That's the heart of the matter, isn't it? How can chalking be a search when the fact that the car is parked there is in plain sight? If we regard "search" as a

That's the heart of the matter, isn't it? How can chalking be a search when the fact that the car is parked there is in plain sight? If we regard "search" as a synonym of "google", then yes, we can say that the act of chalking allowed the police to acquire knowledge it didn't have before. I don't think the framers meant that though when they wrote the 4th Amendment. A search needs to involve something that's concealed.