13 ms·

When the government hides spy cameras on your land, fight back in court

193 points by eric_h 5y ago

Ansil849 5y ago
This article turns into a rant after the first few paragraphs, leaving me confused about the actual facts behind the story. Is it legal for the government to setup surveillance cameras on someone's land, to monitor their land? From the article, it sounds like this is exactly what was done.
- op00to 5y ago
  If it’s not immediately adjacent to a persons home, apparently so.
- throwthere 5y ago
  My money is on no, the cameras were not on his property. The article says the spy cameras were “placed the within the boundaries of where he lives, farms and hunts.” Since the column piece is written by the complainant/affiliate my guess is the cameras were close to his land but on public property around the river and pointed at his property.
  - dylan604 5y ago
    > “placed the within the boundaries of where he lives, farms and hunts.” I recognize the words, but that is a really strained sentence structure. What are they trying to say? Placed within the boundaries sounds like my property. If I'm roaming my property and find something there that I did not put there, then I'm going to be taking it down. I'll probably even attempt to sell it.
    - wslack 5y ago
      It sounds like they are trying to imply it was his land without actually stating as such (because it was likely just over the property border).
      - dylan604 5y ago
        As long as it "just" over the property line then I guess it's not really his property then? Doubt the tax assessor gives them a break on the "just" over part of it. Are we really trying to say that property lines are gray areas? If I build my fence just over the line onto my neighbor's property, that'd be okay then, right? This straining to justify the trespassing to place an illegal wiretap is just mind boggling.
        rfrey 5y ago
        I think your parent meant "just over" in the opposite direction, e.g. just outside his property.
        dylan604 5y ago
        i guess that could be read that way now that you mention it. totally didn't take it that way in my jumping to conclusions. so, now that we've established it could be not on your property but absolutely most definitely viewing your property, time for action. Time for a sheet of plywood blocking the view. Now, knowing that it's probably an extremely wide angle lens, that playwood probably won't block the full view. Time for a bright ass light on that board that just so happens to point at the camera. Maybe a UV LED lights to make it not as annoying in case that light is too disturbing. Or, a laser light show attached to that piece of plywood that just happnes to scan back and forth across the camera lens several times at alternating heights.
        brewdad 5y ago
        As if they can't come and move the camera. I suppose eventually you could build your plywood wall around the entire perimeter of the property. In the suburbs we call that a privacy fence. A bit more costly to build on such a large plot of land however.
        dylan604 5y ago
        Okay, so now I'm starting to wonder if I'm just a sick mind or if others are just really not very creative. So you go and move the piece of plywood. It costs the US Gov't much more money to move the thing than it will you. Stick it to the man. Plus, each time you move it, you can update the messages you've spray painted onto that piece of plywood. "Hello Mr Secret Agent Man!" "Isn't it a lovely day to be viewing my property?" "How about you go and..."
    - chaircher 5y ago
      might be to articulate the privacy issues. As in, the cameras aren't just technically on his property but they're filming his whole life
  - mod 5y ago
    I had the opposite takeaway from the text; that is, that the cameras were, in fact, on his property. The quote you cited is just referencing his property, I think they said 163 acres.
  - stefan_ 5y ago
    Surely we can just resolve this by looking at the actual complaint instead of trying to divine sense from some words like it's a party manifesto from Xi? Here it is, then: https://ij.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Tennessee-Open-Fields-Complaint-Final.pdf https://ij.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Tennessee-Open-Fie... The graphic on page 11 seems to indeed show the camera on the property.
    - kingcharles 5y ago
      Interesting that he filed this only under his State's constitution in State court. I don't see why he couldn't have made a 4th Am. challenge under federal law too, and filed in federal court. Although they may have passed on the State law aspect if they deemed it too complex. A county court judge is woefully under-skilled and will almost certainly side with authorities and bump this to the appellate courts for a more in-depth legal examination. Do we know if he has a collateral federal case?
      - antognini 5y ago
        Some states have stronger protections in their state constitutions than the federal constitution provides. Montana, for instance, explicitly provides a right to privacy, whereas a "right to privacy" is at best implicit in the US Constitution. I don't know anything about the Tennessean Constitution to say if that's the reason though.
        kingcharles 5y ago
        I looked at it real quick, it's not one of the states that copy-pastes the 4th Am like a lot do, but it also doesn't seem to offer up any extra protections like some states do, as you mention.
    - saberdancer 5y ago
      That graphic is quite bad. Not all markers follow the same logic. For the "Terry's Gate" the white line seems to point to the location of the gate, while when showing homes they do not point to homes but use the icon to designate location. Depending on what they used for TWRA Camera the camera may or may not be located on the property. I am leaning toward not on the property as there is no real reason why they would point outside of the property with the white line unless they wanted to show where it actually was.
