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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

#81

Post by cnelsenmilt »

Clubber wrote: post #66
giraffe_lady wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a lawyer or a legislator it's not my responsibility to write law phrasing to your satisfaction. This would be handled the same way other plausibly deniable things like fraud and harassment are handled. By evaluating the context, subpoenaing records and conversations, questioning under oath, looking at the effects and history of actions of the individuals involved.

>write law phrasing to your satisfaction I wasn't trying to be combative, I just thought you had an idea that I hadn't thought of that would satisfy the privacy concerns with the freedom to photograph in public concerns. >By evaluating the context, subpoenaing records and conversations, questioning under oath, looking at the effects and history of actions of the individuals involved. So a lady gets arrested for photo…

Sure, it is hard. But there's a gigantic middle ground between "no photographs ever that contain any part of your house" and "permanent digital video camera whose footage is invisibly passed on to the government". It is far from impossible to write some rules that balances these things. Yes, there will be loopholes: a criminal who wants to photograph your house could come by with their nephew and stage a photoshoot. But we live with those kinds of exceptions already: as giraffe_lady said, the law is not an algorithm.

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

#82

Post by cvoss »

LatteLazy wrote: post #46
cvoss wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's not an agreement. Handing down a SCOTUS opinion is the most powerful thing they can do, and all lower courts are bound by it. But maintaining silence permits lower courts to continue operating each on its own best judgment. SCOTUS defers to the specialized authority of lower/local bodies all the time, saying, "We trust you have a better and more intimate perspective and will come to a good decision." That's…

I feel like I am missing your point: * If the lower courts agree and SCOTUS leaves them to it, they are defacto supporting what the lower courts agreed on no? "We agree because we agree" and "We agree because we don't know but accept whatever you decided" are the same thing... * If the lower courts do NOT agree (like this case), then by declining the case SCOTUS is... agreeing that the same law means different things…

Let's map the question to a different domain. Does a police officer concede that laws don't need to be followed, or that he is not bound to enforce laws, if he declines to pursue a violation of the law that he witnesses? Does he approve of the violation of the law by declining to pursue the matter? No, not at all. He simply can't pursue everything. But that he allows a thing to happen should in no way be considered an approval or agreement with the thing. This is a size-of-fish-to-fry situation.

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

#83

Post by giraffe_lady »

Clubber wrote: post #80
giraffe_lady wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No I'm just trying to avoid that classic HN situation of being talked into making specific assertions outside my expertise and then technical flaws being used to dismiss the broader point I'm making. Writing good laws is hard sure but you're approaching this having already accepted the framing that the only way to prevent this police overreach is to restrict everyone from doing similar things. We can just prevent the…

>having already accepted the framing that the only way to prevent this police overreach is to restrict everyone from doing similar things. My position is people should be free to photograph in public anything they can see. That's currently how the law is written. I don't think it's perfect, but I can't think of a better alternative (thus this discussion). >The cops aren't the public and should be subject to additiona…

Yeah I mean yes this is a small & compromised step on the path towards the necessary goal of completely eliminating the police. They are wholly incompatible with any conception of freedom or justice.

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

#84

Post by BizarroLand »

Clubber wrote: post #36
lo_zamoyski wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

>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. The legal problem is: do you now arrest a parent taking a picture of their child on a public street and your house happens to be in the frame? Of course not, but how do you legally differentiate the two?

By saying the government isn't allow to video or photo surveil someone's home without a warrant.

A parent is not the government, and even though warrants are easy enough to get in most places at least they're following the letter of the law if not the spirit by getting one.

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

#85

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

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…

While someone could privately conduct the surveillance and sell it to the police... they then become agents of the police, given that the police are the only reasonable market for such recordings. (The other possible market is hoping that stalkers want to buy it for select locations... after the first incident, legislation would quickly shut it down.)

Others in the past have noted that the police would be permitted to stake out the address in person, without warrant or much oversight. But the number of cops is finite, there are natural limits to how often and how long they can do that. There is no limit to how many cameras that police departments might collectively buy. There are plausible scenarios where multiple cameras are aimed at every address in the country. All of this can be stored indefinitely.

It amounts to warrantless search.

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

#86

Post by JoeAltmaier »

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #85
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…

While someone could privately conduct the surveillance and sell it to the police... they then become agents of the police, given that the police are the only reasonable market for such recordings. (The other possible market is hoping that stalkers want to buy it for select locations... after the first incident, legislation would quickly shut it down.) Others in the past have noted that the police would be permitted t…

I imagine if cameras and IoT devices continue to miniaturize, one day they'll float on the wind like a dandelion puff. Folks could spread them around like dust. Helicopters could crop-dust them over entire cities.

In future we'll have to come up with some social rules about ubiquitous surveillance. Because it will become the norm.

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

#87

Post by JoeAltmaier »

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 a difference between 'no privacy from the street' and 'filming everything all the time'. Like the difference between picking an orange from a neighbor's tree, and bringing in a combine harvester.

Pedants will insist they are the 'same' somehow. But socially we know that's not true. It matters to us that we feel some sense of privacy most of the time. It's all about degree.

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

#88

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

codingdave wrote: post #25
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 an…

This isn't "viewing a home from public space".

When you walk down the sidewalk, and you see the home for the 30 seconds it takes you to move past where it is in view, you are "viewing" it. When you live across the street, and every once in awhile you pull back the blinds to see if the mail has come, and you incidentally see the house, that's public viewing.

When the government installs surveillance cameras aimed at the house 24/7 for the rest of eternity, they have access to details that no one could possibly know if they were "viewing a home from public space". 35 years later, they'll be able to search through the footage to see who left and at what hours of the evening for all of October 2024. We can't even know right now what they might be able to infer from the footage.

Even if an unmarked car sat out in front of the home, watching it for a week straight... that surveillance is ephemeral. No one will be able to ask the surveiller what happened 35 years later, he won't remember much. He was there for a 12 hour shift for 6 days straight. Not up for 5 month's non-stop. Not digital and losing not even a single bit of detail.

The two things aren't equivalent, not even slightly. Ephemeral and limited, versus forever and all-encompassing. That's the criteria.

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

#89

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #86
NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While someone could privately conduct the surveillance and sell it to the police... they then become agents of the police, given that the police are the only reasonable market for such recordings. (The other possible market is hoping that stalkers want to buy it for select locations... after the first incident, legislation would quickly shut it down.) Others in the past have noted that the police would be permitted t…

I imagine if cameras and IoT devices continue to miniaturize, one day they'll float on the wind like a dandelion puff. Folks could spread them around like dust. Helicopters could crop-dust them over entire cities. In future we'll have to come up with some social rules about ubiquitous surveillance. Because it will become the norm.

That's the plot to A Deepness in the Sky.

There exist no possible sets of rules to mitigate the scenario in your prediction. Find a way to avert that future.

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

#90

Post by atoav »

rayiner wrote: post #45
nulbyte wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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 Conviction for what?

> Conviction for what?

Drug possession. Drugs they found in your car after a "random" stop. I Whether you never use drugs or not doesn't matter, they will find something.

If you think cops have to play it fair if they wanna punish you, you are a bit naive.

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