Cars and the Fourth Amendment • Hacker News Board

Re: Cars and the Fourth Amendment

#11

Post by greggman2 » Fri, Oct 04, 2019, 5:34 PM UTC

It's going to be interesting how it will work with self driving cars. Arguably the police will push for some kind of police only "pull over and stop" feature they can aim at any car which I'm sure will get absued. If you're in a self driving taxi you'd arguably not be the one abliged to pull over, rather the taxi's virutal driver is the one that needs to pull over. In fact with perfect self driving the passenger might not even be remotely aware of being asked to pull over. They could be asleeep, watching video with headphones on, playing VR games, anything to pass the time.

Also scary to me is the ability to use a self driving car as a slow moving cruise missle. They have a much longer range than drones. It seems only a matter of time before someone decides to use one in that way or other scary ways.

Re: Cars and the Fourth Amendment

#12

Post by SilasX » Fri, Oct 04, 2019, 5:40 PM UTC

owenmarshall wrote: post #5

An old parking enforcement technique is to put a chalk mark on a car's tire: if you come back after two hours and see the same car with the marked tire you know that it has parked too long and can be ticketed. The 6th circuit recently ruled that is an unconstitutional search[1]: a government agent is physically intruding on a private area (your car) and searching it for information (how long it's been there). Neat st…

That puts them in a weird, paradoxical position:

1) Illegal: Placing a mark on your tires that will quickly fade with time and invades your car just enough to reveal whether you adhered to the limits.

2) Legal: Monitor the area with video surveillance and take pictures of every license plate that ever parked there, with timestamps and a photo of the occupants, and store that information for eternity, to be shared with any LEO who wants it.

(2) feels a lot more invasive than (1), but courts consider (2) okay because it just uses stuff visible to the public, while (1) actually physically modifies your car.

Edit: See also the conflict with the long-standing, uncontested practice of leaving a fingerprint on a car's tail light at the beginning of a stop before observing any wrongdoing that warrants such a "search": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19730452

Re: Cars and the Fourth Amendment

#13

Post by saagarjha » Fri, Oct 04, 2019, 5:41 PM UTC

greggman2 wrote: post #11

It's going to be interesting how it will work with self driving cars. Arguably the police will push for some kind of police only "pull over and stop" feature they can aim at any car which I'm sure will get absued. If you're in a self driving taxi you'd arguably not be the one abliged to pull over, rather the taxi's virutal driver is the one that needs to pull over. In fact with perfect self driving the passenger migh…

> Also scary to me is the ability to use a self driving car as a slow moving cruise missle.

To what, hit a person?

Re: Cars and the Fourth Amendment

#14

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Oct 04, 2019, 5:43 PM UTC

saagarjha wrote: post #13

greggman2 wrote: post #11

It's going to be interesting how it will work with self driving cars. Arguably the police will push for some kind of police only "pull over and stop" feature they can aim at any car which I'm sure will get absued. If you're in a self driving taxi you'd arguably not be the one abliged to pull over, rather the taxi's virutal driver is the one that needs to pull over. In fact with perfect self driving the passenger migh…

> Also scary to me is the ability to use a self driving car as a slow moving cruise missle. To what, hit a person?

[deleted]

Re: Cars and the Fourth Amendment

#15

Post by Diederich » Fri, Oct 04, 2019, 5:44 PM UTC

saagarjha wrote: post #13

greggman2 wrote: post #11

It's going to be interesting how it will work with self driving cars. Arguably the police will push for some kind of police only "pull over and stop" feature they can aim at any car which I'm sure will get absued. If you're in a self driving taxi you'd arguably not be the one abliged to pull over, rather the taxi's virutal driver is the one that needs to pull over. In fact with perfect self driving the passenger migh…

> Also scary to me is the ability to use a self driving car as a slow moving cruise missle. To what, hit a person?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Nice_truck_attack

86 people were killed, 458 hurt.

Re: Cars and the Fourth Amendment

#16

Post by mytailorisrich » Fri, Oct 04, 2019, 5:47 PM UTC

greggman2 wrote: post #11

It's going to be interesting how it will work with self driving cars. Arguably the police will push for some kind of police only "pull over and stop" feature they can aim at any car which I'm sure will get absued. If you're in a self driving taxi you'd arguably not be the one abliged to pull over, rather the taxi's virutal driver is the one that needs to pull over. In fact with perfect self driving the passenger migh…

Yes, I think it is a given that when actual self-driving cars become a reality they will have to include a system allowing police and emergency services to control them. It will no doubt be a criminal offence to temper with that system.

This is a reasonable adaptation to self-driving cars, though.

