Arab-American Student Sues FBI Over GPS Tracking Device

[Hissyspit]

Source: TPM Muckraker

Arab-American Student Sues FBI Over GPS Tracking Device
Ryan J. Reilly | March 3, 2011, 8:30AM

Yasir Afifi, the 20-year-old Arab-American student who was visited by FBI agents after he found a secret GPS tracking device on his car, sued Attorney General Eric Holder and FBI Director Robert Mueller this week for allegedly violating his constitutional rights.

Affifi, an American-born business marketing major at Mission College in Santa
Clara, was concerned the black, rectangular device a mechanic found on his vehicle might have been a pipe bomb, according to the lawsuit.

So he did what most college students would do: crowd-sourced his detective work by posting photos of the device on Reddit.com.

The lawsuit describes how several agents showed up at Affifi's California apartment just a couple days after the photos were posted. Affifi alleges that the unknown agents in three unmarked vehicles subjected him to a hostile interrogation in a "bizarre mission to retrieve the device" and did not honor his request for the immediate presence of his counsel.

Read more: http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/03/arab-american_sues_fbi_over_gps_tracking_device.php

[L. Coyote]

1. Here is the link to the story:

20-year-old American sues FBI for placing GPS tracker on his car

By David Edwards
Thursday, March 3rd, 2011 -- 1:09 pm
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/03/03/arab-american-sues-fbi-over-gps-tracking/

[Hissyspit]

2. Corrected to Talking Points Memo in OP.

Thanks.

[liam_laddie]

3. IMHO, we are beyond "creeping" fascism (n/t)

[FLPanhandle]

4. If the FBI didn't have a court order, they could be in deep shit

[Freddie Stubbs]

5. In August a Federal Court ruled that a warrant was not needed for this:

Appeals court OKs warrantless GPS tracking by feds

Fri Aug 27, 2010 7:53pm EDT

A California federal court's decision not to call an en barc hearing on whether government agents can attach GPS tracking devices to vehicles parked in private driveways is likely to be appealed in the U.S. Supreme Court.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit earlier this month declined to schedule an en banc hearing, or a hearing before all judges in the ninth circuit, as requested by the defendant in a drug-related case. The defendant was seeking to suppress evidence gathered against him by federal agents who attached a GPS device to his vehicle without first obtaining a warrant.

The defendant, Juan Pineda-Moreno of Oregon, claims that U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency agents violated his Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search by planting, without a warrant, a tracking device on a vehicle parked in his driveway in 2007. The agents were tracking Pineda-Moreno on suspicion that he belonged to a marijuana growing operation.

A three-judge panel of the appellate court in January rejected Pineda-Moreno's claims and ruled that his constitutional rights were not violated. The court this month rejected a petition by Pineda-Moreno for a rehearing of his case by the full Ninth Circuit panel of judges.

more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/08/27/urnidgns852573c4006938800025778c006c-idUS197061744020100827