  - judge2020 5y ago
    Even if something is placed on government-owned land (eg. a river), they're still bound by the fourth amendment and they can't use security cameras that surveil where the owner/person has a 'reasonable expectation of privacy'. Whether or not that means the owner of the land has such expectation on hundreds of acres depends on how secure the location is; you could make the argument "anyone could legally boat down the river and see them, therefore there is not an expectation of privacy", or you could make the argument that cameras installed at an unreasonably high elevation (eg. the top of a tree on the river) would be surveilling land that nobody not trespassing could see. This is also assuming you have a legal fence/barrier that informs anyone trespassing isn't allowed, otherwise it'd be harder to claim treading the land and setting up 'wildlife cameras' is trespassing.
- hutzlibu 5y ago
  "Is it legal for the government to setup surveillance cameras on someone's land, to monitor their land?" That is about to be found out in court. "Although the case is proceeding in state court under the authority of the Tennessee Constitution, the central claims point to a nationwide problem. Starting about 100 years ago.." But the issue behind, is a more complicated one.
  - cronix 5y ago
    It will also likely soon become moot as drones get cheaper and cheaper, and you don't own the sky over your land. Here's a company, Brinc, building border security drones which the promo video also says can also easily be used for prisons, data centers and just about anything else. https://theintercept.com/2021/12/13/brinc-startup-taser-drones-migrants/ https://theintercept.com/2021/12/13/brinc-startup-taser-dron...
    - hutzlibu 5y ago
      But if a private person may not fly over private property of other people, than that rule should apply for government personal, too - unless a warrant, or "special rules". And they can be changed by the people.
      - gnopgnip 5y ago
        The airspace 500ft up, and in some cases 200 ft and up is public property basically.
        nitrogen 5y ago
        This really needs to change with the mass availability of camera drones.
        brewdad 5y ago
        Good luck leaving air travel viable while closing all the loopholes that would still be abused.
- KennyBlanken 5y ago
  It boils down to: 'environmental'/game officers have sometimes very shocking levels of power because of the nature of their job, but the article is correct that the supreme court has been steadily eroding our privacy rights for the better part of at least half a century. The game warden probably doesn't give a shit about your weed (unless you were high/drunk while carrying/using a firearm); he cares about whether you shot a deer when you weren't supposed to. Game is a public resource and we're sufficiently populated these days, and weapons sufficiently advanced, that unchecked hunting can decimate wildlife populations. What bothers me more is that a massive portion of the US population falls under the zone wherein Customs and Border Protection can do almost whatever they want. It's something like 100 miles from the border. Imagine driving down a street in NYC and a customs agent pops out of nowhere, stops you, disassembles most of your car's interior, demands the password to your phone and computer under threat of jailing, and then heads off with your phone, laptop, any papers you had, and the $6,000 in cash you were carrying to buy a used car. 100% legal, as far as the supreme court is concerned. I wonder if any justices have realized that their courthouse and homes are within that same zone they think the constitution doesn't apply.
  - thaumasiotes 5y ago
    > Game is a public resource and we're sufficiently populated these days, and weapons sufficiently advanced, that unchecked hunting can decimate wildlife populations. Sure, but that was true thousands of years ago too. It doesn't take much. If you're willing to draw the obvious conclusion from the fact that mass extinction of large animals has occurred every time humans were introduced somewhere, it's always been true.
  - Ansil849 5y ago
    > What bothers me more is that a massive portion of the US population falls under the zone wherein Customs and Border Protection can do almost whatever they want. It's something like 100 miles from the border. I definitely agree that this 100-mile reach is egregious overreach, but have there ever been any cases of this being actually abused, such as in the scenario you describe? Or for instance, have CBP agents ever busted into someone's home?
- Hnrobert42 5y ago
  Yeah. I stopped reading after it after it called case law a “judge made law.” Inflammatory rhetoric like that tells you all you need to know about their journalistic ethics.
  - dannyobrien 5y ago
    They're his lawyers, not journalists.
    - azinman2 5y ago
      Then they should know even better that judges don’t make laws, they rule on existing laws, and their rulings get used as precedent. I came here to complain about exactly that. I wish people could argue on actual facts and not politically brand everything in sight.
      - CamperBob2 5y ago
        Then they should know even better that judges don’t make laws, they rule on existing laws, and their rulings get used as precedent. In the US, our system of law is based on our Constitution, in this case the Fourth Amendment to the Bill of Rights. Like several other amendments, this one is written vaguely enough to allow outrageous interpretations by biased or incompetent judges. This is one of those situations. If you can look into Fourth Amendment law without growing steadily sick to your stomach, you're either on the government's side or you have a stronger stomach than mine.
      - betwixthewires 5y ago
