Family Law

Private investigators in Georgia are a little irked at a proposed bill that could disallow placing GPS trackers on vehicles.  While the bill excludes parents tracking kids, cops, and enterprise usage, it includes private investigators.

Inside a completely ordinary SUV parked anywhere in Metro Atlanta, private investigator T.J. Ward and his team can track anyone at any time, without them knowing.

Instead following a target, running red lights and swerving through traffic, investigators like Ward can just stick a little box with a magnet to the bottom of a car in seconds. As a person drives, a computer program tracks them via satellite, and prints a list of their whereabouts -- even how fast they were going. Ward's team has been hired by parents after a bitter child custody case, or a spouse.

One of Ward's clients, who was married for 18 years, said that  he used it for several weeks, just tracking where his wife's vehicle was, and confirmed his suspicions. He credits the GPS surveillance with saving him millions of dollars in alimony.

Ward said, "These are the tools of our trade, just like it is with law enforcement."That might not be the case for long. A proposed bill is in the Georgia Legislature to outlaw the devices. It gives exception to law enforcement officers, but private investigators are not included.

Rep. Kevin Levitas wrote the legislation to protect Georgians, and offers exceptions for parents tracking children, cops tracking criminals, and employers watching their vehicles, but not private investigators."I think you or I need to be able to go to the shopping center, get a carton of eggs, and not have to check under our car to see if someone placed a tracking device," said Levitas. "I think the legislation's good so any John Doe person can't walk into a store, buy a GPS and throw it on someone's car, just because they want to know where someone is."

SOURCE: WSB-TV

SOURCE FOR POST: GPS Obsessed