Some civil liberties updates

[cholten99]

Some things I've tagged over the past few weeks.

Following my previous post about warrantless GPS tagging of cars in the US (c.f. USA vs Knotts) the Supreme Court has clarified the situation by unambiguously saying that warrants are needed for attaching GPS trackers to vehicles. Apparently this has caused the FBI to switch off 3,000 tracking devices.

I'm very disappointed that the three men convicted of "distributing threatening written material intending to stir up hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation" went down for that rather than encouraging violent behaviour. Yes, people like this need to be stopped from promoting violence but doing by attacking their right to speak out on matters they strongly believe in is the wrong way to do it.

Lastly, I find it deeply ironic that at the same time that the government refuses to offer a posthumous pardon for Alan Turing for being gay they are also working to insert a provision into the upcoming (very late) Protections of Freedoms Bill that will remove existing convictions for consensual gay sex with people over 16 from every still living person previously convicted for that offence.