Re: Cars and the Fourth Amendment

#17

Post by rpmisms » Fri, Oct 04, 2019, 5:52 PM UTC

mytailorisrich wrote: post #16

greggman2 wrote: post #11

It's going to be interesting how it will work with self driving cars. Arguably the police will push for some kind of police only "pull over and stop" feature they can aim at any car which I'm sure will get absued. If you're in a self driving taxi you'd arguably not be the one abliged to pull over, rather the taxi's virutal driver is the one that needs to pull over. In fact with perfect self driving the passenger migh…

Yes, I think it is a given that when actual self-driving cars become a reality they will have to include a system allowing police and emergency services to control them. It will no doubt be a criminal offence to temper with that system. This is a reasonable adaptation to self-driving cars, though.

I really really don't like that, and I really hope it'll never happen here. The possibilities for abuse are amazing. (Congrats on 1k karma)

Re: Cars and the Fourth Amendment

#18

Post by mtgx » Fri, Oct 04, 2019, 5:52 PM UTC

SilasX wrote: post #12

owenmarshall wrote: post #5

An old parking enforcement technique is to put a chalk mark on a car's tire: if you come back after two hours and see the same car with the marked tire you know that it has parked too long and can be ticketed. The 6th circuit recently ruled that is an unconstitutional search[1]: a government agent is physically intruding on a private area (your car) and searching it for information (how long it's been there). Neat st…

That puts them in a weird, paradoxical position: 1) Illegal: Placing a mark on your tires that will quickly fade with time and invades your car just enough to reveal whether you adhered to the limits. 2) Legal: Monitor the area with video surveillance and take pictures of every license plate that ever parked there, with timestamps and a photo of the occupants, and store that information for eternity, to be shared wit…

I feel like because all of this is so new, we haven't had time to fully think about this stuff, and law enforcement is abusing this.

But if we take things one by one, we could see that some real restrictions could be put on the use of this technology, even in the context of existing laws.

For instance, "video surveillance is allowed because everything it sees is public."

But then you can go like "Okay, but..."

1) A regular person wouldn't remember everything it saw in public a year from now, a month from now, or even a day from now.

2) A regular person wouldn't try to build all sorts of automatic connections between various identities it sees in public over longer periods of time (say more than a few hours)

3) A regular person wouldn't be able to take punitive action with the might of the government and taking up weapons against crimes it sees happen in public (so perhaps someone like a government entity needs to be more restricted than regular people when doing certain monitoring activities, because of their inherit potential for abuse?)

Suddenly when you consider all three of these ideas, and there are probably more like them, we can realize that public surveillance doesn't have to be the "free for all" governments would like us to believe that it should be (because the more true that becomes, the more power they have against each individual, way before there's even a hint of a case against someone).

Re: Cars and the Fourth Amendment

#19

Post by kempbellt » Fri, Oct 04, 2019, 5:54 PM UTC

SilasX wrote: post #12

owenmarshall wrote: post #5

An old parking enforcement technique is to put a chalk mark on a car's tire: if you come back after two hours and see the same car with the marked tire you know that it has parked too long and can be ticketed. The 6th circuit recently ruled that is an unconstitutional search[1]: a government agent is physically intruding on a private area (your car) and searching it for information (how long it's been there). Neat st…

That puts them in a weird, paradoxical position: 1) Illegal: Placing a mark on your tires that will quickly fade with time and invades your car just enough to reveal whether you adhered to the limits. 2) Legal: Monitor the area with video surveillance and take pictures of every license plate that ever parked there, with timestamps and a photo of the occupants, and store that information for eternity, to be shared wit…

Strange how a chalk mark is illegal, but placing a ticket under the windshield wiper, or sticking a "vehicle to be towed" sticker on the window isn't.

To add: I'd personally much rather local LEOs use the chalk method than the camera method.

Re: Cars and the Fourth Amendment

#20

Post by adrianpike » Fri, Oct 04, 2019, 5:56 PM UTC

greggman2 wrote: post #11

It's going to be interesting how it will work with self driving cars. Arguably the police will push for some kind of police only "pull over and stop" feature they can aim at any car which I'm sure will get absued. If you're in a self driving taxi you'd arguably not be the one abliged to pull over, rather the taxi's virutal driver is the one that needs to pull over. In fact with perfect self driving the passenger migh…

> Also scary to me is the ability to use a self driving car as a slow moving cruise missle[sic].

I wouldn't worry about the spread of level 4/5-automation changing the calculus here on a small actor basis. VBIED's are already a serious threat, and require no significant technical innovation, but outside of conflict zones we don't see a ton of them.

Assuming we don't require physical failsafes though and truly airgap driving systems from any network connectivity (which we won't, I guarantee it) there's definitely a worry on the state level actor front.

I can totally imagine the first salvo in WW3 being the utility grid, cell networks, and crashing all the rooted cars, but that horse has likely already left the stable.