Filed under: Government/Legal, Safety, Technology
So, now that we know it is
legal for the FBI to place GPS trackers on cars without a warrant, the next logical question is, how often does it happen? We can't say for sure, but the recent experience of 20-year-old U.S. student Yasir Afifi leads us to believe it's taking place more often that we'd like to think.
Afifi, who is an American citizen born here in the States with an Egyptian father, brought his
Lincoln LS sedan to a mechanic who put it up on a lift. There, underneath the car, was an odd cylindrical tube connected to a device with an antenna. It wasn't a bomb, but it
was a tracking device.
A friend took pictures of the device and
put it up on the interwebs... which led to a gaggle of police officers and FBI agents showing up at Afifi's apartment complex in California asking for their device back... sternly. "We're going to make this much more difficult for you if you don't cooperate."
A tad worrisome, no? Says Afifi, "It seems very frightening that the FBI have placed a surveillance-tracking device on the car of a 20-year-old American citizen who has done nothing more than being half-Egyptian." We agree... but it apparently
doesn't violate the 4th Amendment.
Turns out Afifi has nothing to worry about. "You're boring," said an unidentified agent. This is one of those rare cases where being boring is a rather good thing.
[Source:
Wired via
Engadget]
Report: Student finds GPS tracker stuck to car, FBI asks for it back originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 08 Oct 2010 15:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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08-10-2010, 11:00 PM
