My thought: Isn't there something about bearing witness against yourself? In America you're not required to do so. Isn't removing a tracking device something like pleading the 5th?
Others suggest you should return it to the police, but it seems to me there are way better approaches to that than handing it over.
Its a tracking device, right? They're going to find it, wherever you put it (except in a locked metal cabinet of course).
So leave it by the side of the road - they'll see it quit moving, find it, assume it fell off. Maybe try again, put it back on your car.
Next time, maybe leave it outside town in a muddy drainage ditch? Imagine the sap who has to go in there to get it.
All sorts of fun could be had. Leave it in a bank lobby. In Victoria's Secret under the discount table. In a trash can at the zoo. Behind the Police station where they keep the idle tracking devices. In an abandoned building. Under a parked police car.
So many better ways to deal with this problem, it could hardly be called a problem at all. Its a challenge!
Installing the tracking device requires a warrant, meaning it's classified as a "search," not as testimony. It's 4th Amendment territory, not 5th Amendment.
If removing the tracking device is pleading the 5th, then putting the tracking device on at all would be a violation of the 5th Amendment. You can philosophize a testimonial aspect into almost anything, but the courts take a more narrow view of what gets protected by the 5th.
To continue hypotheticals, once you know its there it becomes a voluntary act to continue. You have to continue to (allow) reporting of your location. That sounds more like 5th territory.
My thought: Isn't there something about bearing witness against yourself? In America you're not required to do so. Isn't removing a tracking device something like pleading the 5th?
Others suggest you should return it to the police, but it seems to me there are way better approaches to that than handing it over.
Its a tracking device, right? They're going to find it, wherever you put it (except in a locked metal cabinet of course).
So leave it by the side of the road - they'll see it quit moving, find it, assume it fell off. Maybe try again, put it back on your car.
Next time, maybe leave it outside town in a muddy drainage ditch? Imagine the sap who has to go in there to get it.
All sorts of fun could be had. Leave it in a bank lobby. In Victoria's Secret under the discount table. In a trash can at the zoo. Behind the Police station where they keep the idle tracking devices. In an abandoned building. Under a parked police car.
So many better ways to deal with this problem, it could hardly be called a problem at all. Its a challenge!