> A lawyer for the government acknowledged that it wouldn't be theft to remove a tracking device put there by a private party. But he argued that things are different when the government has a warrant to use a tracking device. The device had a legal basis for being on the car, the lawyer argued. By removing it and preventing tracking, Heuring was depriving the government of the use of its property.<p>In order for that argument to make any rational sense at all (and we're talking about the law here, so "rational sense" doesn't necessarily enter into it), the police should have to label the device with a property tag identifying it as belonging to the police.<p>If it's impossible to tell if a device is from a jilted lover or from the cops, then saying the removing it in one case is OK but in the other is not is effectively saying that it's never OK to remove it.
This document contains the appellate judges "reasoning"<p><a href="https://www.in.gov/judiciary/opinions/pdf/07181901mgr.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.in.gov/judiciary/opinions/pdf/07181901mgr.pdf</a><p>Is there a database of judges who pull this crap? Like a rate my professor kind of thing?
So by this logic, the cops could get a warrant to bug your house, put a big, obvious microphone in the middle of your living room, label it "FBI surveillance microphone", and you would be forbidden from removing it? What about an ankle monitor? Can those be attached with a mere warrant, not part of any punishment? Just how obedient are US citizens required to be at the request of a mere (mostly rubber-stamped) warrant?
So if I'm a cop and I want to manufacture probable cause to raid your house, all I have to do is attach a tracking device somewhere stupidly obvious on your car and wait for it to stop working?
Probably would be smart, now, to send unidentified tracking devices to a friend in Madagascar, via boat, and then return it to the local police via whatever boat Greta Thunberg is riding... you know, to reduce CO2 impacts. That way, there is no 'mens rea', or mental intent, to deprive the officers of their property.
On the stand, the alleged thief could truthfully say, "I sent it to the local police station, address XXX YYY St, etc. etc.".