Caught Spying on Student, FBI Demands GPS Tracker Back
8th October 2010
A California student got a visit from the FBI this week after he found a secret GPS tracking device on his car, and a friend posted photos of it online. The post prompted wide speculation about whether the device was real, whether the young Arab-American was being targeted in a terrorism investigation and what the authorities would do.
It took just 48 hours to find out: The device was real, the student was being secretly tracked and the FBI wanted their expensive device back, the student told Wired.com in an interview Wednesday.
The answer came when half-a-dozen FBI agents and police officers appeared at Yasir Afifi’s apartment complex in Santa Clara, California, on Tuesday demanding he return the device.
I’d sell it on E-bay. Finders keepers, losers weepers.
October 8th, 2010 at 11:07
Apparently, some of his friends thought it could be a bomb, so they didn’t take it apart. That alone pretty much tells me this kid is not a serious threat to national security. (You won’t catch Bin Laden listening to his stoner college buddies.)
Since the company that makes the device only sells to the gov’t, you could be in trouble for selling it on Ebay.
However, were it MY choice, the FBI would have gotten the thing back in 9,000 very small pieces. (“Ooops, must have dropped it….”)
Do we all feel safer now that we know the FBI is on the case?
October 8th, 2010 at 12:47
Had he been sufficiently clever, he could have replaced the insides with a real bomb. Wouldn’t that have been a surprise.