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How so? The ruling is about agents using thermal imaging technology to bust a marijuana plantation, performed from a car on a public street. The court stated t

by lima 7y ago

How so? The ruling is about agents using thermal imaging technology to bust a marijuana plantation, performed from a car on a public street. The court stated that this does not constitute a search, since any random citizen could've done the same thing using commodity equipment. Always on microphones that transmit via the internet (i.e. bugs) have been a commodity for... a few decades? But you still cannot legally bug your neighbor's apartment.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
californical 7y ago
But if they set up their own microphones in their home that are accessible through a public IP address, you can play the audio that they bugged themself with
pdkl95 7y ago
> The court stated that this does not constitute a search From the court's opinion (the above [1]): >> ... obtaining by sense-enhancing technology any information regarding the home's interior that could not otherwise have been obtained without physical "intrusion into a constitutionally protected area," constitutes a search--at least where (as here) the technology in question is not in general public use. >> Based on this criterion, the information obtained by the thermal imager in this case was the product of a search. >> the imaging in this case was an unlawful search
- akerl_ 7y ago
  You’re subtly altering the meaning of “in general public use”. As used in the court’s opinion, they’re drawing a distinction between whether the average person could perform this activity against another person. If the average person carried around thermal imaging tech that would have been capable of performing the same actions as the police, it would have not constituted an unlawful search. Extrapolating that to say that if the average person chooses to use always-on microphones to record themselves inside their homes, the police can record people inside their homes, is not an equivalent argument. It is totally viable to say that because so many people have the ability to record conversations in public places, the police can record conversations in public places. But that’s not the same thing at all.
  - pas 7y ago
    Meh. These things are just a [re]interpretation away from each other. Even if we now think our model is clear and simple. That's why face recognition bans and other privacy protection laws ("personally identifiable information") are so welcome.
    - gotstad 7y ago
      No it’s not just re-interpretation away. From a legal standpoint it’s a whole other ballpark. It breaks the fundamental principle.
      - pas 7y ago
        What is the principle exactly? Is that established in just one Supreme Court ruling? So can that simply overturned by a new one?
    - Talanes 7y ago
      The standard is "could any random passerby do this with legal and common tools," not "is this technology used commonly." Regardless of how the definition of what is or is not considered common shifts, the fundamentals of the two situations remain different.
      - pas 7y ago
        My point is that that standard was set in a Supreme Court ruling. And that is easily overturned by any other Supreme Court.
SilasX 7y ago
>Always on microphones that transmit via the internet (i.e. bugs) have been a commodity for... a few decades? But you still cannot legally bug your neighbor's apartment. It has not been normal until the last few years for people to typically have an Alexa-like device that is always listening for the "I'm about to make a request" signal, which frequently gets turned on by accident. It's not ridiculous that someone might conclude in the future, "if you're in someone's house with such a device, you should reasonably expect that some part of your conversation might get sent to the third party", which would mean a diminishing of the right to such privacy in 4th amendment jurisprudence. And frankly, the whole concept of using voice to activate it is reckless. It is unavoidable to have significant false positives. It should be done with a non-audio signal that can't be faked (up to the limits of modern crypto), like an authenticated EM signal to turn on the listening.
- tobylane 7y ago
  What if you’re known for loudly announcing “Google, turn off your microphone”? Then you are protecting people’s expectation of your privacy/defence of it/fourth amendment rights? I’m tempted to be that person and have done it twice.
- EpicEng 7y ago
  >It has not been normal until the last few years for people to typically have an Alexa-like device that is always listening for the "I'm about to make a request" signal, which frequently gets turned on by accident. Google Now: 2012 Siri: 2010 Microphones in cell phones: longer than those two. It hasn't only been a few years.
  - SilasX 7y ago
    I’m referring to voice activated assistants, and I was referring to the case when the typical (middle class) household had one, which happened long after their initial release (and arguably hasn’t even happened yet, depending on how you define “typical”).
    - EpicEng 7y ago
bryanrasmussen 7y ago
Well by this theory a search shouldn't be a search either because any group of private citizens could stage a home invasion using guns.
- jchw 7y ago
  That would be illegal for other reasons, which would seem at least to me to violate the principal they are using to justify this. Certainly using a thermal camera in this manner is not illegal for a random bystander.
  - bryanrasmussen 7y ago
    are you sure? I mean I think in most states, if you were parked outside a person's house with a thermal camera pointed at the house, and the police drove up and asked what you were doing and you said "I'm using my thermal camera to spy on what people are doing in that house, and they don't know I'm doing it LOL!" I think the police would probably take you in. Now as to whether they could find anything to charge you with that would stick that would depend on if the state had any sort of peeping tom laws, and if the police went up to the house and found if anyone was naked or partially naked in the house while the thermal camera was being used. That said if there was a peeping tom law, and there was a naked person, the party with the camera that was charged could then argue that thermal cameras don't show enough to be considered under the law. However it is my experience that police can be creative when they want to charge someone when that someone is doing something they don't like, so not sure that just a peeping tom law would be brought into play on such a circumstance. I suppose after all this you might argue that police overreach does not make it actually illegal, but in general my viewpoint is that something being illegal is determined by power and in the case under discussion the court wanted what the police did not to be illegal because they felt it benefited the power of the system that it be so, and therefore shaped their arguments to their wants, not to any particular logic or moral sense. Thus when later another court wants the people on the street using the tech to be illegal, power gets what it wants.
    - rhizome 7y ago
mschuster91 7y ago
> But you still cannot legally bug your neighbor's apartment. You... not. But the police? Issue a warrant and they don't even have to risk, as in the decades before, having a spy physically break in to the building or the target discovering the bug. Secret services (CIA/NSA) probably even have their direct uplink to Amazon or at least under-the-tables cooperations established to snoop on foreign people "for antiterror reasons" (aka helping out allied services, just like with the BND and MI5 with snooping on global Internet traffic).

