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Supreme Court Limits High-Tech Snooping
MacRonin writes: "In an important declaration of the constitutional limits on new privacy-threatening technology, the Supreme Court ruled yesterday that the use by the police of a thermal imaging device to detect patterns of heat coming from a private home is a search that requires a warrant. The court said further that the warrant requirement would apply not only to the relatively crude device at issue but also to any "more sophisticated systems" in use or in development that let the police gain knowledge that in the past would have been impossible without a physical entry into the home. "We must take the long view, from the original meaning of the Fourth Amendment forward," Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for a 5-to-4 majority that cut across the court's usual ideological division. Justice Scalia said that to take any other approach "would leave the homeowner at the mercy of advancing technology, including imaging technology that could discern all human activity in the home." There is coverage in the: New York Times, Washington Post, and CNN. This older piece has a little background."
Instead of the foil, get mylar, or just flat white paint. Instead of the big fluorescents, get high-output security lights like high pressure sodium or metal halides. Try to make it about 50 watts per square foot. By the way Attorney General Ashcroft supports legislation to make it illegal for us to discuss this. Get seeds from companies listed here. Ask your questions here. Discuss related issues here. I wouldn't post any of this if it weren't for Ashcroft, but I'm fed up. Overgrow the government! Why is it illegal to own a plant?
It is a big deal, the first unit installed (clandestinely, for testing the technology) was explicitly used against domestic passengers... in Boston. After the technology was proven, then it was deployed publicly at a half dozen international airports by the US Customs.
Sorry, it's just too easy to get around this ruling. Police can use thermal imaging to spot the grow lights from your indoor marijuana farm and then simply claim that they received an anonymous tip on you. Proof otherwise? It's your word against theirs (== you lose).
While we may all applaud the unusual SC coalition that narrowly denied police rights to use special home-invasive technologies, why do we avert our eyes when so many of these new set-top boxes (and other high-tech gadgets) are, in the aggregate, going to be far more intrusive? Just because they might use Linux as their OS? Can our opinions be bought so cheaply?
Wow, that evidences such a profound misunderstanding of the American system and the American public, that it's hard to know where to begin...
Umm, I think the profound misunderstanding here is yours. And what you fail to understand is the that you have been trolled.
Well nobody expects light bouncing off themselves near a window to be private, so that wouldn't be protected.
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100% pure freak
Uh.....you've been able to get this technology out of the ads in the back of comic books for over twenty years....you know the sunglasses with the swirly lens in em?
-=Mongr=-
Alex Bischoff
Alex Bischoff
HTML/CSS coder for hire
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Forget Napster. Why not really break the law?
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
I fail to see the parallels between breaking the law to correct existing injustices and breaking the law to get high.
If you don't like the law, change it. Don't just ignore and say it's not fair when you get caught.
If it went to trial, they would have to explain this and then it would get thrown out. They would need a good reason to be watching your house in the first place (I'm not familiar with probable cause laws, but if they had to resort to an infrared imager to suspect you in the first place I don't think they'd be able to meet those criteria for anything else).
no, the psychic friends are widely available to the public. Just give them a call :)
Christianity -- to me -- isn't about an all-powerful invisible being; it isn't about heaven or hell; all these are only the settings and the players through whom the core message -- one of right and wrong, but also of forgiveness and love -- is relayed. I don't hold these beliefs on sole account of the Bible (though it was and remains instrumental in my understanding of the heritage of my beliefs, and is damn useful in conversing with other Christians) but rather on the account of my personal experiences (you've heard Christians speak of being "slain in the spirit"? that sort of thing).
I even accept that -- on a purely scientific level -- my beliefs may not be true. Frankly, I don't care. I don't hold these beliefs because I think they're true. I hold them because they make me happy. My religion is a "time out" from critical thinking and the scientific method; it provides a way to turn of my brain and be happy for a while. Frankly, I think everyone needs that every so often. I agree, however, that one should never be taught that such beliefs should always supercede critical thinking (though I'm not about to allow that they be constantly subserviant, either; a sense of context is necessary).
