Taximan's Last Stand

Well the half-hearted strike didn't do much to the city earlier in the month and the city hardly batted any eye, but taxicabs are still trying to fight the installation of GPS trackers in their cars. Their last stand will be before Judge Richard M. Berman in the U.S. District Court here in Manhattan. While the cabbies whine about invasion of privacy and the trackers being too expensive, their case seems to be built more so out of cards than bricks.

From The New York Times:

Joseph Sanscrainte, a lawyer who specializes in privacy matters at the law firm Bryan Cave and is not involved in the case, said he believed the city had the stronger legal argument. Consent to the G.P.S. system is implied by the drivers’ agreement to take part in the highly regulated taxicab industry, he said.

“New York courts have already determined that there’s a reduced expectation of privacy on the part of the drivers,” Mr. Sanscrainte said, citing a 1993 case in which a state court found that “any person who displays an official shield has a reduced expectation of privacy.”

City lawyers also claim that the information is being processed by contractors that will not monitor off hour driving. When a cab is working, its a different story. As one Cityroom reader wrote in the comments, many employees in different lines of work have their computers monitored and some have to do drug tests.

So, the case law is on the side of the city and their complaints about the fourth amendment seem to be much ado about nothing. So what is the real reason? Sounds like they just do not want to be held accountable to me.

UPDATE (9/28/07 - 2:04 PM): The judge makes it official, the cabs will be required to have GPS trackers as of Monday, October 1st.