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I would argue that if the police require any equipment in addition to the normal range of human senses to detect evidence, the use of such equipment should be c

I would argue that if the police require any equipment in addition to the normal range of human senses to detect evidence, the use of such equipment should be considered a search. What if the equipment is extremely common? Anyone can stand outside your home and see your WiFi networks. Should the cops need a warrant to say "from the street, I turned on my iPhone and saw a wireless network?" What if 75% of smart phones had FLIR and people regularly used them? NB: I'm not necessarily convinced of this. It might turn out the best way is to start at "normal range of human senses" and explicitly add to that, say by legislation.

baddox 12y ago
There will always be grey areas, but I think the recording/observing equipment would need to be both common and not deployed for the purpose of gathering evidence. If some evidence was somehow in the SSID of a Wifi network, and a police officer happened to see it on a laptop, I wouldn't call that a search (although I also probably wouldn't really call it credible enough evidence to justify any further action). If some conversations were broadcast over FM radio, and a police officer happened to hear it while driving by the source, I wouldn't call that a search.