I'm not saying this in the hopes of converting you (or anyone else), but with the intention of explaining that not all Christians are world-wrecking loonies; I ask only that you not act as if all are.
Do you think tobacco should be illegal as well? Alcohol? Caffeine?
The difference is touching, looking, or taking a picture of your wall does not give the officer the ability to detect anything except what his own senses allow him.
The thermal-imaging camera gives the officer extra sensory capabilities. This needs to be kept in check, until everyone is able to detect the heat emissions coming from their own home.
I'd have to say there is a difference between drugs. Tobacco, Pot, alcohol are one thing, and cocaine, heroin, crank are something else.
Not all drug laws are the equivalent of moral laws. The production and distribution of cocaine, heroin and crank have serious geo-political, criminal, social and in the case of crank, environmental side effects that pot, alcohol and tobacco do not have.
I'm all for the decriminalization of pot, and for the legal war to end against tobacco (even though I'm not a user) and that the use of alcohol between the ages of 18 and 21 be legalized, but I am not for the legalization or decriminalization of your "hard" drugs like cocaine or crank. More needs to be spent on treatment, but it should not be legalized.
I thought Scalia was the one that Thomas always voted with. I mean really it's like Scalia has two votes.
And yeah, Souter is great. When I look at these case, he's on the right side nearly 100% of the time. I also got a very good impression of him as a human being from Warren Rudman's book, Combat(Rudman was a good friend of Souter, and was the one who convinced Bush to nominate him).
It seems like a reasonable standard. If I leave the drapes open and someone looks into my window that is my problem, if I didn't want them to see I should close my drapes. And the court did say that this applies to any new technology.
I think this is very good law.
IANAL
Erlang Developer and podcaster
What they said is actualy that the police need a warent if they are using some tool that the average person does not have access to. So for example if they are looking into my window with a telescope they probably do not need a warent, after all if they are looking in my window with a telescope I can easily block that by drawing my drapes. But if its an IR night vision thing they probably do. Hey its not a perfect ruling but from what I heard last night from Nina Totenburg on NPR it sounds like its quite good.
Erlang Developer and podcaster
IANAL
I think they are drawing a distiction. If a cop sees me beating up someone threw my window he does not need a warent to do something. If he was using Night Vision goggles he does.
Erlang Developer and podcaster
eh? then why are radar guns (for detecting the speed of a vehicle) not "illegal search and seizure"?
BECAUSE THEY ARE!
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
I wonder if it would spot a vibrator in-situ.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
I assume that based on this judgement, van Eck phreaking (as featured in Cryptonomicon, and elsewhere) would also be considered illegal. I'm not up on US law, and don't know what difference there is considered to be between going into someone's home and someone's computer, but using van Eck (which isn't "in development", it's there now) to see what people are doing on their screens would seem to be similar to me. Are there any legal references to van Eck phreaking?
I presume that wiretaps are needed for phone-lines, but is that for speech only, or data as well? Echelon, and all the fun ways of looking at data, can get their information from lots of different places, and this, of course, is only one of them.
Excellent repartie, but where is the reposte?
/end glib sarcasm
USA-Democracy is 270 million YESes and NOes a day, not one every four years.
Lets see; paper tax, tea tax, nail tax, poll tax, slavery, prohibition, vote only for male land owners, apartied, black crow laws, sex with jewish women being equal to bestiality and thus a hangable offense, jews having to wear stars of David, buddists having to wear yellow, legal to shoot your wife if caught cotis with another man. Anyone else can think of a MORALLY BANKRUPT LAW that has made it onto the books of a MORALLY, SOCIALLY UPRIGHT SOCIETY?
USA-Democracy is 270 million YESes and NOes a day, not one every four years.
