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Question for those more familiar with 4th amendment jurisprudence than I am: if you give a group of strangers access to your home, does that remove your expecta

Question for those more familiar with 4th amendment jurisprudence than I am: if you give a group of strangers access to your home, does that remove your expectation of privacy in that area? If so, does that make evidence against you gathered through warrantless searches of that area admissable in court? Or would it only expose you to evidence in plain view/hear/smell? My intuition is that granting consent for some action to one group of strangers does not grant consent to a different group of strangers, but I am not a lawyer.

criddell 9y ago
No, I don't think it would. There are plenty of people that grant access to their homes to service providers like cleaning services, dog walkers, etc... Legally, I don't think there's much new here.
eqmvii 9y ago
You only consent to allow delivery people into your home, not the police. The 4th amendment doesn't have a trickery loophole, your reasonable expectation of privacy is always with respect to the police, not to other businesses and people you give trust to. The police can't set up a fake carwash and then warrantlessly search all of the cars that show up just because you're handing over the keys and consenting to let strangers in. Your home would be no different. Another, perhaps better example: a landlord typically has a set of keys and the right to access a tenant's apartment. In a commercial building, those keys could be held by any number of "strangers" on the maintenance staff. The police still need a warrant, they can't just ask the landlord for a set of keys. That's really not any different from having the "keys" held by Amazon staff members. There are lots of instances where a person's expectation of privacy is low with respect to specific people/businesses but high with respect to the government, and that doesn't weaken their 4th amendment protections.
- DarronWyke 9y ago
  This is correct. Also a good overall note here is that the Constitution only applies between the government and the people. Private entities (businesses, for example) are not beholden to respect your rights. A point to bring up with regards to landlords is that both State law and contract law (your lease) enable them to enter the dwelling under very special circumstances, usually such as an immediate threat to life. They may also enter to do various tasks such as inspections but laws usually mandate notice that must be given and how. Here in Texas, it's a minimum of 24 hours written notice for the latter.
- patentatt 9y ago
  For all those reading this, remember that you should never rely on Internet forums for legal advice, the poster above may or may not be a lawyer, but is certainly not your lawyer.
  - jakewalker 9y ago
    And there are multiple inaccuracies in all of these replies.
  - nathancahill 9y ago
    No bamboozle?
  - EADGBE 9y ago
    "The choice of a lawyer is an important decision and should not be based solely upon advertisements."
- ThrowawayR2 9y ago
  > You only consent to allow delivery people into your home, not the police. However, IIRC, if the delivery people (or landlord, in your second example) choose to report to law enforcement anything criminal that they see in your home _of their own free will_ and without any prior arrangement with police, that evidence would be admissible and could be used to obtain a warrant. It's not that much different from past cases where Best Buy technicians found illegal material on computers brought in to them for servicing and reported it to police and resulted in successful prosecutions.
  - alasdair_ 9y ago
    >It's not that much different from past cases where Best Buy technicians found illegal material on computers brought in to them for servicing and reported it to police and resulted in successful prosecutions. Those technicians were hired and trained by the FBI to seek out this information. There are ongoing lawsuits claiming this was illegal.
    - 659087 9y ago
      > Those technicians were hired and trained by the FBI to seek out this information. Do you think the government is going to pass up the opportunity to do the same with Amazon employees? That is, assuming Amazon hasn't already approached the government to offer it as a service.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
tedunangst 9y ago
The part that confuses most people is the third party doctrine, but that's about your property which you keep in somebody else's space.
- jakewalker 9y ago
  No it isn't. http://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol107/iss4/1/ http://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol107/iss4/1/
swalsh 9y ago
I think Minnesota Vs Carter settles this question. The court held that since they were not overnight guests, they were not entitled to Fourth Amendment protection, and that the officer’s observation was not a search under the Amendment. https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/97-1147 https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/97-1147
bzbarsky 9y ago
I tried to find what precedent the case mentioned in https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2014/11/fbi_agents_pose.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2014/11/fbi_agents_po... ended up with, but haven't so far. Would be pretty interested, since it's directly on point here.

criddell 9y ago

No, I don't think it would. There are plenty of people that grant access to their homes to service providers like cleaning services, dog walkers, etc... Legally, I don't think there's much new here.

eqmvii 9y ago

You only consent to allow delivery people into your home, not the police. The 4th amendment doesn't have a trickery loophole, your reasonable expectation of privacy is always with respect to the police, not to other businesses and people you give trust to. The police can't set up a fake carwash and then warrantlessly search all of the cars that show up just because you're handing over the keys and consenting to let strangers in. Your home would be no different. Another, perhaps better example: a landlord typically has a set of keys and the right to access a tenant's apartment. In a commercial building, those keys could be held by any number of "strangers" on the maintenance staff. The police still need a warrant, they can't just ask the landlord for a set of keys. That's really not any different from having the "keys" held by Amazon staff members. There are lots of instances where a person's expectation of privacy is low with respect to specific people/businesses but high with respect to the government, and that doesn't weaken their 4th amendment protections.

DarronWyke 9y ago
This is correct. Also a good overall note here is that the Constitution only applies between the government and the people. Private entities (businesses, for example) are not beholden to respect your rights. A point to bring up with regards to landlords is that both State law and contract law (your lease) enable them to enter the dwelling under very special circumstances, usually such as an immediate threat to life. They may also enter to do various tasks such as inspections but laws usually mandate notice that must be given and how. Here in Texas, it's a minimum of 24 hours written notice for the latter.
patentatt 9y ago
For all those reading this, remember that you should never rely on Internet forums for legal advice, the poster above may or may not be a lawyer, but is certainly not your lawyer.
- jakewalker 9y ago
  And there are multiple inaccuracies in all of these replies.
- nathancahill 9y ago
  No bamboozle?
- EADGBE 9y ago
  "The choice of a lawyer is an important decision and should not be based solely upon advertisements."
ThrowawayR2 9y ago
> You only consent to allow delivery people into your home, not the police. However, IIRC, if the delivery people (or landlord, in your second example) choose to report to law enforcement anything criminal that they see in your home _of their own free will_ and without any prior arrangement with police, that evidence would be admissible and could be used to obtain a warrant. It's not that much different from past cases where Best Buy technicians found illegal material on computers brought in to them for servicing and reported it to police and resulted in successful prosecutions.
- alasdair_ 9y ago
  >It's not that much different from past cases where Best Buy technicians found illegal material on computers brought in to them for servicing and reported it to police and resulted in successful prosecutions. Those technicians were hired and trained by the FBI to seek out this information. There are ongoing lawsuits claiming this was illegal.
  - 659087 9y ago
    > Those technicians were hired and trained by the FBI to seek out this information. Do you think the government is going to pass up the opportunity to do the same with Amazon employees? That is, assuming Amazon hasn't already approached the government to offer it as a service.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

tedunangst 9y ago

The part that confuses most people is the third party doctrine, but that's about your property which you keep in somebody else's space.

jakewalker 9y ago
No it isn't. http://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol107/iss4/1/ http://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol107/iss4/1/

swalsh 9y ago

I think Minnesota Vs Carter settles this question. The court held that since they were not overnight guests, they were not entitled to Fourth Amendment protection, and that the officer’s observation was not a search under the Amendment. https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/97-1147 https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/97-1147

bzbarsky 9y ago

I tried to find what precedent the case mentioned in https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2014/11/fbi_agents_pose.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2014/11/fbi_agents_po... ended up with, but haven't so far. Would be pretty interested, since it's directly on point here.