Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Did your car witness a crime? Bay Area police may be coming for your Tesla

sfchronicle.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

621–630 of 683 posts

Re: Did your car witness a crime? Bay Area police may be coming for your Tesla

#621

Post by JohnFen »

frogblast wrote: post #614
JohnFen wrote: post #611

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> or cooperation from the manufacturer. I would have thought this was the path of least resistance (as well as doing less harm to the car owner) since they're getting a search warrant anyway.

The path of least resistance is skipping the search warrant and asking the owner politely, which the article indicates is what is happening. But if that doesn't work, then preserving evidence is considered to be very important. For example, it would be a problem if the car owner deleted the video.

I don't see how preserving evidence enters into the decision to seize the entire car rather than the drive.

Re: Did your car witness a crime? Bay Area police may be coming for your Tesla

#622

Post by dotancohen »

thatguy0900 wrote: post #618
urda wrote: post #610

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have no expectation of privacy in public. Your right to seclusion or privacy does not extend to public spaces.

Honestly there are a lot of laws that don't really make sense given modern technology. It's one thing to say people have no expectation of privacy when people only have cameras, or even have to purposefully videotape you. It's another to say you will 100% be recorded in HD at all times in public and that data will be sold to any random third party to do whatever with and store forever

Or that the police might decide to confiscate your vehicle on the chance that one of its cameras recorded a crime you were not involved with.

Re: Did your car witness a crime? Bay Area police may be coming for your Tesla

#623

Post by neaden »

frogblast wrote: post #614
JohnFen wrote: post #611

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> or cooperation from the manufacturer. I would have thought this was the path of least resistance (as well as doing less harm to the car owner) since they're getting a search warrant anyway.

The path of least resistance is skipping the search warrant and asking the owner politely, which the article indicates is what is happening. But if that doesn't work, then preserving evidence is considered to be very important. For example, it would be a problem if the car owner deleted the video.

While I can see why the police would find it a problem, I don't like the idea that that means they get to potentially have 24/7 access to my property just so they can check.

Re: Did your car witness a crime? Bay Area police may be coming for your Tesla

#624

Post by bastawhiz »

frogblast wrote: post #609
JohnFen wrote: post #606

> The police usually asks for the owner’s permission to access their Tesla’s Sentry Mode backup USB drive which is located in the glove box, and download the desired content. However, if the owners can’t be located, officers obtain search warrants and tow the EVs into evidence. Why don't the cops get a search warrant for that USB drive and take that rather than confiscating the entire vehicle of innocent people?

Without first hand knowledge, I'll take a guess: if the owner of the vehicle isn't available or cooperating, then getting access to the USB drive requires opening up the vehicle without a key, which could require some time or specialized tools, or cooperation from the manufacturer. But in general, this isn't really much new. If you have home cameras, and police can obtain a search warrant, then you can be compelled t…

> police can obtain a search warrant, then you can be compelled to provide the video, or they can seize any device (such as entire computer, your server closet, etc) that could reasonably contain the video.

Yes but the police can't start occupying my house or deny me access to it because I wasn't home to let them in.

Re: Did your car witness a crime? Bay Area police may be coming for your Tesla

#626

Post by protimewaster »

Suppafly wrote: post #620
piptastic wrote: post #612

not sure i buy this is a trend yet, the article talks about 3 cases: 1 - vehicle wasn't involved and was about to be towed for footage as the article implies (owner came by and gave them footage during tow process) 2 - tesla was towed along with 2 other vehicles from a shootout in the parking lot (probably the cars were shot or had other evidence on them) 3 - the crime happened inside the tesla (was going to be towed…

>1 - vehicle wasn't involved and was about to be towed for footage as the article implies Which is definitely something that shouldn't happen and is a violation of constitutional rights.

I agree that it shouldn't happen, and it feels like it should be unconstitutional. I'm wondering if it actually is unconstitutional, though. If they got a warrant to seize the vehicle, for example, it seems like it's probably constitutional. I think?

Re: Did your car witness a crime? Bay Area police may be coming for your Tesla

#627

Post by izacus »

urda wrote: post #610
izacus wrote: post #608

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's so innocent about people running surveillance cameras and recording every person walking by on the street?

You have no expectation of privacy in public. Your right to seclusion or privacy does not extend to public spaces.

Where I live, I do.

Re: Did your car witness a crime? Bay Area police may be coming for your Tesla

#628

Post by adamsb6 »

immibis wrote: post #615
neaden wrote: post #607

This seems pretty messed up on a couple levels. Yet another way we're all being surveiled with the addition of getting your property randomly confiscated.

Sounds like your property won't be confiscated if you don't try to surveil everyone. Swings and roundabouts.

Having cameras on your house isn't an invitation for the police to come in and take the footage.

Re: Did your car witness a crime? Bay Area police may be coming for your Tesla

#629

Post by jstummbillig »

vundercind wrote: post #619
urda wrote: post #610

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have no expectation of privacy in public. Your right to seclusion or privacy does not extend to public spaces.

Something doesn’t have to be illegal to be bad.

But you can certainly do something illegal more easily if you have more privacy.
Post reply on HN