The law sometimes speaks in a language different from colloquial english; for example, "from time to time" is a phrase that seems vague to us, but has a specific technical legal meaning, and has for a long time.
It also strikes me as an excellent example of a case where "slippery slope" is a valid legal argument against the alternative. (Logicians are fond of pointing out that it is a fallacy in rhetoric, but law has its own rules.) What meaning does freedom from unlawful search have if the police can, given adequately advanced technology, listen in on all your conversations (telephone and physical), scan your computer monitors, [moving more and more far-off] count the change and cash stashed in your underwear drawer (imagine a microtransmitter in the place of the security strip in your large denomination bills), inventory your pockets (between smart cards, remote controls for car locks, digital "anti-theft" chips installed in keys, etc, this is not as implausible as it seems), and lift images from your brain using its ambient EM emissions, all without ever setting foot on your property?
IIRC, in that case they wouldn't be using the technology to gather evidence, so the ruling wouldn't really have any teeth to stop them. (It would make any previously unknown evidence gained in the process inadmissible in court.) Whether it might be grounds for a civil action against the police after the fact is a different question, but in the situation you describe I wouldn't think such a case would have any substantial legs to stand on.
IIRC the legal term for this is "bootstrapping" and judges dismiss evidence and cases when it is shown to have happened.
Wow. You must be about 20 years old if you think that. The games that people play to get their judges elected were happening WAY before Bork. Of course I understand where you're coming from. I, too, have the odd perception that nothing existed before I was born 32 years ago.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
On the other hand, we also have William Rhenquist (another so-called "strict constructionist") on the side of the dissent. And who's voting with Scalia on this one? Clarence Thomas, Ruth Baider Ginsberg, Steven Breyer, and David Souter. Some of those Justices are the ones pointed to by GOP aparachniks as examples of "judicial activism."
Finding God in a Dog
Wow, talk about a lead in. I just heard on the news on the radio that there is some new radar that "can see through underwear." I don't know how true this is, but if anyone knows of any other news items on the 'net, I would be interested. The purpose of this device is to detect concealed weapons from up to 50 feet away and sounds like it is supposed to be used at airports.
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
Richard von Weizs
I suppose that using IR imagery will be ok when it is easy to buy IR film or IR camcorders? Whoops - maybe it is just fancy IR imaging equipment that is off-limits.
I'd much rather have seen a decision allowing warrantless passive technology (e.g. IR imaging, RF monitoring, etc) but forbidding the use of active technology (e.g. radar, xray, etc).
It's a shame that Scalia isn't consistently a strict constructioninst. I am glad he was able to lead the court to this decision, but I think he's led them to plenty of overstepping of bounds also. How about that decision to interfere in Florida Electoral procedures? That doesn't seem to be very strictly constructionist.
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
It's Forward-Looking InfraRed. While I'm inclined to agree with the Supreme Court majority on this one, it is a PASSIVE technology, meaning that it does no more than pickup infrared emitted from the houses. Is this really any different than, say, using cannines to pickup a scent?
Speaking for myself, at least, it depends on the circumstances. If the police are combing neighborhoods with such intensive methods (be they dogs, FLIR, or what have you), then yes, this strikes me as being an abuse of privacy. On the other hand, if it is a suspected growing location, a very specific target, then I'm not ready to rush to their defense.
As for possible Bush nominations, this is one area where I hope he's like his Pa. Another nice independant thinker like Souter would be nice. The court doesn't need to become any more polarized. All these 5-4 decisions are bad for the law, since every time there is a new justice there's a possibility that almost identical issues could be revisited.
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I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations
And I'd be a Libertarian, if they weren't all a bunch of tax-dodging professional whiners.
Berke Breathed
The scary part is - what happens once these devices are available to the public, as bionic eye implants or something? Do we lose this expectation of privacy all over again?
Caution: contents may be quarrelsome and meticulous!
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
But in that case, infrared scanning would be legal, since it doesn't illuminate the target with any radiation of its own, it just uses the ambient radiation given off by the target. I don't think that's where the line is.
