring for shorter periods would require a warrant. All nine justices agreed to toss a District of Columbia drug dealer’s life sentence who was the subject of a warrantless, 28-day surveillance via GPS."

I'm curious if they threw out the drug dealer's case entirely or just the sentence, and whether or not it can be re-tried again without the GPS evidence.

Aside from the privacy implications, I think the thing that bothers me the most is technology replacing "good ol' fashioned police work." I was on the jury for one trial, and it was a drug bust. Guy was charged with three counts of selling marijuana to a minor, one count of selling. It was all to the same informant (whom the police had busted and turned to get at the defendant), but the informant turned 18 during the scope of the investigation. The prosecution had fingerprints, photographs, witness testimony, etc., and we convicted the defendant on three of the four counts. Of course, the whole case was screwy from the start: the lead detective's sister (caucasian) was dating the defendant (black) in Morman Mesa. We the jury wondered if the defendant would have been pursued quite so vigorously if he hadn't been involved with the detective's sister.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/01/scotus-gps-ruling/

In case you hadn't heard, SOPA and PIPA are dead -- for now

SOPA died when the House said they weren't going to hear it, and Sen. Reid said he won't be advancing PIPA, so maybe the blackout was effective. They seem to have listened to the people saying that the DNS filtering that they wanted to implement was both ineffective and would pretty much break the internet, but that doesn't mean they won't try something else.

Wil Weaton had an excellent writeup about this on his blog. Apparently Hollywood gave Congress as a whole $94 MILLION dollars. That's a lot of influence peddling. I think it guarantees that this legislation will be back in some form or another, some people think that they will try to sneak it through on a piece of "must pass" legislation that doesn't receive much attention that they can pass in the middle of the night. Since there is very little accountability to our elected officials, I can see this happening.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/01/pipa-vote-delayed/


Now here's a bit of fun: former Senator Chris Dodd went on Fox New and said basically that these Congresscritters had been bought and they should toe the line. So a petition was started on the White House web site through their We The People system stating the following:

"Investigate Chris Dodd and the MPAA for bribery after he publicly admited to bribing politicans to pass legislation.

Recently on FOX News former Senator Chris Dodd said (as quoted on news site TechDirt), "Those who count on quote 'Hollywood' for support need to understand that this industry is watching very carefully who's going to stand up for them when their job is at stake. Don't ask me to write a check for you when you think your job is at risk and then don't pay any attention to me when my job is at stake," This is an open admission of bribery and a threat designed to provoke a specific policy goal. This is a brazen flouting of the "above the law" status people of Dodd's position and wealth enjoy.

We demand justice. Investigate this blatant bribery and indict every person, especially government officials and lawmakers, who is involved."

The petition needed to get 25,000 signatures by February 20 to be acted on. It got them in two days. So we'll see if the DOJ actually investigates this and if anything comes of it, and it will be interesting to see who in the DOJ starts sweating: there are a number of former MPAA/RIAA/Hollywood lawyers now working for the Feds in DC.

https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions/!/petition/investigate-chris-dodd-and-mpaa-bribery-after-he-publicly-admited-bribing-politicans-pass/DffX0YQv?utm_source=wh.gov&utm_medium=shorturl&utm_campaign=shorturl

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120120/14472117492/mpaa-directly-publicly-threatens-politicians-who-arent-corrupt-enough-to-stay-bought.shtml#comments

http://politics.slashdot.org/story/12/01/22/1945243/white-house-petition-to-investigate-dodd-for-bribery