        Well, I think what they're getting at is what people call "legislating from the bench", the fourth amendment very clearly protects people from government snooping and seizure without a warrant from a judge, deliberately broad or lax interpretations of things happen in court all the time for whatever reason. Setting a precedent that the fourth amendment doesn't apply to your land outside your house and things like that are very obvious examples of this sort of thing.
      - 5y ago
- tablespoon 5y ago
  > This article turns into a rant after the first few paragraphs, leaving me confused about the actual facts behind the story. Is it legal for the government to setup surveillance cameras on someone's land, to monitor their land? From the article, it sounds like this is exactly what was done. Yeah, the linked article is garbage. You have to follow one of the links to even find the most basic facts about the case from the headline (like what agency put up the cameras and why): https://ij.org/case/tennessee-open-fields/ https://ij.org/case/tennessee-open-fields/: > Officers from the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency (TWRA) routinely enter private land on a whim to search for potential hunting violations. They don’t have probable cause to believe a crime is being committed, and they don’t ask permission from either property owners or a court. Instead, they trespass, wander around as they please, and take photos and videos. They even install cameras so they can keep watching the properties 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
  - User23 5y ago
    Game wardens have shockingly broad authority. It goes back to the English common law. You don’t actually own land you just hold it fee simple and the Crown, or the State in America, actually has the right to all game. They can even enter your house without a warrant to, for example, check freezers. And if they find anything you’d have best tagged it properly. However all the game wardens I know aren’t looking to just randomly harass people. There is usually a good reason when they go after someone, like shooting from a motor vehicle on the road.
    - TechBro8615 5y ago
      Can you cite the legal authority that exempts game wardens from the restrictions imposed on the executive by the constitution? For example, the fourth amendment protects US citizens from warrentless searches. Does this not apply to searches of your property by game wardens? I understand that English common law may have this notion of “lease holding” (if you buy property in the UK you’re technically renting it for 999 years from the queen). However, America is not England and in this country you actually own your property (and in many states can defend it with lethal force). So where is this authority coming from?
- redis_mlc 5y ago
  > Is it legal for the government to setup surveillance cameras on someone's land, to monitor their land? No, a warrant is needed for a permanent camera. The exception is if the camera was on public land and the private area observed was easily visible from street-level, for example. They can use surveillance aircraft with infrared imaging to identify grow operations though. (There was an HN post around a year ago about police using a streetlamp to peer over a fence into a private residence, so check that out.) Unfortunately US police across all jurisdictions are so lazy that they keep trying this, all the way up to FISA courts.
- avs733 5y ago
  Just to be clear…it’s not a news article, it’s an editorial. There’s a small “opinion” tag at the top that gets kind of overwhelmed by all the ads.
SubiculumCode 5y ago
We have allowed power to become heavily centralized across many aspects of law and culture, and representation (e.g. number of house representatives per capita). Reversing that trend is probably a good idea, if only to help keep the peace between geographies with different values and needs currently fighting to win in an all-or-nothing federal system.
hermes8329 5y ago
Backwoods Tennessee? The person doing the job today probably only has the job because the previous revenuer was shot, killed,and buried as they stood
- Ryoung27 5y ago
  As someone from Tennessee, do you use stereotypes to judge everything? That being said, your assumptions about the state are based on East Tennessee, while this took place in Middle Tennessee. They're really very different and are about a 4 hour drive apart.
hirundo 5y ago
God bless the Institute for Justice, they really do what it says on the tin, including actually winning cases. And that can have such huge leverage on national policy. They have a gift for choosing good cases and promoting them effectively. By bang per buck they're my favorite 501(c)(3).
hellbannedguy 5y ago
"Inspectors in many cities and towns can show up at any time and demand warrantless access to bedrooms, bathrooms and other private living quarters." In the Bay Area, Building Inspectors are taking pictures of each room of your home, or building, when you ask/pay for a permit. This is the routine: You need that pesky permit to move a light switch over a foot. You pay that rediculious permit fee. The Inspector shows up, and you let him in. He starts taking pictures of your home. You tell him the permit is only for the switch in the bathroom. He walks around your home, and takes pictures of everything. Why? So the town will have your hone on record. If you do anything without a permit in the future they have you cold. (Most people don't realize governmental officials have this much power. And please, I don't need the Nervous Nelly sticking up for a obviously broken system. A system that discourages home improvements. A system that encourages excessive fees. A system that encourages homeowners from forgoing permits.)
rahimnathwani 5y ago
The government's justification for this is the open fields doctrine, which comes from a supreme court ruling that says that fourth amendment protections don't apply to 'open fields': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-fields_doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-fields_doctrine
- SkeuomorphicBee 5y ago
