The Washington Post article describes the crime and continues:

"To figure out if Foltz was the assailant, police pulled out their secret 
weapon: They put a Global Positioning System device on Foltz's van, which 
allowed them to track his movements.
....
"We don't really want to give any info on how we use it as an investigative 
tool to help the bad guys," said Officer Shelley Broderick, a Fairfax police 
spokeswoman.
"It is an investigative tool for us, and it is a very new investigative tool."
Across the country, police are using GPS devices to snare thieves, drug 
dealers, sexual predators and killers, often without a warrant or court order.
Privacy advocates said tracking suspects electronically constitutes illegal 
search and seizure, violating Fourth Amendment rights of protection against 
unreasonable searches and seizures, and is another step toward George Orwell's 
Big Brother society.
Law enforcement officials, when they discuss the issue at all, said GPS is 
essentially the same as having an officer trail someone, just cheaper and more 
accurate.
Most of the time, as was done in the Foltz case, judges have sided with police."
--clip--

More at
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/12/AR2008081203275.html?hpid=topnews

Juha-Matti
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