How did the police 'reverse gps' this car today, to track down the suspect?

The answer to that question is always "it depends."

Who actually retained title to the car. If it's the dealer, the answer is yes.

Did Barnes give permission for the tracking, in say, the fine print in the loan agreement. If so, the answer is yes.

If neither of those cases obtain, then if the tracker was placed on the outside of the car, if the tracker was placed there without trespass on the property where the car was pared, and if the tracker relayed no more information that would have been available had the dealer assigned someone to tail Barnes, then the answer is yes.

Otherwise, no.

Reply to
deadrat
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1:07 :)

Reply to
Evan Platt

deadrat wrote

Not necessarily.

Not necessarily, most obviously if that is contrary to the local law.

Having that in the fine print of the loan agreement won't save the car dealer's bacon if its illegal to do that.

That is just plain wrong.

Not necessarily either.

Reply to
Rod Speed

Jonathan Williams wrote, on Fri, 07 Nov 2014 00:06:53 +0000:

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Someone who sold a car to Barnes recognized him from one of the videos and alerted authorities. The dealer had placed a GPS device in the vehicle because of worries about Barnes' bad credit, according to Charles City County Sheriff's Office Capt. Jayson Crawley.

"From that, we were able to trace the car," Ramsey said. "We were able to then contact Charles City (Virginia authorities), ... and things started really falling into place very quickly."

Such devices are put in cars to alert customers if they're behind on payments and, if they don't pay on time, allowing dealers to shut down the vehicle and track it down, said PassTime USA CEO Stan Schwartz, the head of the company that made the unit. In this case, Barnes knew it was there.

PassTime has about 1.5 million such units out on the road, but has been only asked by law enforcement 10 to 15 times to track them as part of a criminal investigation, according to Schwartz. He said that the car dealer worked with authorities earlier this week, with the PassTime USA headquarters getting involved Thursday morning.

Reply to
Tom Wilson

Tom Wilson wrote, on Fri, 07 Nov 2014 05:16:34 +0000:

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Her rescue came after authorities spotted the used-car dealer's name on a traffic camera photo of Barnes' vehicle and recognized the dealership as one that routinely puts GPS devices on its cars, said sheriff's Capt. Jayson Crawley, of Charles City County, Virginia.

"We called the dealership, and within five minutes they had the location," he said.

He said the dealership sells to customers with poor credit and relies on GPS when it needs to find and repossess cars whose owners have fallen behind on the payments.

Reply to
Tom Wilson

How did they "turn on" the GPS?

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Investigators read the dealership's name on a traffic-camera image of the car and asked the dealership to turn on the car's GPS and provide the vehicle's location. The GPS led officers to the parking lot where they spotted a man fitting the suspect's description with a young woman in the back seat of a sedan like the one used in the abduction.

Reply to
Boris K.

Very likely. It's the dealer's car. He can do what he wants with it as long as he doesn't trespass.

Do you know of any locality that doesn't allow someone to trade his privacy for a car loan? And in the case of a device attached to the outside of a car, there isn't even a violation of privacy.

Sorry, but it's just plain right. We're talking someone acting in a private capacity, not the police. When you're in public, you have no expectation of privacy. Where you are in public is public information. You have an expectation of privacy inside your car, which is why it's not legal for someone to enter your car without your permission to attach a tracking device.

So you think that it's sometimes OK for a car dealer acting in a private capacity and unbeknownst to you to trespass on your property (say your driveway where your car is parked), break into your car, and install a tracking device inside the car?

Go ahead. Tell me the circumstances in which that would be legal.

Reply to
deadrat

So the dealer was acting as an agent of the police. The Supreme Court has ruled that this is a search. They ducked the issue of whether it was a reasonable search not requiring a warrant.

Reply to
deadrat

I *know* Onstar does, though it's not always accurate.

Cell phones are rather easy to track. Not to the exact location, but within a matter of a few meters. I recall reading about a woman who was in an accident and was found because of her iPhone's GPS. Onstar consistently gave the wrong location for the vehicle.

Reply to
K Wills (Shill #3)

If it's a Garman or Tom Tom, they don't. The GPS in the ones listed receive a signal from the satellites that is used to determine the location of the GPS unit.

Reply to
K Wills (Shill #3)

So it cares a little bit? I doubt this.

Very close. Three, or more, satellites are used. The GPS unit uses the distance to each to calculate where it is. There is no directional antenna in a GPS, so the actual direction of the satellite doesn't matter. For a further explanation far better than I could give, check:

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Reply to
K Wills (Shill #3)

ONStar is a service not related to GPS. They may use GPS for tracking purposes though.

My GPS unit is extremely accurate.If I have it on the level where one inch on the map equals five feet or so, then it will show me making a turn in a parking lot spot on.

Reply to
richard

I doubt that highly. In order for the gps unit in the car to be "turned on" remotely, means it has to be powered on to begin with. If the car has onstar, then yeah, onstar can turn the equipment on.

Reply to
richard

I believe in this case, where a person's life is at stake, the court would allow the search.

If the cops just want to know where the car is and want the dealer to track it for them, then yeah, that may not be kosker. As courts have ruled that cops can't just go around attaching tracking devices just to make life easier for them.

Reply to
richard

Evidently it's also legal for the dealer to install remotely operated kill switches to disable cars in the possession of deadbeats. Thanks to these technologies, their investments are pretty well protected.

Reply to
dsi1

It was part of the purchase agreement since the guy was a deadbeat (in addition to being stupid) and the dealer wanted to be able to repo with ease.

Reply to
Kurt Ullman

Assuming it was part of the purchase agreement and spelled out as such, I see no (current) reason it wouldn't be.

Reply to
Kurt Ullman

No he wasn't. To acting as agent of the police, the action has to be at the request of the police and outside of normal business. The GPS was not placed at the request of the cops, but was accessed. I don't see how this rises to that, especially since the person's privacy interest was already negated by the original placement. He has no expectation of privacy since he agreed to have a privacy invading GPS placed on the car. I probably would have gotten a warrant just to make things a little cleaner, but I can't see this doing much more than taking up a few hours of time.

Reply to
Kurt Ullman

But the cops didn't attach it, the dealer did. So, the cops had no dog in the placement hunt and were out of the loop on the why.

Reply to
Kurt Ullman

You made me smile. Who knows? The laws are so screwy now.

In our Brave New World your fundamental right to not pay your debts probably trumps the creditor's right to collect!

Reply to
AMuzi

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