  Which makes a lot of sense, the 4th amendment was never meant to protect land this way, It was always meant for personal things and the household, not meant to carve all private land as off-limits to everyone and the government. In regard to access to land, I really like the Freedom to roam [0] doctrines of a few European countries. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam
  - primax 5y ago
    I'm sure the common person likes the Freedom to Roam, but those of us who live on farms and like our seclusion it would be a nightmare.
    - mistrial9 5y ago
      its only a nightmare when you cant trust the travelers, or when the visit is not peaceful
      - hammock 5y ago
        Which was the justification for the Third Amendment... the travelers (quartered soldiers) were neither trustworthy nor peaceful.
      - newsclues 5y ago
        Or if the traveller hides cameras that interfere with your privacy on your own land.
maxk42 5y ago
Warrantless spying should be illegal full stop. Let alone installing equipment on someone's land or cutting down their trees. I hope the government agency responsible for this is soundly reprimanded in court.
- londons_explore 5y ago
  They'll just get told to pay $25 for the lost value of wood on that tree branch.
  - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
    And if a pleb logged a few feet over the property line and that was a government tree you could bet they'd be going after him for some insane fantasy value of it.
    - nickff 5y ago
      It’d likely be a felony offense.
hownottowrite 5y ago
Forbes had a better write up back in April when this story made the rounds: https://www.forbes.com/sites/instituteforjustice/2020/04/14/is-your-land-really-yours-if-the-government-can-watch-you-whenever-it-wants/amp/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/instituteforjustice/2020/04/14/... Also, Terry got a PPP loan for $20k for his one person soybean farm. Seems legit.
- pugworthy 5y ago
  > Also, Terry got a PPP loan for $20k for his one person soybean farm. Seems legit. Well it could be totally legit. Single person farms still pay people, even if themselves, and $20k isn't that much. Besides payroll, they can be used for owner compensation, mortgage interest for business related loans, business rental payments, business utility payments, and continuing employee benefits. For farmers, the PPP maximum loan amount is 2.5 times the amount of the average monthly payroll costs from the prior 12 months or the 2020 / 2019 calendar year, capped at $10 million. See https://farms.extension.wisc.edu/ppp-and-eidl-loans-advances-what-farmers-should-know/ https://farms.extension.wisc.edu/ppp-and-eidl-loans-advances...
- pugworthy 5y ago
  I have to wonder how do you even know he has a PPP loan. I search his name and "PPP" and the only hits I get are federal government information sites. The Forbes article doesn't had the word "loan" or "ppp" or "soybean" so where are you getting this info from? You can find info on his loan at https://www.federalpay.org/paycheck-protection-program/terry-rainwaters-camden-tn https://www.federalpay.org/paycheck-protection-program/terry... Are you trying to just stir up controversy with that comment? It's almost like you're troll farm driven.
  - hownottowrite 5y ago
    I thought the OP article was likely a rehash of an older article so googled his name. The Forbes article and the PPP loan results were right next to each other. I read them both and thought the guy was pretty sketchy all in all. As for stirring up controversy, this entire topic is controversial. It’s a post designed to trigger privacy rights people, and doing quite well by the looks of it.
mensetmanusman 5y ago
I’m interested in what the future of 24/7 drone surveillance looks like in the U.S. Many countries are using this technology, which lets them rewind, and then fast-forward (and rewind, and so on) to catch and understand criminal networks, but eventually it will be used by divorced couples to find out where the other person was.
- betwixthewires 5y ago
  That's actually a pretty interesting topic actually. Does a drone flying over your property count as a warrantless search? The government will most certainly be of the opinion that it does not.
  - hansvm 5y ago
    The courts have typically been ruling that other kinds of tech designed to surveil without entering the property (e.g., thermal imaging) constitute searches. I could see drones being counted differently, but that doesn't seem like a certain bet to me.
  - mensetmanusman 5y ago
    Not necessarily, judges have confirmed that using high tech surveillance from the street isn’t always legal (e.g. massive checks of the temperature in people’s garage to find people growing plants etc.).
    - betwixthewires 5y ago
      Well by government I mean the agencies doing the surveiling. They'll of course insist and argue in court that it's lawful, I would hope judges say it isn't. It's tricky because of the way airspace works with private property, its a very complex realm. It's different peering through their roof to see what they're doing inside, but just watching people outside might be considered not an unlawful search.
stevespang 5y ago
This is sort of a "promotional" piece for the Institute of Justice, who I support and donate to wholeheartedly, as I do the EFF. These folks at the IoJ are fighting back against the evil police state that is ever destroying our rights.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
unfungible 5y ago
An unfortunately common practice that isn't new. There are voluminous examples and an easily found one below. https://www.cnet.com/news/court-oks-warrantless-use-of-hidden-surveillance-cameras/ https://www.cnet.com/news/court-oks-warrantless-use-of-hidde...
projektfu 5y ago
I searched the records and don't find a case with Terry Rainwaters listed, and the only mentions of Hunter Hollingsworth are for felony theft, with a guilty plea, but I can't say that it's the same person. Was this case actually filed or is this just like an exercise?

