Boston Police Department: We don't like being tracked...

[Teelie]

... while they have absolutely no concerns about tracking their own citizens. That did not go unnoticed. By anyone but them.

There's a lot that could be said about how invasive the police are at tracking citizens (such as the license plate readers mentioned or the abuse of rifling mobile phones for incriminating evidence without a warrant) and the ACLU totally backhandedly agreed by pointing out, the police already do it themselves.

It looks like Boston’s Finest is going to be watched by its own. As the result of new contract negotiations between the City of Boston and the Boston Police Department, police cruisers will potentially be outfitted with GPS devices designed to monitor how cop cars move around the city. The contract includes some additional changes and still needs to be approved by the Boston City Council.

[...]

“No one likes it. Who wants to be followed all over the place?” said one officer who spoke anonymously to the Globe because department rules forbid police from speaking to the media without authorization.

[...]

Not surprisingly, civil libertarians are relishing the rank and file's own backlash.

"The irony of police objecting to GPS technology for privacy reasons is hard to miss in the aftermath of United States v. Jones," Woodrow Hartzog, a law professor at the Cumberland School of Law at Samford University, told Ars. "But the officers’ concerns about privacy illustrate just how revealing GPS technology can be. Departments are going to have to confront the chilling effect this surveillance might have on police behavior. On one hand, police departments are likely to see a reduction in many kinds of undesirable behaviors involving an abuse of discretion. However, as we’ve seen in other areas involving continuous and precise surveillance, individuals are likely to refrain from any activities that could be perceived the wrong way, even if they are ultimately legal and socially desirable. Police departments should be very clear about how the GPS technology is to be used and what administrators expect from police officers."

[...]

The American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts said that it agrees with the anonymous BPD officer and others like him or her.

“While on-duty tracking of public employees raises different questions than does the warrantless tracking of innocent civilians, concerned officers at the Boston Police Department are exactly right when they warn about the sensitivity of this information,” wrote Kade Crockford on the ACLU’s website on Monday.

“As these anonymous officers and their union official argue, tracking someone’s location as they go about their day-to-day life is incredibly invasive. That's why we hope police officers will join us in demanding that the state legislature pass forward-looking privacy protections to ensure that if the government wants to track a private citizen—by license plate reader, GPS device, or cell phone—it needs to first get a warrant.”

Ars Technica

 

[KevanG]

Do they have something like that in Detroit or Chicago? If not, I'd love to see something like that happen and see how long it lasts.

 

[Teelie]

Boston is at the moment the largest city to have it. I think it's a great idea for the more reasonable need to know where officers are in the event they need back up or assistence. Or to verify their whereabouts in case of a claim they were somewhere they weren't or were.

 

[KevanG]

I'm sure that the IA dept is just giggling in delight right about now.