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People don't have any expectation that the license plate on their car cannot be seen by law enforcement. People do not expect their phones to be feeding their

People don't have any expectation that the license plate on their car cannot be seen by law enforcement. People do not expect their phones to be feeding their locations to cops and they do not expect things hidden on them unknowingly to exist. But it really stretches believability that people have no idea that cops check license plate. Or that cops communicate with each other about license plates to coordinate searches or that cops have databases of license plates. Heck there's a whole trope in media that you need to swap license plates to hide from cops. Next you're going to be telling us we need a warrant for an Amber alert.

estearum 2mo ago
You should read SCOTUS opinions instead of forming beliefs based on media tropes, duh.
- fluidcruft 2mo ago
  > you should go away until you agree with me so that I don't have to engage in discussion I didn't ask you to reply to any of my comments.
- otterley 2mo ago
  I’d like it if you provided relevant quotes from these opinions that support your assertions. It’s not very persuasive otherwise. These cases are highly nuanced. Also, you’re being kind of a dick. Knock it off.
  - estearum 2mo ago
    > I’d like it if you provided relevant quotes from these opinions that support your assertions... These cases are highly nuanced. That nuance is why it's worth reading the entire opinion. Anyway here you go: > GPS monitoring generates a precise, comprehensive record of a person’s public movements that reflects a wealth of detail about her familial, political, professional, religious, and sexual associations. See, e.g., People v. Weaver, 12 N.Y.3d 433, 441–442, 909 N.E.2d 1195, 1199 (2009) (“Disclosed in [GPS] data . . . will be trips the indisputably private nature of which takes little imagination to conjure: trips to the psychiatrist, the plastic surgeon, the abortion clinic, the AIDS treatment center, the strip club, the criminal defense attorney, the by-the-hour motel, the union meeting, the mosque, synagogue or church, the gay bar and on and on”). The Government can store such records and efficiently mine them for information years into the future. Pineda-Moreno, 617 F. 3d, at 1124 (opinion of Kozinski, C. J.). And because GPS monitoring is cheap in comparison to conventional surveillance techniques and, by design, proceeds surreptitiously, it evades the ordinary checks that constrain abusive law enforcement practices: “limited police resources and community hostility.” Illinois v. Lidster, 540 U.S. 419, 426 (2004). > Awareness that the Government may be watching chills associational and expressive freedoms. And the Government’s unrestrained power to assemble data that reveal private aspects of identity is susceptible to abuse. The net result is that GPS monitoring—by making available at a relatively low cost such a substantial quantum of intimate information about any person whom the Government, in its unfettered discretion, chooses to track—may “alter the relationship between citizen and government in a way that is inimical to democratic society.” United States v. Cuevas-Perez, 640 F.3d 272, 285 (CA7 2011) (Flaum, J., concurring). > I would take these attributes of GPS monitoring into account when considering the existence of a reasonable societal expectation of privacy in the sum of one’s public movements. I would ask whether people reasonably expect that their movements will be recorded and aggregated in a manner that enables the Government to ascertain, more or less at will, their political and religious beliefs, sexual habits, and so on. I do not regard as dispositive the fact that the Government might obtain the fruits of GPS monitoring through lawful conventional surveillance techniques. See Kyllo, 533 U. S., at 35, n. 2; ante, at 11 (leaving open the possibility that duplicating traditional surveillance “through electronic means, without an accompanying trespass, is an unconstitutional invasion of privacy”). I would also consider the appropriateness of entrusting to the Executive, in the absence of any oversight from a coordinate branch, a tool so amenable to misuse, especially in light of the Fourth Amendment’s goal to curb arbitrary exercises of police power to and prevent “a too permeating police surveillance,” United States v. Di Re, 332 U.S. 581, 595 (1948).[1]* ======= Now the question is: is this characterization true only of GPS monitoring? Or is it also true of a sufficiently broad network for ALPRs? The answer of course is the latter. Here, Sotomayor + 4 other Justices are saying it's actually not as simple as Fluidcruft's "you're in public so plain view doctrine answers it"
    - otterley 2mo ago
      Remember, though, that a concurrence is not controlling precedent. The actual opinion in U.S. v. Jones hinges on the fact that "The Government physically occupied private property for the purpose of obtaining information," and also stated "[t]his Court has to date not deviated from the understanding that mere visual observation does not constitute a search."
      - estearum 2mo ago
        Correct, and the controlling opinion remained ambivalent as to the question that fluidstack (or whatever) believes is so concretely obvious. So the controlling opinion said: "we won't answer this question." The concurring opinion (signed by 5) said "fluidstack is wrong."
        otterley 2mo ago
        There were two concurring opinions in that case: One was signed by Justices Alito, Ginsburg, Breyer, and Kagan. The other--the one whose quotes you cite--was Justice Sotomayor's alone. There can't be a "concurring opinion" signed by five Justices. An opinion signed by five Justices is a majority, and would constitute the Opinion of the Court. I think that the most we can say right now is that although the "plain view" doctrine has been weakened somewhat over the last couple decades, it's not completely dead yet. The fact is that there hasn't been a case on point to answer the questions as to whether 1/ALPRs constitute a "search" under the Fourth Amendment (a threshold question that must be answered "yes" to proceed further), 2/whether use of the technology can be "reasonable" under any circumstances, and 3/whether there are any exceptions to the warrant requirement. We have a long way to go before we know what the law is on this technology. Remember, too, that the Fourth Amendment has only a "reasonableness" and a warrant requirement. It does not ban technologies for surveillance outright. (See, e.g., Kyllo v. U.S., where the use of thermal surveillance technology wasn't the issue in and of itself, but rather constituted a search necessitating a warrant.) So how about you tone down the attitude a bit? You're arguing from shaky ground, and there are more constructive ways to contribute to this debate.
unethical_ban 2mo ago
Do you really believe the level of effort for human LEO to track license plates is the same as a bunch of AI enabled cameras? Do you think the level of effort to correlate that data between people is the same with a bunch of people with excel as it is with an AI agent?