193 points by eric_h 5y ago

This article turns into a rant after the first few paragraphs, leaving me confused about the actual facts behind the story. Is it legal for the government to setup surveillance cameras on someone's land, to monitor their land? From the article, it sounds like this is exactly what was done.

op00to 5y ago
If it’s not immediately adjacent to a persons home, apparently so.
throwthere 5y ago
My money is on no, the cameras were not on his property. The article says the spy cameras were “placed the within the boundaries of where he lives, farms and hunts.” Since the column piece is written by the complainant/affiliate my guess is the cameras were close to his land but on public property around the river and pointed at his property.
- dylan604 5y ago
  > “placed the within the boundaries of where he lives, farms and hunts.” I recognize the words, but that is a really strained sentence structure. What are they trying to say? Placed within the boundaries sounds like my property. If I'm roaming my property and find something there that I did not put there, then I'm going to be taking it down. I'll probably even attempt to sell it.
  - wslack 5y ago
    It sounds like they are trying to imply it was his land without actually stating as such (because it was likely just over the property border).
    - dylan604 5y ago
      As long as it "just" over the property line then I guess it's not really his property then? Doubt the tax assessor gives them a break on the "just" over part of it. Are we really trying to say that property lines are gray areas? If I build my fence just over the line onto my neighbor's property, that'd be okay then, right? This straining to justify the trespassing to place an illegal wiretap is just mind boggling.
      - rfrey 5y ago
        I think your parent meant "just over" in the opposite direction, e.g. just outside his property.
        dylan604 5y ago
        i guess that could be read that way now that you mention it. totally didn't take it that way in my jumping to conclusions. so, now that we've established it could be not on your property but absolutely most definitely viewing your property, time for action. Time for a sheet of plywood blocking the view. Now, knowing that it's probably an extremely wide angle lens, that playwood probably won't block the full view. Time for a bright ass light on that board that just so happens to point at the camera. Maybe a UV LED lights to make it not as annoying in case that light is too disturbing. Or, a laser light show attached to that piece of plywood that just happnes to scan back and forth across the camera lens several times at alternating heights.
        brewdad 5y ago
        As if they can't come and move the camera. I suppose eventually you could build your plywood wall around the entire perimeter of the property. In the suburbs we call that a privacy fence. A bit more costly to build on such a large plot of land however.
        dylan604 5y ago
        Okay, so now I'm starting to wonder if I'm just a sick mind or if others are just really not very creative. So you go and move the piece of plywood. It costs the US Gov't much more money to move the thing than it will you. Stick it to the man. Plus, each time you move it, you can update the messages you've spray painted onto that piece of plywood. "Hello Mr Secret Agent Man!" "Isn't it a lovely day to be viewing my property?" "How about you go and..."
  - chaircher 5y ago
    might be to articulate the privacy issues. As in, the cameras aren't just technically on his property but they're filming his whole life
- mod 5y ago
  I had the opposite takeaway from the text; that is, that the cameras were, in fact, on his property. The quote you cited is just referencing his property, I think they said 163 acres.
- stefan_ 5y ago
  Surely we can just resolve this by looking at the actual complaint instead of trying to divine sense from some words like it's a party manifesto from Xi? Here it is, then: https://ij.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Tennessee-Open-Fields-Complaint-Final.pdf https://ij.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Tennessee-Open-Fie... The graphic on page 11 seems to indeed show the camera on the property.
  - kingcharles 5y ago
    Interesting that he filed this only under his State's constitution in State court. I don't see why he couldn't have made a 4th Am. challenge under federal law too, and filed in federal court. Although they may have passed on the State law aspect if they deemed it too complex. A county court judge is woefully under-skilled and will almost certainly side with authorities and bump this to the appellate courts for a more in-depth legal examination. Do we know if he has a collateral federal case?
    - antognini 5y ago
      Some states have stronger protections in their state constitutions than the federal constitution provides. Montana, for instance, explicitly provides a right to privacy, whereas a "right to privacy" is at best implicit in the US Constitution. I don't know anything about the Tennessean Constitution to say if that's the reason though.
      - kingcharles 5y ago
        I looked at it real quick, it's not one of the states that copy-pastes the 4th Am like a lot do, but it also doesn't seem to offer up any extra protections like some states do, as you mention.
  - saberdancer 5y ago
    That graphic is quite bad. Not all markers follow the same logic. For the "Terry's Gate" the white line seems to point to the location of the gate, while when showing homes they do not point to homes but use the icon to designate location. Depending on what they used for TWRA Camera the camera may or may not be located on the property. I am leaning toward not on the property as there is no real reason why they would point outside of the property with the white line unless they wanted to show where it actually was.
- judge2020 5y ago
  Even if something is placed on government-owned land (eg. a river), they're still bound by the fourth amendment and they can't use security cameras that surveil where the owner/person has a 'reasonable expectation of privacy'. Whether or not that means the owner of the land has such expectation on hundreds of acres depends on how secure the location is; you could make the argument "anyone could legally boat down the river and see them, therefore there is not an expectation of privacy", or you could make the argument that cameras installed at an unreasonably high elevation (eg. the top of a tree on the river) would be surveilling land that nobody not trespassing could see. This is also assuming you have a legal fence/barrier that informs anyone trespassing isn't allowed, otherwise it'd be harder to claim treading the land and setting up 'wildlife cameras' is trespassing.
hutzlibu 5y ago
"Is it legal for the government to setup surveillance cameras on someone's land, to monitor their land?" That is about to be found out in court. "Although the case is proceeding in state court under the authority of the Tennessee Constitution, the central claims point to a nationwide problem. Starting about 100 years ago.." But the issue behind, is a more complicated one.
- cronix 5y ago
  It will also likely soon become moot as drones get cheaper and cheaper, and you don't own the sky over your land. Here's a company, Brinc, building border security drones which the promo video also says can also easily be used for prisons, data centers and just about anything else. https://theintercept.com/2021/12/13/brinc-startup-taser-drones-migrants/ https://theintercept.com/2021/12/13/brinc-startup-taser-dron...
