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That which takes place in public has never been, and will never be, subject to 4th Amendment protections. Otherwise the police would need probable cause, and t

That which takes place in public has never been, and will never be, subject to 4th Amendment protections. Otherwise the police would need probable cause, and therefore a warrant, to look at you while walking down the street.

ranger_danger 2y ago
And FedEx delivers on private property 90% of the time, all day every day. This includes car license plates which they actively scan for, meaning your physical location is now being tracked and sold. Cameras always running.
ranger_danger 2y ago
Clearly it is a contested issue even within the court system, there have been verdicts made that go both ways on the same issue and many lawyers are noticing that your position is not shared by everyone in charge, and I do not think any of us are in a position to make such unfalsifiable claims. https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/warrantless-pole-camera-surveillance-by-police-is-dangerous-the-supreme-court-can-stop-it https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/warrantless-pol... https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/police-turn-on-hidden-cameras-turn-off-fourth-amendment https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/police-turn-on-hid... >the court determined that no “search” had occurred prior to the entry in Tuggle’s home, so the Fourth Amendment did not apply. To reach this conclusion, the court had to set aside the dictionary and replace the normal meaning of “search” with a fuzzy definition that different courts interpret in different ways at different times.
- samatman 2y ago
  Both of these cases were decided against the defendant, and more to the point, both of these cases concern the police setting up a camera specifically pointed at the front of someone's home. That is quite literally on the dividing line between public and private space. I can easily imagine later courts ruling that the combination of specific intention on the part of the police, and the limitless nature of this surveillance, makes it different in kind from the classic stakeout (which does not require a warrant, and never has), and that therefore that in particular requires a warrant to be obtained. I don't think that will happen, but it's imaginable. You're talking about a truck driving around with a camera, and sharing that data on request with law enforcement. That's a completely different thing, and it isn't an edge case at all. That is, and will be, not subject to 4th Amendment protection. On the contrary, Fields v. City of Philadelphia supports a 1st Amendment right to film in public, in that case, the conduct of the police. But the principle generalizes. Furthermore, as an example, let's say that a repairman enters a home, and sees what he or she reasonably believes to be a brick of heroin on a desk. Later, the police, having staked out this home, ask that repairman if they happened to see something suspicious. The repairman tells the police about the brick, they get a warrant, and enter the home. All of this is completely legal. So there's just no world in which a FedEx truck, or any truck, filming the public space in the ordinary course of doing what it does (delivering packages in this case), where the police later ask for and obtain that record, is going to be subject to 4th Amendment restrictions. It is simply, on many levels, not how things work.
ranger_danger 2y ago
> the police would need probable cause, and therefore a warrant, to look at you while walking down the street. I cannot even begin to fathom this logic

ranger_danger 2y ago

And FedEx delivers on private property 90% of the time, all day every day. This includes car license plates which they actively scan for, meaning your physical location is now being tracked and sold. Cameras always running.

ranger_danger 2y ago

Clearly it is a contested issue even within the court system, there have been verdicts made that go both ways on the same issue and many lawyers are noticing that your position is not shared by everyone in charge, and I do not think any of us are in a position to make such unfalsifiable claims. https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/warrantless-pole-camera-surveillance-by-police-is-dangerous-the-supreme-court-can-stop-it https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/warrantless-pol... https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/police-turn-on-hidden-cameras-turn-off-fourth-amendment https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/police-turn-on-hid... >the court determined that no “search” had occurred prior to the entry in Tuggle’s home, so the Fourth Amendment did not apply. To reach this conclusion, the court had to set aside the dictionary and replace the normal meaning of “search” with a fuzzy definition that different courts interpret in different ways at different times.

samatman 2y ago
Both of these cases were decided against the defendant, and more to the point, both of these cases concern the police setting up a camera specifically pointed at the front of someone's home. That is quite literally on the dividing line between public and private space. I can easily imagine later courts ruling that the combination of specific intention on the part of the police, and the limitless nature of this surveillance, makes it different in kind from the classic stakeout (which does not require a warrant, and never has), and that therefore that in particular requires a warrant to be obtained. I don't think that will happen, but it's imaginable. You're talking about a truck driving around with a camera, and sharing that data on request with law enforcement. That's a completely different thing, and it isn't an edge case at all. That is, and will be, not subject to 4th Amendment protection. On the contrary, Fields v. City of Philadelphia supports a 1st Amendment right to film in public, in that case, the conduct of the police. But the principle generalizes. Furthermore, as an example, let's say that a repairman enters a home, and sees what he or she reasonably believes to be a brick of heroin on a desk. Later, the police, having staked out this home, ask that repairman if they happened to see something suspicious. The repairman tells the police about the brick, they get a warrant, and enter the home. All of this is completely legal. So there's just no world in which a FedEx truck, or any truck, filming the public space in the ordinary course of doing what it does (delivering packages in this case), where the police later ask for and obtain that record, is going to be subject to 4th Amendment restrictions. It is simply, on many levels, not how things work.

ranger_danger 2y ago

> the police would need probable cause, and therefore a warrant, to look at you while walking down the street. I cannot even begin to fathom this logic