Caution: contents may be quarrelsome and meticulous!
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Maybe if you could see the guy's electrical meter from the street? I'm not sure either.
Caution: contents may be quarrelsome and meticulous!
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
I was just about to write something very crude, but then I thought better of it...
Brought to you by Frobozz Magic Penguin Fodder.
You are absolutely right when you say that production and distribution of cocaine, etc. have serious geo-political, social and criminal side effects. Which is precisely why they should be legalized. The illegal drug trade is causing serious problem and is in desparate need of regulation. That's right, we need to regulate the drug trade.
The reality is that the trade is currently almost completely devoid of meaningful regulation. By pushing the market underground, we have made it impossible to monitor and regulate the drug business. Why aren't drug manufactures following relevant environmental regulations? Why aren't drug importers and exporters sending their products thru customs like other importers and exporters? Why aren't they paying duties and tariffs? Why aren't the marketers required to get licenses to sell like other retailers and wholesellers? Why aren't any taxes being collected? Why aren't food and drug safety/purity laws being applied to these products?
These are the questions that drug warriors will refuse to answer. By persisting in the fantasy that the drug trade can somehow be eliminated, the drug trade is allowed to run amok almost completely free of regulation. Then, the damaged caused by the lack of regulation is used as "proof" that we shouldn't legalize and regulate these markets. Total bullshit thinking. The only beneficiaries of these policies are the drug dealers and manufactures and the prison-industrial complex. The drug dealers because they get to skip all the regulations that normal businesses have to follow, and they benefit from the increased profits brought about by the inflation that criminialization brings. The cops and prisons benefit from the perpetual inflation in their budgets and power which come from fighting the endless drug war. And it will never be one. Make no mistake: the only way out is "give up" and begin regulating these markets like we do the markets in other potentially dangerous goods.
So the next time someone tells you that drug use is a "victimless crime", now you'll know better. As long as the government does its part, it all works out. ;-)
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
At about the same time as Star Trek, Woody Allen made a film called "Take the Money and Run." At one point in the movie, he's applying for a job and is asked if he has any experience with high speed digital computers. He says Yes, and when asked where he got the experience, he says, "My aunt has one." This was funny because in 1967, nobody's aunt (unless maybe their aunt was Admiral Hopper) owned a digital computer.
I guess the point I'm trying to make is that the blue light Spock stares into, anyone can now have; it's widely available to the public. Why, just yesterday I was at K-Mart, and they had a special on them!
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Transmeta should exploit this and launch a marketing campaign against AMD and Intel. "Tired of cops at your doorstep every few weeks? Buy a Crusoe!"
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
The cops are allowed to perceive some wavelengths and not others. The condition of whether or not they're allowed to perceive a wavelength, is whether or not it is human-perceptable in it's raw form. The thinking behind this is probably that if people take precautions that give them a low-tech expectation of privacy, then they should be legally guaranteed (notwithstanding warrants) privacy against high-tech too, even if they haven't taken precautions to realistically give them an expectation of privacy.
You can see this type of thinking elsewhere:
It's fascinating how the legal system tries to redefine "due diligence" to exclude technological factors, so that the low-tech or ignorant people can blissfully be safe from having to consider technology.
As you can infer, I'm kinda opposed to this ruling. If you broadcast information (even if it's subtle, such as IR radiation), then it's public. I think law enforcement shouldn't need a warrant to be allowed to perceive information that is public.
OTOH, I like this ruling because it makes cops jobs harder, and that's an appropriate thing when a government is working against the interests of its citizens, as is the case with the Drug War.
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
When there's a dispute over interpretation of the law or the Constitution, the buck has to stop somewhere. As much as I disagree with some of the decisions that the Supremes have handed down, I'd rather give the final authority to people who are somewhat insulated from the political process, rather than people who need to worry about re-election in six (or fewer) years.