  - hutzlibu 5y ago
    But if a private person may not fly over private property of other people, than that rule should apply for government personal, too - unless a warrant, or "special rules". And they can be changed by the people.
    - gnopgnip 5y ago
      The airspace 500ft up, and in some cases 200 ft and up is public property basically.
      - nitrogen 5y ago
        This really needs to change with the mass availability of camera drones.
        brewdad 5y ago
        Good luck leaving air travel viable while closing all the loopholes that would still be abused.
KennyBlanken 5y ago
It boils down to: 'environmental'/game officers have sometimes very shocking levels of power because of the nature of their job, but the article is correct that the supreme court has been steadily eroding our privacy rights for the better part of at least half a century. The game warden probably doesn't give a shit about your weed (unless you were high/drunk while carrying/using a firearm); he cares about whether you shot a deer when you weren't supposed to. Game is a public resource and we're sufficiently populated these days, and weapons sufficiently advanced, that unchecked hunting can decimate wildlife populations. What bothers me more is that a massive portion of the US population falls under the zone wherein Customs and Border Protection can do almost whatever they want. It's something like 100 miles from the border. Imagine driving down a street in NYC and a customs agent pops out of nowhere, stops you, disassembles most of your car's interior, demands the password to your phone and computer under threat of jailing, and then heads off with your phone, laptop, any papers you had, and the $6,000 in cash you were carrying to buy a used car. 100% legal, as far as the supreme court is concerned. I wonder if any justices have realized that their courthouse and homes are within that same zone they think the constitution doesn't apply.
- thaumasiotes 5y ago
  > Game is a public resource and we're sufficiently populated these days, and weapons sufficiently advanced, that unchecked hunting can decimate wildlife populations. Sure, but that was true thousands of years ago too. It doesn't take much. If you're willing to draw the obvious conclusion from the fact that mass extinction of large animals has occurred every time humans were introduced somewhere, it's always been true.
- Ansil849 5y ago
  > What bothers me more is that a massive portion of the US population falls under the zone wherein Customs and Border Protection can do almost whatever they want. It's something like 100 miles from the border. I definitely agree that this 100-mile reach is egregious overreach, but have there ever been any cases of this being actually abused, such as in the scenario you describe? Or for instance, have CBP agents ever busted into someone's home?
Hnrobert42 5y ago
Yeah. I stopped reading after it after it called case law a “judge made law.” Inflammatory rhetoric like that tells you all you need to know about their journalistic ethics.
- dannyobrien 5y ago
  They're his lawyers, not journalists.
  - azinman2 5y ago
    Then they should know even better that judges don’t make laws, they rule on existing laws, and their rulings get used as precedent. I came here to complain about exactly that. I wish people could argue on actual facts and not politically brand everything in sight.
    - CamperBob2 5y ago
      Then they should know even better that judges don’t make laws, they rule on existing laws, and their rulings get used as precedent. In the US, our system of law is based on our Constitution, in this case the Fourth Amendment to the Bill of Rights. Like several other amendments, this one is written vaguely enough to allow outrageous interpretations by biased or incompetent judges. This is one of those situations. If you can look into Fourth Amendment law without growing steadily sick to your stomach, you're either on the government's side or you have a stronger stomach than mine.
    - betwixthewires 5y ago
      Well, I think what they're getting at is what people call "legislating from the bench", the fourth amendment very clearly protects people from government snooping and seizure without a warrant from a judge, deliberately broad or lax interpretations of things happen in court all the time for whatever reason. Setting a precedent that the fourth amendment doesn't apply to your land outside your house and things like that are very obvious examples of this sort of thing.
    - 5y ago
tablespoon 5y ago
> This article turns into a rant after the first few paragraphs, leaving me confused about the actual facts behind the story. Is it legal for the government to setup surveillance cameras on someone's land, to monitor their land? From the article, it sounds like this is exactly what was done. Yeah, the linked article is garbage. You have to follow one of the links to even find the most basic facts about the case from the headline (like what agency put up the cameras and why): https://ij.org/case/tennessee-open-fields/ https://ij.org/case/tennessee-open-fields/: > Officers from the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency (TWRA) routinely enter private land on a whim to search for potential hunting violations. They don’t have probable cause to believe a crime is being committed, and they don’t ask permission from either property owners or a court. Instead, they trespass, wander around as they please, and take photos and videos. They even install cameras so they can keep watching the properties 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
- User23 5y ago
  Game wardens have shockingly broad authority. It goes back to the English common law. You don’t actually own land you just hold it fee simple and the Crown, or the State in America, actually has the right to all game. They can even enter your house without a warrant to, for example, check freezers. And if they find anything you’d have best tagged it properly. However all the game wardens I know aren’t looking to just randomly harass people. There is usually a good reason when they go after someone, like shooting from a motor vehicle on the road.
  - TechBro8615 5y ago
    Can you cite the legal authority that exempts game wardens from the restrictions imposed on the executive by the constitution? For example, the fourth amendment protects US citizens from warrentless searches. Does this not apply to searches of your property by game wardens? I understand that English common law may have this notion of “lease holding” (if you buy property in the UK you’re technically renting it for 999 years from the queen). However, America is not England and in this country you actually own your property (and in many states can defend it with lethal force). So where is this authority coming from?
redis_mlc 5y ago
> Is it legal for the government to setup surveillance cameras on someone's land, to monitor their land? No, a warrant is needed for a permanent camera. The exception is if the camera was on public land and the private area observed was easily visible from street-level, for example. They can use surveillance aircraft with infrared imaging to identify grow operations though. (There was an HN post around a year ago about police using a streetlamp to peer over a fence into a private residence, so check that out.) Unfortunately US police across all jurisdictions are so lazy that they keep trying this, all the way up to FISA courts.
avs733 5y ago
Just to be clear…it’s not a news article, it’s an editorial. There’s a small “opinion” tag at the top that gets kind of overwhelmed by all the ads.

