Well ... the 9th Circuit Court of appeals has done it
again. This is quite frightening. Courtesy of the DEA, of course.
They snuck onto his property in the middle of the night and found his Jeep in his driveway, a few feet from his trailer home. Then they attached a GPS tracking device to the vehicle's underside.
After Pineda-Moreno challenged the DEA's actions, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit ruled in January that it was all perfectly legal. More disturbingly, a larger group of judges on the circuit, who were subsequently asked to reconsider the ruling, decided this month to let it stand.
In fact, the government violated Pineda-Moreno's privacy rights in two different ways. For starters, the invasion of his driveway was wrong. The courts have long held that people have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their homes and in the "curtilage," a fancy legal term for the area around the home. The government's intrusion on property just a few feet away was clearly in this zone of privacy.Really? So... trespassing no longer applies to others? Or is it only okay for agents of the state when they are watching you ... the little guy?
Oddly, I just finished reading 1984 for the first time last night. Now, today I have run into 3 references to it.
Hmmmm. Almost makes me suspicious.
I saw so many parallels between that book and current events it kept shocking me. Big Brother is watching us all, indeed.
http://www.wric.com/Global/story.asp?s=13111531&clienttype=printable
Ruling in Virginia just about confirmed the California ruling. Though with the case Virginia looked at the line is a bit more blurry.