Police using GPS to thwart the 4th Amendment

From CNN.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- It's the stuff crime movies are made of: Determined police officers shadowing their suspect as he drives around town, watching and waiting for his next move, always careful not to lose him.

David Lee Foltz Jr. faces trial on abduction and sexual battery charges after police tracked him using GPS.

But now, investigators can track a potential bad guy without ever leaving their desks, thanks to the Global Positioning System, or GPS.

The technology is easy to use and the devices are hard to detect.

All police have to do is attach a GPS receiver to a suspect's car and they easily go along for the ride online, tracking the individual's exact location in real time from their computer.

But because investigators often track without a warrant, privacy advocates say the tactic threatens to monitor innocent people as well.

"Those who would give up essential freedom for temporary security neither deserve nor receive either."

Creepy much?

From FoxNews.

What's got a 500-foot wingspan, flies at 90,000 feet and stays up in the air for five years without ever touching the ground?

If the Pentagon has its way, it'll be the Vulture, its planned long-, long-, long-range unmanned surveillance and communication aircraft.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency last week awarded contracts to Manassas, Va.-based Aurora Flight Services and top defense contractors Boeing and Lockheed Martin to develop working prototypes of the Vulture, according to the aerospace news service Flight.

Thoughts?

"Peeping Tom" cleared by Oklahoma Court

Story Link.

OKLAHOMA CITY — A man accused of using a camera to take pictures under the skirt of an unsuspecting 16-year-old girl at a Tulsa store did not commit a crime, a state appeals court has ruled.

The state Court of Criminal Appeals voted 4-1 in favor of Riccardo Gino Ferrante, who was arrested in 2006 for situating a camera underneath the girl's skirt at a Target store and taking photographs.

Ferrante, now 34, was charged under a "Peeping Tom" statute that requires the victim to be "in a place where there is a right to a reasonable expectation of privacy." Testimony indicated he followed the girl, knelt down behind her and placed the camera under her skirt.

Crazy, just crazy. Vehicles, streets, stores. Where else are we going to not have a "reasonable expectation of privacy"?

And I know that laws change from state to state, but I'm almost positive that in my state, this man would've been convicted of lewd behavior towards a minor, and been listed in the sex offender registry. I can't see how the court could say he did nothing wrong.