SubiculumCode 5y ago

We have allowed power to become heavily centralized across many aspects of law and culture, and representation (e.g. number of house representatives per capita). Reversing that trend is probably a good idea, if only to help keep the peace between geographies with different values and needs currently fighting to win in an all-or-nothing federal system.

hermes8329 5y ago

Backwoods Tennessee? The person doing the job today probably only has the job because the previous revenuer was shot, killed,and buried as they stood

Ryoung27 5y ago
As someone from Tennessee, do you use stereotypes to judge everything? That being said, your assumptions about the state are based on East Tennessee, while this took place in Middle Tennessee. They're really very different and are about a 4 hour drive apart.

hirundo 5y ago

God bless the Institute for Justice, they really do what it says on the tin, including actually winning cases. And that can have such huge leverage on national policy. They have a gift for choosing good cases and promoting them effectively. By bang per buck they're my favorite 501(c)(3).

hellbannedguy 5y ago

"Inspectors in many cities and towns can show up at any time and demand warrantless access to bedrooms, bathrooms and other private living quarters." In the Bay Area, Building Inspectors are taking pictures of each room of your home, or building, when you ask/pay for a permit. This is the routine: You need that pesky permit to move a light switch over a foot. You pay that rediculious permit fee. The Inspector shows up, and you let him in. He starts taking pictures of your home. You tell him the permit is only for the switch in the bathroom. He walks around your home, and takes pictures of everything. Why? So the town will have your hone on record. If you do anything without a permit in the future they have you cold. (Most people don't realize governmental officials have this much power. And please, I don't need the Nervous Nelly sticking up for a obviously broken system. A system that discourages home improvements. A system that encourages excessive fees. A system that encourages homeowners from forgoing permits.)

rahimnathwani 5y ago

The government's justification for this is the open fields doctrine, which comes from a supreme court ruling that says that fourth amendment protections don't apply to 'open fields': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-fields_doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-fields_doctrine

