Yasir Afifi

Yasir Afifi is a U.S. citizen who discovered a GPS tracking unit on his vehicle, planted by the FBI as part of a terrorism investigation. The device was discovered during a rountine oil change on his car, Ford Lincoln LS, at a Santa Clara, Calif., auto shop, Ali’s Auto Care.
The device was identify as Orion Guardian ST820 tracking device made by an electronics company called Cobham, which sells the device only to law enforcement.
FBI Special Agent Joseph Schadler refused to discuss Afifi's discovery with the media but did respond with the following statement: "Court decisions have consistently upheld that there is no warrant necessary for GPS tracking of a vehicle when the vehicle is in a public space." Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has recently re-affirmed the government's ability to use GPS devices on cars.
This case have raises concerns about the erosion of privacy protections with UC Hastings Law Professor Rory Little of the
opinion that Afifi's case is headed for the Supreme Court because the law on this issue is unclear, with contradictory rulings from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and the District of Columbia Court of Appeals.
Civil liberties-focused Council on American Islamic Relations appointed attorney have raise concern on the issues and highlight that in Ohio alone there are two other people who recently also discovered tracking devices on their vehicles.
Yasir Afifi is seeking assistant from his local congressman, Rep. Mike Honda (D-Calif.), to help him find out why he was being followed. Afifi has retained Zahar Billoo, a staff attorney with the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, an advocacy group, to represent him. Billoo had prepared a Freedom of Information Act request for FBI documents related to her client, but she conceded she did not expect to receive anything revelatory in the near future, if ever.
Earlier, ACLU, joined by the Asian Law Caucus and the San Francisco Bay Guardian weekly, had filed a lawsuit in August to expedite the release of FBI records on the investigation and surveillance of Muslim communities in the Bay Area.
Billoo maintains that the FBI’s electronic monitoring of Affifi was “unreasonable” and “an invasion of his privacy.” FBI should be required to obtain a warrant to place a tracking device on his car, and whether they can surveil him like that is a gray area of the law.
Question has also been raised whether Afifi is being targeted just for being in racial profiling of being a muslim who travel a lot. The only reason given for Afifi tracking was that “an anonymous tip from someone saying he might be a threat to national security” which is cop-speak for “We’ve got nothing, so we’re making stuff up.” Who needs a warrant... he's Muslim!
Reference
External link
* US News - ABC News Radio
* Yahoo news.
* http://www.illumemag.com/zine/articleDetail.php?FBI-GPS-Tracking-and-Invasion-of-Privacy-13346

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