Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Stalkers Use GPS to Track Victims

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sat, 01 May 2004 05:53:42 -0400

Stalkers Use GPS to Track Victims

Associated Press  Page 1 of 1
08:46 AM Feb. 06, 2003 PT

MILWAUKEE -- Connie Adams found it impossible to escape her
ex-boyfriend.  He would follow her as she drove to work or ran errands.
He would inexplicably pull up next to her at stoplights and once tried
to run her off the highway, authorities said.

When he showed up at a bar she was visiting for the first time, on a
date, Adams began to suspect Paul Seidler wasn't operating on instinct
alone.

He wasn't. Seidler had installed a satellite tracking device in Adams'
car, according to police in Kenosha, Wisconsin, 30 miles south of
Milwaukee.

"He told me no matter where I went or what I did, he would know where I
was," Adams testified at a recent court hearing.
Police say Adams' case and several others across the country herald an
incipient danger: high-tech stalking.  Just as the global satellite
positioning system can help save lives, so can its abuse endanger them,
advocates of stalking victims say.
"As technology advances, it's going to be almost impossible for victims
to flee and get to safety," said Cindy Southworth, director of
technology at the National Network to End Domestic Violence in
Washington. In the Adams case, Seidler pleaded innocent last month to
felony counts of stalking, recklessly endangering safety, burglary and a
misdemeanor count of disorderly conduct. His trial is pending.

Adams does not want to speak to reporters about the case, said Susan
Karaskiewicz, a Kenosha County prosecutor.  Police say Seidler put a
global positioning tracking device between the radiator and grill of
Adams' car. Such gadgets use a constellation of Defense Department
satellites to pinpoint location and, using cellular networks, can send
their coordinates to wireless handsets or computers.

Trucking companies use GPS systems to track hazardous cargo and monitor
drivers. Corrections authorities use them to monitor sex offenders.
Hikers, boaters and motorists use GPS devices to keep from getting lost.
GPS technology is also being built into cell phones to help emergency
dispatchers find 911 callers. They're also being used to prevent car
theft.  Southworth trains victims advocates, law enforcement and
prosecutors on stalkers' use of the technology, which she says is only
just beginning to be abused.

The Stalking Resource Center at the National Center for Victims of Crime
has found at least one other case of a GPS system being used to stalk a
victim.

In it, a Colorado appeals court in July upheld Robert Sullivan's
conviction for stalking his ex-wife and installing a GPS device in her
car to track her movements.

GPS is not the first technology to be misused by stalkers -- who have
also employed the Internet, microchip-sized cameras and even caller
identification, said Southworth -- though it is the most dangerous to
date.  Just as she once taught victims how to block caller ID when they
use the phone, Southworth now suggests victims occasionally check under
their car's hood.
Police are also finding GPS devices useful. Marla Wagner, sales manager
at LAS Systems, the same McHenry, Illinois, company that made Seidler's
device, said the company has sold GPS systems to about 10 police
departments during the last year. The Kenosha Police Department is also
buying a system from LAS. Tracy Bahm, the Stalking Resource Center's
director, said some states are working to update their stalking statutes
to include the high-tech variety.
The center typically advises states to keep their statutes broad enough
to include technologies that don't yet exist.
"As society and technology evolve, stalkers will always find new ways to
harass their victims," Bahm said.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&oe=ISO-8859-1&q=%22Robert+Sullivan%22++ex-wife

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