Sign In
Free Newsletter
MTA launches bus tracker
Maryland Transit Administration bus riders will now be able to track a bus via smartphone, tablet or computer.
Bipartisan bills would limit police use of tech
Two senators — a Democrat and a Republican — will team up in the General Assembly on a legislative package to limit law enforcement’s ability to use cellphone, airborne-drone and license-place tracking of criminal suspects.
Maryland’s top court hears warrantless GPS case
Howard County police violated a motorist’s constitutional rights by secretly placing a GPS device on his car and tracking the vehicle’s movements for 11 days without a warrant, a defense attorney told Maryland’s top court Friday.
Stolen cellphones found via GPS tracking
OCEAN CITY — Ocean City Police say officers found three stolen cellphones after the owners tracked the devices and one of them was heard ringing in a suspect’s pocket. Police were called by the victims about 2:15 a.m. Sunday, who said their three iPhones and credit cards had been stolen. The victims tracking the phones […]
Cell phone tracking bill raises privacy concerns
ANNAPOLIS — The Maryland House Judiciary Committee is considering a bill that would allow law enforcement officials to obtain location records from mobile devices without a search warrant. Opponents of the legislation said during a House judiciary committee hearing on Tuesday that House Bill 377 lowers the standard of probable cause law enforcement officials must […]
Source: Google to pay $22.5M fine in privacy case
SAN FRANCISCO — Google has agreed to pay a $22.5 million fine to settle allegations that it broke a privacy promise by secretly tracking the online activities of millions of people who use Apple’s Safari web browser. That’s according to a person familiar with Google Inc.’s negotiations to settle a case brought by the Federal […]
Before you post, update, comment or vent…
As Jen posted Tuesday, the Supreme Court has ruled the government’s installation of a GPS device on a target’s vehicle, and its use of that device to monitor the vehicle’s movements, constitutes a “search.” The five-justice majority notably left out its thoughts on whether that search was unreasonable and required a warrant. U.S. v. Jones […]
DNR tracking of hunter education guns criticized
ANNAPOLIS — A recent federal audit says Maryland’s Department of Natural Resources is threatening the public’s safety because of improper tracking of weapons used for hunter education. The audit by the U.S. Department of the Interior released last month found that out of more than 900 guns issued to volunteers, the department did not properly […]
Court upholds GPS tracker on worker’s car
ALBANY, N.Y. — A midlevel New York court on Wednesday upheld the state use of a tracking device on an employee’s private car to investigate whether he was skipping work and falsifying time sheets. The Appellate Division panel split over whether that secret Global Positioning System tracking in 2008 violated Michael Cunningham’s constitutional privacy rights. […]
Justices troubled by GPS tracking case
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court invoked visions of an all-seeing Big Brother and satellites watching us from above. Then things got personal Tuesday when the justices were told police could slap GPS devices on their cars and track their movements, without asking a judge for advance approval. The occasion for all the talk about intrusive […]
Report urges checks on police GPS tracking
WASHINGTON — A bipartisan group that includes former leaders of the FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration on Wednesday called for limits on law enforcement’s use of GPS and other powerful technologies to track the movements of suspects. Police should be required to obtain a search warrant for any GPS surveillance that lasts more than 24 […]
GPS tracking limited in serving arrest warrants
The government cannot use the GPS in a suspect’s cell phone to find him and serve an arrest warrant unless it can show that he is a fugitive, a federal magistrate in Baltimore has held. The 139-page opinion by Magistrate Judge Susan K. Gauvey comes more than a year after investigators applied for a warrant […]