by lima 7y ago

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

californical 7y ago

But if they set up their own microphones in their home that are accessible through a public IP address, you can play the audio that they bugged themself with

pdkl95 7y ago

> The court stated that this does not constitute a search From the court's opinion (the above [1]): >> ... obtaining by sense-enhancing technology any information regarding the home's interior that could not otherwise have been obtained without physical "intrusion into a constitutionally protected area," constitutes a search--at least where (as here) the technology in question is not in general public use. >> Based on this criterion, the information obtained by the thermal imager in this case was the product of a search. >> the imaging in this case was an unlawful search

akerl_ 7y ago
You’re subtly altering the meaning of “in general public use”. As used in the court’s opinion, they’re drawing a distinction between whether the average person could perform this activity against another person. If the average person carried around thermal imaging tech that would have been capable of performing the same actions as the police, it would have not constituted an unlawful search. Extrapolating that to say that if the average person chooses to use always-on microphones to record themselves inside their homes, the police can record people inside their homes, is not an equivalent argument. It is totally viable to say that because so many people have the ability to record conversations in public places, the police can record conversations in public places. But that’s not the same thing at all.
- pas 7y ago
  Meh. These things are just a [re]interpretation away from each other. Even if we now think our model is clear and simple. That's why face recognition bans and other privacy protection laws ("personally identifiable information") are so welcome.
  - gotstad 7y ago
    No it’s not just re-interpretation away. From a legal standpoint it’s a whole other ballpark. It breaks the fundamental principle.
    - pas 7y ago
      What is the principle exactly? Is that established in just one Supreme Court ruling? So can that simply overturned by a new one?
  - Talanes 7y ago
    The standard is "could any random passerby do this with legal and common tools," not "is this technology used commonly." Regardless of how the definition of what is or is not considered common shifts, the fundamentals of the two situations remain different.
    - pas 7y ago
      My point is that that standard was set in a Supreme Court ruling. And that is easily overturned by any other Supreme Court.

SilasX 7y ago

>Always on microphones that transmit via the internet (i.e. bugs) have been a commodity for... a few decades? But you still cannot legally bug your neighbor's apartment. It has not been normal until the last few years for people to typically have an Alexa-like device that is always listening for the "I'm about to make a request" signal, which frequently gets turned on by accident. It's not ridiculous that someone might conclude in the future, "if you're in someone's house with such a device, you should reasonably expect that some part of your conversation might get sent to the third party", which would mean a diminishing of the right to such privacy in 4th amendment jurisprudence. And frankly, the whole concept of using voice to activate it is reckless. It is unavoidable to have significant false positives. It should be done with a non-audio signal that can't be faked (up to the limits of modern crypto), like an authenticated EM signal to turn on the listening.

tobylane 7y ago
What if you’re known for loudly announcing “Google, turn off your microphone”? Then you are protecting people’s expectation of your privacy/defence of it/fourth amendment rights? I’m tempted to be that person and have done it twice.
EpicEng 7y ago
>It has not been normal until the last few years for people to typically have an Alexa-like device that is always listening for the "I'm about to make a request" signal, which frequently gets turned on by accident. Google Now: 2012 Siri: 2010 Microphones in cell phones: longer than those two. It hasn't only been a few years.
- SilasX 7y ago
  I’m referring to voice activated assistants, and I was referring to the case when the typical (middle class) household had one, which happened long after their initial release (and arguably hasn’t even happened yet, depending on how you define “typical”).
  - EpicEng 7y ago

bryanrasmussen 7y ago

Well by this theory a search shouldn't be a search either because any group of private citizens could stage a home invasion using guns.

jchw 7y ago
That would be illegal for other reasons, which would seem at least to me to violate the principal they are using to justify this. Certainly using a thermal camera in this manner is not illegal for a random bystander.
- bryanrasmussen 7y ago
  are you sure? I mean I think in most states, if you were parked outside a person's house with a thermal camera pointed at the house, and the police drove up and asked what you were doing and you said "I'm using my thermal camera to spy on what people are doing in that house, and they don't know I'm doing it LOL!" I think the police would probably take you in. Now as to whether they could find anything to charge you with that would stick that would depend on if the state had any sort of peeping tom laws, and if the police went up to the house and found if anyone was naked or partially naked in the house while the thermal camera was being used. That said if there was a peeping tom law, and there was a naked person, the party with the camera that was charged could then argue that thermal cameras don't show enough to be considered under the law. However it is my experience that police can be creative when they want to charge someone when that someone is doing something they don't like, so not sure that just a peeping tom law would be brought into play on such a circumstance. I suppose after all this you might argue that police overreach does not make it actually illegal, but in general my viewpoint is that something being illegal is determined by power and in the case under discussion the court wanted what the police did not to be illegal because they felt it benefited the power of the system that it be so, and therefore shaped their arguments to their wants, not to any particular logic or moral sense. Thus when later another court wants the people on the street using the tech to be illegal, power gets what it wants.
  - rhizome 7y ago

mschuster91 7y ago

> But you still cannot legally bug your neighbor's apartment. You... not. But the police? Issue a warrant and they don't even have to risk, as in the decades before, having a spy physically break in to the building or the target discovering the bug. Secret services (CIA/NSA) probably even have their direct uplink to Amazon or at least under-the-tables cooperations established to snoop on foreign people "for antiterror reasons" (aka helping out allied services, just like with the BND and MI5 with snooping on global Internet traffic).