401–410 of 423 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Obviously sending a drone over private property is not the same as willingly and knowingly displaying a license plate in public for all to see.
The Supreme Court has already held in three cases that air surveillance, even from an altitude as low as 400 feet, does not constitute a search: California v. Ciraolo (1986), Dow Chemical Co. v. United States (1986), and Florida v. Riley (1989).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Note that they already don't write down license plates. They use LPRs attached to their cars, and tend to be automatically running every plate immediately through the database, which tends to catch people without insurance or expired registration. Is the line automation? Or 24/7 operation? (genuinely)
Personally the line for me is a human police officer with reasonable judgement and accountability. If an officer was standing next to every Flock camera in America, the public would be hyper aware of the situation we are now in. Mass, warrantless, and perpetual surveillance is incompatible with liberty and unacceptable to the vast majority of Americans. It has to be stopped, or we are doomed.
In that vein, I wouldn't be 100% against Flock cameras if their purpose was limited.
The problem in the concept is that they store all license plate hits for later retrieval regardless of if anything is actively tying that license plate to some form of illegal activity. Even with a short retention window, this is mass surveillance because it allows later viewing of hits based on any kind of search given. And you can never limit that search query in a 100% effective manner, but you could very well tell police departments "tough luck, we only have hits if the plate was involved in something at the time of scan".
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Supreme Court has already held in three cases that air surveillance, even from an altitude as low as 400 feet, does not constitute a search: California v. Ciraolo (1986), Dow Chemical Co. v. United States (1986), and Florida v. Riley (1989).
How does that help your argument?
I did say earlier, though:
> although the "plain view" doctrine has been weakened somewhat over the last couple decades, it's not completely dead yet.
The aerial surveillance cases are applicable examples of that point.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Obviously not true given that a wannabe dictator would literally say what you are saying ("it's just plain view doctrine! Always been this way! 4th Amendment doesn't prevent me from flying a drone over you to and from your home every day!") A wannabe dictator, inversely, would not say nor be happy with what I am saying: You have a right to exist as a private individual, even if going out in public would leak vast amo…
Obviously sending a drone over private property is not the same as willingly and knowingly displaying a license plate in public for all to see.
The drone hovers directly over the sidewalk in front of your house. When you step onto the sidewalk, it follows you directly to the front of your workplace. As you go up to the third floor, it hovers up and observes you through the window. As you descend and come back out to the street, it hovers overhead until you arrive back to your home.
It's all plain view doctrine. Not sure what could be ambiguous about this.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Obviously not true given that a wannabe dictator would literally say what you are saying ("it's just plain view doctrine! Always been this way! 4th Amendment doesn't prevent me from flying a drone over you to and from your home every day!") A wannabe dictator, inversely, would not say nor be happy with what I am saying: You have a right to exist as a private individual, even if going out in public would leak vast amo…
fluidcruft is not wrong about this particular point. And even if they were, while you may disagree passionately with the state of the law today, that doesn't give you the right to be a dick to them about their analysis. Knock it off.
There are cases where it's legitimately ambiguous as to where the law lands and this is one of those areas, but fluidcruft is insisting that it's not. To the extent it's not ambiguous, recent case law, the overarching history of the 4th Amendment literally since its ratification, and common sense all point in the same direction: the government cannot arbitrarily monitor everyone's movements (even in public) at near-zero cost with zero warrant.
2. There's nothing dickish in my prior comment whatsoever.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Obviously sending a drone over private property is not the same as willingly and knowingly displaying a license plate in public for all to see.
The Supreme Court has already held in three cases that air surveillance, even from an altitude as low as 400 feet, does not constitute a search: California v. Ciraolo (1986), Dow Chemical Co. v. United States (1986), and Florida v. Riley (1989).
> society’s expectation has been that law enforcement agents and others would not—and indeed, in the main, simply could not—secretly monitor and catalogue every single movement of an individual’s car for a very long period. In this case, for four weeks, law enforcement agents tracked every movement that respondent made in the vehicle he was driving. We need not identify with precision the point at which the tracking of this vehicle became a search, for the line was surely crossed before the 4-week mark.
Altitude has nothing to do with it. Completeness and cost of picture does.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Supreme Court has already held in three cases that air surveillance, even from an altitude as low as 400 feet, does not constitute a search: California v. Ciraolo (1986), Dow Chemical Co. v. United States (1986), and Florida v. Riley (1989).
None of these is relevant to the analysis here: > society’s expectation has been that law enforcement agents and others would not—and indeed, in the main, simply could not—secretly monitor and catalogue every single movement of an individual’s car for a very long period. In this case, for four weeks, law enforcement agents tracked every movement that respondent made in the vehicle he was driving. We need not identify…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
fluidcruft is not wrong about this particular point. And even if they were, while you may disagree passionately with the state of the law today, that doesn't give you the right to be a dick to them about their analysis. Knock it off.
1. Yes, they are wrong. For example, Dobbs sat downstream of generations of people perpetuating the idea that the law already bans abortion (under murder statutes) and that the Constitution already prevents the federal government from regulating this area. Regardless of whether that's true or not, what is plainly true is that whenever possible, people prefer to frame their preferred policies as already existing in st…
What’s wrong with this? It’s correct that there’s been no case yet on the legality of warrantless end-to-end surveillance technology, and he’s right that the Constitution has no explicit privacy right. Certainly no lawyer I know would advise their client otherwise, and as an attorney myself, I wouldn’t do it, either.
> There's nothing dickish in my prior comment
When someone tells you you’re being dickish, pay attention and take it seriously. They are giving you valuable feedback about how you are coming across. Even if you don’t intend to be that way, and don’t think you are, others can still see it. You need to take that into consideration.
In this case, saying that a wannabe dictator would use the same argument was pretty dickish, particularly in the context of everything you’ve already said to them. It’s well past the time to lower the temperature of this discussion. Don’t keep it on simmer.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
None of these is relevant to the analysis here: > society’s expectation has been that law enforcement agents and others would not—and indeed, in the main, simply could not—secretly monitor and catalogue every single movement of an individual’s car for a very long period. In this case, for four weeks, law enforcement agents tracked every movement that respondent made in the vehicle he was driving. We need not identify…
You’re citing that concurrence again. While that concurrence supports your argument, it’s not binding legal precedent. Perhaps someday it will be, but not today.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
1. Yes, they are wrong. For example, Dobbs sat downstream of generations of people perpetuating the idea that the law already bans abortion (under murder statutes) and that the Constitution already prevents the federal government from regulating this area. Regardless of whether that's true or not, what is plainly true is that whenever possible, people prefer to frame their preferred policies as already existing in st…
> It's actually far more dangerous to presume we are already protected (your position) particularly based on reading tea leaves in flimsy ancillary opinions when the Court has shown itself fully happy to blow precedent out of the water, particularly with regards to privacy rights which are grounded in interpretation of the Constitution and not actual text What’s wrong with this? It’s correct that there’s been no case…
If it were more dangerous to insist that these privacy rights already exist (which they do, at least since Katz), then a wannabe dictator would obviously just insist that these privacy rights exist. But... they obviously wouldn't do that. They'd in fact insist that these rights don't exist, they never have, and they're not in the text of the Constitution.
Referencing the desires of a wannabe dictator is not dickish in the context of a conversation about state surveillance powers. Perhaps you're getting too heated and reading tone into other people's words at this point?