Fighting crime, personal liberties both important

By Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier

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In the post-9/11 era, America has granted greater leeway to law enforcement to investigate terrorism and, as an unintended by-product, more mundane crime.

In the same decade, technology has evolved at a staggering clip. Computers have shrunk. Our phones now come with us everywhere we go, and we can watch television, play the stock market or send mail on them.

Law enforcement has used both of those changes in efforts to catch bad guys, both international and domestic.

For example, look at the case of Hosam Smadi, a Jordanian citizen living in Texas. In 2010, the Federal Bureau of Investigation found Smadi's writings on an Islamic website and thought he sounded bent on terrorist actions in the United States. They started conversing with him on the Internet and set up a sting operation. Smadi eventually believed he was planning a truck bomb attack on a Dallas skyscraper. When he went to detonate the fake bomb, he was arrested.

Score one for technology and law enforcement.

Locally and not on the terrorism front, law enforcement officers were able to track down three men who broke into a Cedar Falls home and robbed a marijuana dealer of cash, marijuana and cell phones. Police were able to track the culprits through GPS on a stolen cell phone.

Another plus for law enforcement.

But some have started to grow leery of the convergence of the law and technology. A case that will go before the U.S. Supreme Court later this fall will make for a significant test of the boundaries of each.

In the United States vs. Jones, the issue at hand is whether law enforcement needs a search warrant to attach a GPS device to a person's vehicle for tracking 24/7. Antoine Jones was the owner of the Washington, D.C., nightclub suspected of trafficking cocaine. Police obtained a warrant to track his vehicle by GPS, but did not get it installed until after the warrant expired.

Eventually, Jones was convicted of conspiracy to sell cocaine based on evidence gathered by tracking his travels.

The New York Times documented that courts throughout the nation have been wrestling with similar issues that make it difficult to draw a line where technological means stretch the Fourth Amendment's protections from unreasonable search and seizure.

The use of technology has greatly enhanced law enforcement's ability to protect citizens across America. The Fourth Amendment has long kept us safe from authorities spying on our acts without just cause.

It's time the Supreme Court makes a statement to define the Fourth Amendment for the 21st century.

Let our cops do the job, but not at the expense of liberty.