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SCOTUS declines to hear challenge to warrantless pole camera surveillance

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Re: SCOTUS declines to hear challenge to warrantless pole camera surveillance

#21

Post by giantg2 »

jzb wrote: post #19
MagicMoonlight wrote: post #11

Arguing that cameras in a public place capturing only public places are an invasive search is an interesting argument.

The idea is that the length and amount of surveillance is invasive. You expect when you walk out of the house a neighbor might see what you’re doing. Hard to call it invasive if that happens a few times a week. But if your neighbors take turns sitting on their porch, watching every move you make - if you can never come and go without them watching - and they’re taking notes and pictures of every visitor, every packag…

"You expect when you walk out of the house a neighbor might see what you’re doing. Hard to call it invasive if that happens a few times a week."

I mean, maybe that's the expectation/argument from the 19th century. Cameras have been around a long time and are increasing in popularity among the general population (Ring etc). It might feel invasive, but there's no reasonable expectation of privacy legally.

Re: SCOTUS declines to hear challenge to warrantless pole camera surveillance

#23

Post by scott_w »

giantg2 wrote: post #16

I don't like it, but there's nothing stopping your neighbor or anyone else from filming your home from a public/street view. Let's not forget that even if a court decides the police need a warrant to film, a third party could do the filming and police could just buy the data legally. Again, not something I like, but that's how it goes. There are very few details in the article. Now I'm curious how they found out abou…

> police could just buy the data legally.

Doesn't this still fall foul of existing surveillance protections, though? The police can't circumvent legislation by just paying a PI to stalk you instead. Doesn't this fall into the bucket of turning the seller into an agent of the state?

Re: SCOTUS declines to hear challenge to warrantless pole camera surveillance

#24

Post by nulbyte »

giantg2 wrote: post #16

I don't like it, but there's nothing stopping your neighbor or anyone else from filming your home from a public/street view. Let's not forget that even if a court decides the police need a warrant to film, a third party could do the filming and police could just buy the data legally. Again, not something I like, but that's how it goes. There are very few details in the article. Now I'm curious how they found out abou…

I wonder who owns the pole. Most utility poles are owned by the incumbent utility, not by the government. If an ordinary citizen attached a camera to property they did not own and it was, say, pointed at a police officer's home, I think a conviction would be a near guarantee.

If an ordinary citizen cannot do it, I don't think police should ordinarily be permitted to do it; there should be a review. Given this lasted for months, there clearly wasn't immenent danger.

People have a right to be secure in their houses under the 4th amendment. People have a reasonable expectation that others will not install cameras on property they do not own for the purpose of surveiling a house the other does not own. Secretly installing a camera seems like a violation of that reasonable expectation, thus making it a search.

Re: SCOTUS declines to hear challenge to warrantless pole camera surveillance

#25

Post by codingdave »

giantg2 wrote: post #16

I don't like it, but there's nothing stopping your neighbor or anyone else from filming your home from a public/street view. Let's not forget that even if a court decides the police need a warrant to film, a third party could do the filming and police could just buy the data legally. Again, not something I like, but that's how it goes. There are very few details in the article. Now I'm curious how they found out abou…

But most people staking out your home are somewhat obvious. A car parked across the street would be noticed, as would most permanent cameras. Getting permission to put something on a utility pole that is so small as to not be noticed is different, and whether or not that makes it illegal is exactly the question at hand.

Think about it as if it was a person -- while it might be legal for me to stand on the sidewalk and look at your home, I sure would get a different reaction if I stood there for days with binoculars looking through your windows 24/7.

So yes, viewing a home from a public space is legal, the question is not only what criteria would make it illegal, but what criteria should?

Re: SCOTUS declines to hear challenge to warrantless pole camera surveillance

#26

Post by nulbyte »

giantg2 wrote: post #21
jzb wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea is that the length and amount of surveillance is invasive. You expect when you walk out of the house a neighbor might see what you’re doing. Hard to call it invasive if that happens a few times a week. But if your neighbors take turns sitting on their porch, watching every move you make - if you can never come and go without them watching - and they’re taking notes and pictures of every visitor, every packag…

"You expect when you walk out of the house a neighbor might see what you’re doing. Hard to call it invasive if that happens a few times a week." I mean, maybe that's the expectation/argument from the 19th century. Cameras have been around a long time and are increasing in popularity among the general population (Ring etc). It might feel invasive, but there's no reasonable expectation of privacy legally .

Most people install cameras to monitor their own property. That is where reasonableness begins. If some installed a camera to surveil their neighbor on their own property, and that was the end of it, no one would know. But if as a result of that surveillance, one neighbor began harassing another, it would be problematic. This seems to be exactly what happened here, only the spying neighbor worked for the government and used the power of the state to conduct such harassment.

Re: SCOTUS declines to hear challenge to warrantless pole camera surveillance

#27

Post by LatteLazy »

chmod600 wrote: post #5

SCOTUS mostly hears cases where there is disagreement among the appeals courts, or where they feel the appeals courts are getting it wrong consistently. They don't usually go after every decision they disagree with. And for those that think the current SCOTUS is somehow anti-fourth-amendment, you should really read the Carpenter decision and opinions.

Surely declining to hear the appeal IS agreeing with the ruling, at least de-facto? Doing so because they are busy or don't want to interfere etc doesn't change that. At best they have retained the option to hear an identical case later, but SCOTUS always has that right anyway...

Re: SCOTUS declines to hear challenge to warrantless pole camera surveillance

#28

Post by quickthrower2 »

giantg2 wrote: post #16

I don't like it, but there's nothing stopping your neighbor or anyone else from filming your home from a public/street view. Let's not forget that even if a court decides the police need a warrant to film, a third party could do the filming and police could just buy the data legally. Again, not something I like, but that's how it goes. There are very few details in the article. Now I'm curious how they found out abou…

If a third party is paid by the police to film you then they are an arm of the government too.

Otherwise yes some cameras are already there and may be pointing at your home, but that doesn’t mean it is OK for the police to stick a poll cam up and spy on you.

A police poll cam could pan and zoom as needed to get the questionable probable cause. So it is way more dangerous than a ring bell next door (ring bells don’t pick up much really)

Re: SCOTUS declines to hear challenge to warrantless pole camera surveillance

#29

Post by justinclift »

rektide wrote: post #2

I like the modern strategy of doing to politicians what they let or perpetrate on others, but I think we'll have a hard time finding some cops to point a bunch of cameras at senators & Supreme Court justices. The technical capabilities of state-based Survelliance keep rising. Just buying the data corporations keep on us seems like the absurd new main mode. Ring cameras, for example. Having the police themselves doing…

Hmmm, how feasible do you reckon it would be to start using the same "buy data from third parties" on these senators and Supreme Court judges?

And probably do the same for the (registered) lobbyists and political donors, then look for after hours instances where the data shows their location being very close / overlapping.

Or something along those lines anyway. Would probably take a bunch more thinking about + some test investigation. ;)

Re: SCOTUS declines to hear challenge to warrantless pole camera surveillance

#30

Post by lo_zamoyski »

giantg2 wrote: post #16

I don't like it, but there's nothing stopping your neighbor or anyone else from filming your home from a public/street view. Let's not forget that even if a court decides the police need a warrant to film, a third party could do the filming and police could just buy the data legally. Again, not something I like, but that's how it goes. There are very few details in the article. Now I'm curious how they found out abou…

> there's nothing stopping your neighbor or anyone else from filming your home from a public/street view

Perhaps at the moment, but there's no moral reason why the law cannot constraint and regulate this space, especially if it harms the common good.

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