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Comment by redeux | Hacker News Reader

I think you’re probably right about them not actually using this but the implications of the capability are more interesting. There are potential privacy issues that could be troubling if not managed well, but it also has the potential to reduce the number of dangerous pursuits.

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> There are potential privacy issues that could be troubling if not managed well...

Like what? This technique seems like it would be one of the least troubling, from a privacy perspective, since a tracking device that was shot at the exterior of your car will be one of the easiest to find and remove later. I'd be much more worried about tracking devices hidden under the car or in a wheel well.

I agree that this is better than the police breaking into people's property and installing GPS without the owner being aware of it. I imagine a lot of problems with this new tech will be on the backend, with GPS or the software passing that data on to officers giving incorrect or imprecise location data leading to innocent people being harassed or killed.

"Shoot at it" seems to be the default response to everything for police in the US, and I could see this causing innocent people, innocent people's vehicles, or other property being hurt or damaged by poorly aimed or entirely unnecessary shots.

> There are potential privacy issues that could be troubling if not managed well

Under Supreme Court precedent, United States v. Antoine Jones (2012) [0], attaching a GPS tracker to a vehicle is a search, and requires a warrant. A fancy delivery system doesn’t seem to change the Constitutional parameters.

[0] https://www.gps.gov/news/2012/01/supremecourt/#:~:text=10%2D....

Police generally need a warrant to enter someones house too for the same reasons. However, if they chasing someone or there imminent danger they can enter someones house not search it, but it is only to deal with chasing the person or preventing the imminent threat.

The only reason I see police deploying this would be to avoid a high speed chase. Where that ends up constitutionally I don't know not a judge or lawyer, but it is one of those imminent danger/pursuit situations the courts have carved for other circumstances.

Now I will say if the police follow someone they are chasing into an other persons house and in that house see drugs. Under most circumstances that could not be used as evidence against the person that lived in the house since they did not have a warrant to search for drugs in the house. Their only legal reason to be there was to catch someone, so anything unrelated to that narrow purpose generally can't be used in court.

It could change them due to “hot pursuit”. You generally don’t need a warrant when you’re in hot pursuit.

You don’t need a warrant to enter a home or similar property to effect an arrest when you are in hot pursuit of a subject who you have probable cause (in a situation not requiring a warrant) to arrest because, in that context, the entry is not a search.

I don’t see how that helps here, because the whole point of putting a GPS tracker on a car is to allow abandoning hot pursuit in favor of (what has been determined to be) a search.

> it also has the potential to reduce the number of dangerous pursuits.

I agree that it does in concept, I just can't see them reliably tagging vehicles with a launcher as anemic as this one. The speed and range of the projectile is significantly less than an average healthy adult could achieve by throwing it.

The only situation I can think of where it would maybe work is at a DUI checkpoint. An officer could be standing next to the vehicle with the launcher, ready to fire as soon as it starts to move. Even then they'd better be quick about it.

The should get a launcher in the hood of a squad car instead. In pursuit they can tag following and then peal off.

For anyone not aware, this does actually exist. If you look on youtube there are a few examples of police using vehicle-mounted launchers in real chases. [1][2]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJTYQx5qMlc [Florida State Police/Highway Patrol]

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2H9A8kV-zA [Austin Police]

Interesting, the devices in both those videos are made by the same company that makes the handheld launcher from the article.

If NY is like some Toronto, I imagine traffic is so bad that vehicle chases dont really happen anywhere near the center/important parts of the city, which is why they are focusing on hand held devices.

The only situation I can think of where it would maybe work is at a DUI checkpoint

We don’t do those in America - you might catch someone actually important!

You aren't going to the right party neighborhoods ;)

I've seen them in the US (rarely). I think they just mostly just bury any record of it when someone important enough gets caught. More common are the checkpoints near the boarder where they stop people "just because"

I don't know what percentage of car chases are of professional criminals, but reliance on GPS device like this to end a car chase might allow them to evade capture. GPS jammers are apparently cheap and easy to make, and someone who's stealing cars or robbing might be unconcerned with also comitting an FCC violation. If the cops shoot one one and hang back enough for the suspect to get out of sight, they could lose the person they're chasing once the jammer is enabled.

https://hackaday.com/2020/09/08/teardown-mini-gps-jammer/

https://greetwin.en.made-in-china.com/product/LFyTJkOHwCcd/C...

Since these use adhesive, they might also be able to be defeated by a dirty vehicle.

I wouldn't take it for granted that these actually use GPS at all, let alone exclusively (e.g. they might also use cell tower or BSSID triangulation). It's pretty common to use "GPS" generically for other methods of automated geopositioning.

I think "professionals" just avoid a car chases in the first place? My take is that most people trying to outrun the cops aren't going to be so highly technical and well prepared.

(as a digression: GPS jamming might not be the best approach, but that depends on what the StarChase does. It would probably make more sense to jam its transmission capability, which presumably relies on cellular, rather than try to jam its GPS reception capability. If GPS is effectively blocked but the device can still transmit it could still attempt to locate you using cell towers or wifi BSSIDs.)

Just last week it was reported that police showed up at the wrong house for a domestic violence incident and killed the (armed) homeowner. So I can see a lot of accidental takedowns with this tech.

Link: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/video-shows-police-wron...

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