4 ms·
But perhaps not everything in the public space viewshed is public? Are police allowed to stand on the street and look over your fence, or through your windows?
by willvarfar 10y ago
But perhaps not everything in the public space viewshed is public?
Are police allowed to stand on the street and look over your fence, or through your windows?
Are police allowed to leave a camera outside your house so they don't have to stand there while they look over your fence or through your windows?
This is particularly pertinent because the FBI happen to believe that everything that can be seen from public space is public. (And airspace more than a few meters above your house is also public.)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11912696 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11912696 was on HN just a few months ago.
- logfromblammo 10y agoWhat the FBI (executive) believes is legal and what the courts (judicial) believe is legal will occasionally differ. Also, if you were to stand on a public right-of-way and photograph an FBI building, you would quickly find that the FBI's beliefs about photography are a bit more nuanced, and a lot more hypocritical. Usually, the courts take into account the typical movements of actual people when determining the expectation of privacy. If you put up an 8-ft privacy fence around your backyard, and an aerial camera can still see into it from unrestricted public airspace, that doesn't really matter, because you have made the gesture of enclosing a private space. The fence is a request for the public to honor your desire for privacy. Genuine privacy is what you get when the government builds a classified facility. Fences, restricted airspace, guards with guns, and locked windowless rooms. No private person can afford that, so we pretend that a fig leaf is as good as a tuxedo.