4 ms·

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 came

by 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
  With its paparazzi industry, California probably has one of the more restrictive Peeping Tom Laws, and that law requires the peeper to be looking into a door or a window while on private property. I infer from a little extra googling that most/all of the states' laws are similar in this way. As you imply, none of this prevents the police from arresting you and taking you downtown anyway. They can even say they thought it violated peeping tom laws (Heien vs. North Carolina). Beyond that, "you can beat the charge but you can't beat the ride" is an old truism among abusive police. Kyllo is almost 20 years old, so the likelihood of a city having a law contravening it is probably low (IANAL).
  - bryanrasmussen 7y ago
    Sorry, I may be wrong but my understanding of peeping tom laws is that they apply where the user has a reasonable expectation of privacy. I think you're wrong that they generally require the peeper to be looking while on private property because if that were the case the peeper would be trespassing and could be charged with that, although certainly it may be the case in some places. State by state basis makes it difficult to say for sure. I guess it might be beneficial to have peeping tom laws limited to what one does on private property with the understanding that rich people have big enough property that you have to get on it to reasonably violate their privacy. Thus you can construct the law to protect the privacy of rich and poor alike as long as they have 5+ acre estates. And it is true that is is nice to have multiple things you can charge someone with, so they can plea bargain some of them away. So that they can be charged with trespassing still doesn't mean that they wouldn't want a law to charge them with peeping as well. But as I understand it the reasonable expectation of privacy generally applies to stuff like your home, or a private dressing room (if talking about actors) and so forth. Thus if someone is having a shower in the upper bathroom and you have climbed up a high tree off their property to look through an open window that they would not expect anyone to climb because wtf, then you are probably a peeping tom and violating a peeping tom law if it exists in that state.

by jchw 7y ago

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
With its paparazzi industry, California probably has one of the more restrictive Peeping Tom Laws, and that law requires the peeper to be looking into a door or a window while on private property. I infer from a little extra googling that most/all of the states' laws are similar in this way. As you imply, none of this prevents the police from arresting you and taking you downtown anyway. They can even say they thought it violated peeping tom laws (Heien vs. North Carolina). Beyond that, "you can beat the charge but you can't beat the ride" is an old truism among abusive police. Kyllo is almost 20 years old, so the likelihood of a city having a law contravening it is probably low (IANAL).
- bryanrasmussen 7y ago
  Sorry, I may be wrong but my understanding of peeping tom laws is that they apply where the user has a reasonable expectation of privacy. I think you're wrong that they generally require the peeper to be looking while on private property because if that were the case the peeper would be trespassing and could be charged with that, although certainly it may be the case in some places. State by state basis makes it difficult to say for sure. I guess it might be beneficial to have peeping tom laws limited to what one does on private property with the understanding that rich people have big enough property that you have to get on it to reasonably violate their privacy. Thus you can construct the law to protect the privacy of rich and poor alike as long as they have 5+ acre estates. And it is true that is is nice to have multiple things you can charge someone with, so they can plea bargain some of them away. So that they can be charged with trespassing still doesn't mean that they wouldn't want a law to charge them with peeping as well. But as I understand it the reasonable expectation of privacy generally applies to stuff like your home, or a private dressing room (if talking about actors) and so forth. Thus if someone is having a shower in the upper bathroom and you have climbed up a high tree off their property to look through an open window that they would not expect anyone to climb because wtf, then you are probably a peeping tom and violating a peeping tom law if it exists in that state.