While Lee was meeting with his probation officer, an agent of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) secretly attached a real-time GPS tracker to the underside of his vehicle without obtaining court approval first.

A few days later, DEA agents noticed him travelling to Chicago and suspected him of buying drugs there based on information they had previously obtained from an informant. The agents instructed a state trooper to find some pretext to stop Lee's vehicle telling him the car probably contained marijuana. The marijuana was discovered shortly after the trooper stopped Lee for driving without a seatbelt.

During the entire process, DEA agents tracked Lee's movements using the GPS tracker and even instructed the state trooper on where to intercept Lee's car.

Jaikumar Vijayan covers data security and privacy issues, financial services security and e-voting for Computerworld. Follow Jaikumar on Twitter at or subscribe to . His e-mail address is .

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