Cheese Danish Shipping, Warrantless GPS Trackers, and a Border Doctrine Challenge :
At the end of August, a federal judge in Riverside, California made a potentially landmark decision for border privacy advocates—finding that it is unconstitutional for federal agents to warrantlessly install GPS tracking devices onto a truck entering the United States from Canada.
In the grand scheme, the decision stands in the face of a controversial but standing legal idea called "the border doctrine." The doctrine's concept is that warrants are not required to conduct a search at the border in the name of national sovereignty.
And in this particular incident—a case called United States v. Slavco Ignjatov et al. that allegedly involves Starbucks cheese danishes and a trafficking organization that sounds straight out of Breaking Bad[0]—the ruling could be a major victory for defendants as it would suppress any evidence obtained through the use of the warrantless GPS tracker.
The story is a bit on the longish side, but well worth the read. What I find amazing is that those involved could likely have gotten a warrant in advance with what they knew, and surely could have received one in the 24 hours after they affixed the GPS tracker... but they didn't even bother to try and get one.
On the other hand, given that roughly two-thirds of the US' population is treated as being within 100 miles of the border, I'm heartened to see any kind of pushback.
[0by which they mean its spin-off series, Better Call Saul —ed]
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday September 03 2018, @12:01PM
Yes, cheese danishes were good, no doubt about it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford