Caught Spying on Student, FBI Demands GPS Tracker Back - Polidicks

[quote]A California student got a visit from the FBI this week after he found a secret GPS tracking device on his car, and a friend posted photos of it online. The post prompted wide speculation about whether the device was real, whether the young Arab-American was being targeted in a terrorism investigation and what the authorities would do. It took just 48 hours to find out: The device was real, the student was being secretly tracked and the FBI wanted its expensive device back, the student told Wired.com in an interview Wednesday. The answer came when half-a-dozen FBI agents and police officers appeared at Yasir Afifi’s apartment complex in Santa Clara, California, on Tuesday demanding he return the device. Afifi, a 20-year-old U.S.-born citizen, cooperated willingly and said he’d done nothing to merit attention from authorities. Comments the agents made during their visit suggested he’d been under FBI surveillance for three to six months. An FBI spokesman wouldn’t acknowledge that the device belonged to the agency or that agents appeared at Afifi’s house. “I can’t really tell you much about it, because it’s still an ongoing investigation,” said spokesman Pete Lee, who works in the agency’s San Francisco headquarters. Afifi, the son of an Islamic-American community leader who died a year ago in Egypt, is one of only a few people known to have found a government-tracking device on their vehicle. His discovery comes in the wake of a recent ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals saying it’s legal for law enforcement to secretly place a tracking device on a suspect’s car without getting a warrant, even if the car is parked in a private driveway. Brian Alseth from the American Civil Liberties Union in Washington state contacted Afifi after seeing pictures of the tracking device posted online and told him the ACLU had been waiting for a case like this to challenge the ruling. “This is the kind of thing we like to throw lawyers at,” Afifi said Alseth told him. “It seems very frightening that the FBI have placed a surveillance-tracking device on the car of a 20-year-old American citizen who has done nothing more than being half-Egyptian,” Alseth told Wired.com. Afifi, a business marketing student at Mission College in Santa Clara, discovered the device last Sunday when he took his car to a local garage for an oil change. When a mechanic at Ali’s Auto Care raised his Ford Lincoln LS on hydraulic lifts, Afifi saw a wire sticking out near the right rear wheel and exhaust. Garage owner Mazher Khan confirmed for Wired.com that he also saw it. A closer inspection showed it connected to a battery pack and transmitter, which were attached to the car with a magnet. Khan asked Afifi if he wanted the device removed and when Afifi said yes, Khan pulled it easily from the car’s chassis. “I wouldn’t have noticed it if there wasn’t a wire sticking out,” Afifi said. Later that day, a friend of Afifi’s named Khaled posted pictures of the device at Reddit, asking if anyone knew what it was and if it meant the FBI “is after us.” (Reddit is owned by CondeNast Digital, which also owns Wired.com). “My plan was to just put the device on another car or in a lake,” Khaled wrote, “but when you come home to 2 stoned off-their-asses people who are hearing things in the device and convinced it’s a bomb you just gotta be sure.” A reader quickly identified it as an Orion Guardian ST820 tracking device made by an electronics company called Cobham, which sells the device only to law enforcement. No one was available at Cobham to answer Wired.com’s questions, but a former FBI agent who looked at the pictures confirmed it was a tracking device. The former agent, who asked not to be named, said the device was an older model of tracking equipment that had long ago been replaced by devices that don’t require batteries. Batteries die and need to be replaced if surveillance is ongoing so newer devices are placed in the engine compartment and hardwired to the car’s battery so they don’t run out of juice. He was surprised this one was so easily found. “It has to be able to be removed but also stay in place and not be seen,” he said. “There’s always the possibility that the car will end up at a body shop or auto mechanic, so it has to be hidden well. It’s very rare when the guys find them.” He said he was certain that agents who installed it would have obtained a 30-day warrant for its use. Afifi considered selling the device on Craigslist before the FBI showed up. He was in his apartment Tuesday afternoon when a roommate told him “two sneaky-looking people” were near his car. Afifi, already heading out for an appointment, encountered a man and woman looking at his vehicle outside. The man asked if Afifi knew his registration tag was expired. When Afifi asked if it bothered him, the man just smiled. Afifi got into his car and headed for the parking lot exit when two SUVs pulled up with flashing lights carrying four police officers in bullet-proof vests. The agent who initially spoke with Afifi identified himself then as Vincent and told Afifi, “We’re here to recover the device you found on your vehicle. It’s federal property. It’s an expensive piece, and we need it right now.” Afifi asked, “Are you the guys that put it there?” and the agent replied, “Yeah, I put it there.” He told Afifi, “We’re going to make this much more difficult for you if you don’t cooperate.” Read More [url]http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/10/fbi-tracking-device/#ixzz11ol82hao[/url][/quote] [url]http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/10/fbi-tracking-device/[/url] all Islamic people are terrorists :downs:

[QUOTE=Spooefy;25309350][url]http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/10/fbi-tracking-device/[/url] all Islamic people are terrorists :downs:[/QUOTE] "Six months ago, a former roommate of his was visited by FBI agents who said they wanted to speak with Afifi. Afifi contacted one agent and was told the agency received an anonymous tip from someone saying he might be a threat to national security." "One of the agents produced a printout of a blog post that Afifi’s friend Khaled allegedly wrote a couple of months ago. It had “something to do with a mall or a bomb,” Afifi said. He hadn’t seen it before and doesn’t know the details of what it said." "The agents also knew he was planning a short business trip to Dubai in a few weeks. Afifi said he often travels for business and has two teenage brothers in Egypt whom he supports financially. They live with an aunt. His U.S.-born mother, who divorced his father five years ago, lives in Arizona." All islamic people are reported to FBI? So, roommate posting "something to do with a mall or a bomb", frequent visits to the middle east, money-transfers to Egypt, no wonder he was flagged, even though he (most likely) didn't do anything. Usually reading the second page is useful too.

:doh:

Wait, so they're putting expensive GPS devices to track EVERY Islamic person in America now?

If there are any Muslims on FP, check your cars, post results.

FBI are incredible dicks, but I'm sure there's another reason they put there besides the fact he's Muslim.

Not exactly explosive news..

[QUOTE=Kade;25309876]Not exactly explosive news..[/QUOTE] I think you should spy on a few FP members to see how proper puns are made.

It woulda been hilarious if they just sneaked it onto another car.

[QUOTE=BBKF;25310096]I think you should spy on a few FP members to see how proper puns are made.[/QUOTE] uh 99.8% of facepunch doesn't know how to make a good news pun

[QUOTE=Crimor;25310179]It woulda been hilarious if they just sneaked it onto another car.[/QUOTE] I'd put it on a parked cop car.

[QUOTE=Lust;25309515]Wait, so they're putting expensive GPS devices to track EVERY Islamic person in America now?[/QUOTE] how hard is it to read the news article

yeah fuck the constitution.

I don't get why it matters that there was a tracking device on his car, or anyone's for that matter. Why would anyone care if they aren't doing anything wrong?

[QUOTE=Rubs10;25311161]Why would anyone care if they aren't doing anything wrong?[/QUOTE] if they aren't doing anything wrong, why does anyone need to look? privacy exists for a very good reason and it's not to shelter wrongdoers

[QUOTE=Rubs10;25311161]I don't get why it matters that there was a tracking device on his car, or anyone's for that matter. Why would anyone care if they aren't doing anything wrong?[/QUOTE] here we go with this retarded argument.

This upsets me. The kid is a natural born US citizen. Who cares if his dead dad was Egyptian. Kid seems well balanced enough in the interview. Doesn't seem like he is going to blow up a mall or shoot up a school. It disgusts me that the US government would do this to it's own citizens...

I like how the OP excluded the entire second page which details the reasoning for why they had a tracking device on his car. Way to make the FBI look like the bad guys OP.

Oh good, he's not dead. I saw him make the thread on reddit before I went class a few days ago. When I got back, he hadn't posted for hours. Didn't hear a peep for a few days actually. I just assumed he received the Jason Bourne treatment or something.

gotta love AMERICUAH :patriot:

obviously the fbi isn't going to track every muslim. they have valid reasons, things that news sites could very easily have no idea of.

[QUOTE=Twitch;25312881]obviously the fbi isn't going to track every muslim. they have valid reasons, things that news sites could very easily have no idea of.[/QUOTE] Things that people who haven't read the article won't know about...

[QUOTE=Twitch;25312881]obviously the fbi isn't going to track every muslim. they have valid reasons, things that news sites could very easily have no idea of.[/QUOTE] Tracking quotas? Cover-ups?

[QUOTE=Rubs10;25311161]I don't get why it matters that there was a tracking device on his car, or anyone's for that matter. Why would anyone care if they aren't doing anything wrong?[/QUOTE] It's like those "But I have nothing to hide." Well your private parts for starters, your porn collection your toughs about your job or colleges. About every password you have pin numbers and etc.

[QUOTE=SgtCr4zyAlt;25311870]here we go with this retarded argument.[/QUOTE] well i hope you don't mind me installing cameras throughout your house, just to make sure-you know-you're not doing anything wrong. good god your attitude is so mind numbingly scary it's no surprise things like PATRIOT and FISA exist

[QUOTE=Rubs10;25311161]I don't get why it matters that there was a tracking device on his car, or anyone's for that matter. Why would anyone care if they aren't doing anything wrong?[/QUOTE] Would you give [b]ME[/b] (a complete stranger) all of your banking information, pin, passwords, what schools you went to, what teachers you had, etc. if i said it was for the greater good? even if you had nothing to hide? Then I put all this information in a little folder, and if I have a team, they also know all this info. I SURE WOULDN'T /caps

He should just stop on it and smash it

The tracking device is no different than tailing a car, which you don't need a warrant to do.

wow, just wow

Pretty funny how he found it. What kind of bad FBI agent makes a tracking device obvious?