estearum 2mo ago

You should read SCOTUS opinions instead of forming beliefs based on media tropes, duh.

fluidcruft 2mo ago
> you should go away until you agree with me so that I don't have to engage in discussion I didn't ask you to reply to any of my comments.
otterley 2mo ago
I’d like it if you provided relevant quotes from these opinions that support your assertions. It’s not very persuasive otherwise. These cases are highly nuanced. Also, you’re being kind of a dick. Knock it off.
- estearum 2mo ago
  > I’d like it if you provided relevant quotes from these opinions that support your assertions... These cases are highly nuanced. That nuance is why it's worth reading the entire opinion. Anyway here you go: > GPS monitoring generates a precise, comprehensive record of a person’s public movements that reflects a wealth of detail about her familial, political, professional, religious, and sexual associations. See, e.g., People v. Weaver, 12 N.Y.3d 433, 441–442, 909 N.E.2d 1195, 1199 (2009) (“Disclosed in [GPS] data . . . will be trips the indisputably private nature of which takes little imagination to conjure: trips to the psychiatrist, the plastic surgeon, the abortion clinic, the AIDS treatment center, the strip club, the criminal defense attorney, the by-the-hour motel, the union meeting, the mosque, synagogue or church, the gay bar and on and on”). The Government can store such records and efficiently mine them for information years into the future. Pineda-Moreno, 617 F. 3d, at 1124 (opinion of Kozinski, C. J.). And because GPS monitoring is cheap in comparison to conventional surveillance techniques and, by design, proceeds surreptitiously, it evades the ordinary checks that constrain abusive law enforcement practices: “limited police resources and community hostility.” Illinois v. Lidster, 540 U.S. 419, 426 (2004). > Awareness that the Government may be watching chills associational and expressive freedoms. And the Government’s unrestrained power to assemble data that reveal private aspects of identity is susceptible to abuse. The net result is that GPS monitoring—by making available at a relatively low cost such a substantial quantum of intimate information about any person whom the Government, in its unfettered discretion, chooses to track—may “alter the relationship between citizen and government in a way that is inimical to democratic society.” United States v. Cuevas-Perez, 640 F.3d 272, 285 (CA7 2011) (Flaum, J., concurring). > I would take these attributes of GPS monitoring into account when considering the existence of a reasonable societal expectation of privacy in the sum of one’s public movements. I would ask whether people reasonably expect that their movements will be recorded and aggregated in a manner that enables the Government to ascertain, more or less at will, their political and religious beliefs, sexual habits, and so on. I do not regard as dispositive the fact that the Government might obtain the fruits of GPS monitoring through lawful conventional surveillance techniques. See Kyllo, 533 U. S., at 35, n. 2; ante, at 11 (leaving open the possibility that duplicating traditional surveillance “through electronic means, without an accompanying trespass, is an unconstitutional invasion of privacy”). I would also consider the appropriateness of entrusting to the Executive, in the absence of any oversight from a coordinate branch, a tool so amenable to misuse, especially in light of the Fourth Amendment’s goal to curb arbitrary exercises of police power to and prevent “a too permeating police surveillance,” United States v. Di Re, 332 U.S. 581, 595 (1948).[1]* ======= Now the question is: is this characterization true only of GPS monitoring? Or is it also true of a sufficiently broad network for ALPRs? The answer of course is the latter. Here, Sotomayor + 4 other Justices are saying it's actually not as simple as Fluidcruft's "you're in public so plain view doctrine answers it"
  - otterley 2mo ago
    Remember, though, that a concurrence is not controlling precedent. The actual opinion in U.S. v. Jones hinges on the fact that "The Government physically occupied private property for the purpose of obtaining information," and also stated "[t]his Court has to date not deviated from the understanding that mere visual observation does not constitute a search."
    - estearum 2mo ago
      Correct, and the controlling opinion remained ambivalent as to the question that fluidstack (or whatever) believes is so concretely obvious. So the controlling opinion said: "we won't answer this question." The concurring opinion (signed by 5) said "fluidstack is wrong."
      - otterley 2mo ago
        There were two concurring opinions in that case: One was signed by Justices Alito, Ginsburg, Breyer, and Kagan. The other--the one whose quotes you cite--was Justice Sotomayor's alone. There can't be a "concurring opinion" signed by five Justices. An opinion signed by five Justices is a majority, and would constitute the Opinion of the Court. I think that the most we can say right now is that although the "plain view" doctrine has been weakened somewhat over the last couple decades, it's not completely dead yet. The fact is that there hasn't been a case on point to answer the questions as to whether 1/ALPRs constitute a "search" under the Fourth Amendment (a threshold question that must be answered "yes" to proceed further), 2/whether use of the technology can be "reasonable" under any circumstances, and 3/whether there are any exceptions to the warrant requirement. We have a long way to go before we know what the law is on this technology. Remember, too, that the Fourth Amendment has only a "reasonableness" and a warrant requirement. It does not ban technologies for surveillance outright. (See, e.g., Kyllo v. U.S., where the use of thermal surveillance technology wasn't the issue in and of itself, but rather constituted a search necessitating a warrant.) So how about you tone down the attitude a bit? You're arguing from shaky ground, and there are more constructive ways to contribute to this debate.

unethical_ban 2mo ago

Do you really believe the level of effort for human LEO to track license plates is the same as a bunch of AI enabled cameras? Do you think the level of effort to correlate that data between people is the same with a bunch of people with excel as it is with an AI agent?