SkeuomorphicBee 5y ago
Which makes a lot of sense, the 4th amendment was never meant to protect land this way, It was always meant for personal things and the household, not meant to carve all private land as off-limits to everyone and the government. In regard to access to land, I really like the Freedom to roam [0] doctrines of a few European countries. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam
- primax 5y ago
  I'm sure the common person likes the Freedom to Roam, but those of us who live on farms and like our seclusion it would be a nightmare.
  - mistrial9 5y ago
    its only a nightmare when you cant trust the travelers, or when the visit is not peaceful
    - hammock 5y ago
      Which was the justification for the Third Amendment... the travelers (quartered soldiers) were neither trustworthy nor peaceful.
    - newsclues 5y ago
      Or if the traveller hides cameras that interfere with your privacy on your own land.

maxk42 5y ago

Warrantless spying should be illegal full stop. Let alone installing equipment on someone's land or cutting down their trees. I hope the government agency responsible for this is soundly reprimanded in court.

londons_explore 5y ago
They'll just get told to pay $25 for the lost value of wood on that tree branch.
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  And if a pleb logged a few feet over the property line and that was a government tree you could bet they'd be going after him for some insane fantasy value of it.
  - nickff 5y ago
    It’d likely be a felony offense.

hownottowrite 5y ago

Forbes had a better write up back in April when this story made the rounds: https://www.forbes.com/sites/instituteforjustice/2020/04/14/is-your-land-really-yours-if-the-government-can-watch-you-whenever-it-wants/amp/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/instituteforjustice/2020/04/14/... Also, Terry got a PPP loan for $20k for his one person soybean farm. Seems legit.

pugworthy 5y ago
> Also, Terry got a PPP loan for $20k for his one person soybean farm. Seems legit. Well it could be totally legit. Single person farms still pay people, even if themselves, and $20k isn't that much. Besides payroll, they can be used for owner compensation, mortgage interest for business related loans, business rental payments, business utility payments, and continuing employee benefits. For farmers, the PPP maximum loan amount is 2.5 times the amount of the average monthly payroll costs from the prior 12 months or the 2020 / 2019 calendar year, capped at $10 million. See https://farms.extension.wisc.edu/ppp-and-eidl-loans-advances-what-farmers-should-know/ https://farms.extension.wisc.edu/ppp-and-eidl-loans-advances...
pugworthy 5y ago
I have to wonder how do you even know he has a PPP loan. I search his name and "PPP" and the only hits I get are federal government information sites. The Forbes article doesn't had the word "loan" or "ppp" or "soybean" so where are you getting this info from? You can find info on his loan at https://www.federalpay.org/paycheck-protection-program/terry-rainwaters-camden-tn https://www.federalpay.org/paycheck-protection-program/terry... Are you trying to just stir up controversy with that comment? It's almost like you're troll farm driven.
- hownottowrite 5y ago
  I thought the OP article was likely a rehash of an older article so googled his name. The Forbes article and the PPP loan results were right next to each other. I read them both and thought the guy was pretty sketchy all in all. As for stirring up controversy, this entire topic is controversial. It’s a post designed to trigger privacy rights people, and doing quite well by the looks of it.

mensetmanusman 5y ago

I’m interested in what the future of 24/7 drone surveillance looks like in the U.S. Many countries are using this technology, which lets them rewind, and then fast-forward (and rewind, and so on) to catch and understand criminal networks, but eventually it will be used by divorced couples to find out where the other person was.

betwixthewires 5y ago
That's actually a pretty interesting topic actually. Does a drone flying over your property count as a warrantless search? The government will most certainly be of the opinion that it does not.
- hansvm 5y ago
  The courts have typically been ruling that other kinds of tech designed to surveil without entering the property (e.g., thermal imaging) constitute searches. I could see drones being counted differently, but that doesn't seem like a certain bet to me.
- mensetmanusman 5y ago
  Not necessarily, judges have confirmed that using high tech surveillance from the street isn’t always legal (e.g. massive checks of the temperature in people’s garage to find people growing plants etc.).
  - betwixthewires 5y ago
    Well by government I mean the agencies doing the surveiling. They'll of course insist and argue in court that it's lawful, I would hope judges say it isn't. It's tricky because of the way airspace works with private property, its a very complex realm. It's different peering through their roof to see what they're doing inside, but just watching people outside might be considered not an unlawful search.

stevespang 5y ago

This is sort of a "promotional" piece for the Institute of Justice, who I support and donate to wholeheartedly, as I do the EFF. These folks at the IoJ are fighting back against the evil police state that is ever destroying our rights.

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unfungible 5y ago

An unfortunately common practice that isn't new. There are voluminous examples and an easily found one below. https://www.cnet.com/news/court-oks-warrantless-use-of-hidden-surveillance-cameras/ https://www.cnet.com/news/court-oks-warrantless-use-of-hidde...

projektfu 5y ago

I searched the records and don't find a case with Terry Rainwaters listed, and the only mentions of Hunter Hollingsworth are for felony theft, with a guilty plea, but I can't say that it's the same person. Was this case actually filed or is this just like an exercise?