However, I think the Court would be better off if justices had staggered thirty-five-year terms, instead of being appointed for life. Right now, if several justices happen to die or retire while the same party is in power, then that party can use the nomination process to (attempt to) stamp its ideology on the Court for decades after. If at least one seat on the Supreme had to turn over every four years, then political trends would influence judicial trends in a more controlled fashion.
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send all spam to theotherwhitemeat@ropine.com
Because they're people trying to do the best of their job, just like any corporation's CEOs[1].
The problem is in their understanding of what their objectives are.
A simplicistic approach might be that a police force's job is arrest criminals. And if it stops at this, the more criminals they get, the more they're successful at their job.
The problem is that there should be more to being a police force: in the end the real job of a police force should be something like "ensure the public safety". But that's a very elusive goal, so it's easier to fall back to the simpler one (arrest as many criminals as possible [2]).
And to do this, they must stomp over the most elementary civil rights: if you (policeman) shoot in the crowd, you have some chances of hitting somebody you should, while all the innocent bystanders are "collateral damage" that doesn't appear in your curriculum, or on news outlets for that matter (think about the last time you heard a story about some innocent that has been arrested, or murdered [3]).[4]
[1] insert obligatory anti-corporations, anti-microsoft rant here
[2] after all, if everybody is in jail, there will be nobody out there that can endanger public safety
[3] somebody would use the word "executed" here. Those who do, please visit the Amnesty International website.
[4] of course I'm not suggesting that any policeman would shoot in the crowd just for the random chance to find a criminal. But I think that it can be agreed upon that the US government is undiscriminately screening children in schools, and this ruling implies that at least up to some point in time the police was undiscriminately using thermal imagin to spy in citizens' houses. This could lead to arresting people randomly.
I know you won't believe me, but I was trying to make a point.
The point was, IMO it's easy to lose sight of the high goals for something more tangible, especially if the latter will get the officier air-time and the former won't.
Given this, it's human to desire to do one's job well, and this means trying to acquire the best available tools and freedom to act to carry out that job. Unfortunately, in the case of police bodies, this means high survelliance, or as somebody calls it, a police state.
About the Amnesty International thing, it's just my anti-death penalty beliefs seeping in. THAT was offtopic, the rest of the message wasn't.
And no, I don't think that taking all the guns would solve the problem. But (sorry for the OT) I think that doing that would help solve other problems. But I'm no USA citizen, so it's not my place to tell those who are what to do and what not to do. I'm just happy that in old Europe access to firearms is restricted.
I see a few high-rated posts that question the nature of privacy...for those posters, read the decision. It trots out an excellent definition of why warrantless heat sensing is an invasion of provacy: because it allows the police to discern activity in the home that normally would not be detectable (by other citizens). It also discusses the role of rising technology, and the fact that citizens shouldn't have to continuously stay one step ahead of the government to be safe in that respect.
Fighting the War on the War on Drugs.
Fighting the War on the War on Drugs.
http://smokedot.org/
Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the ark of the Covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment... laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind... as that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, institutions must advance also, to keep pace with the times.... We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain forever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.
Thomas Jefferson (on reform of the Virginia Constitution)
It is shocking ecause he and Renqhuist have been very favorable to the police in search and seizure issues. Renqhuist who is definately a conservative, voted against this one.
This is excellent news! No longer can they sense the heat patterns of your grow lamps and get a search warrant. Of course, the cops most likely can still get your electrical records. Even if you use generators, noise regulations could still shut down your personal-use garden.
Maybe next year...
Blar.
> It's the _expectation_ of privacy.
You mean... I can still expect privacy, even if I decide to take down my tin-foil wallpaper?
Cool! Take that, O Black Helicopter Guys.
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Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
This was NOT the usual line-up that voted for this. According to CNN:
"Justices Clarence Thomas, David H. Souter,
Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer
joined the majority.
Justice John Paul Stevens wrote a
dissenting opinion joined by Chief Justice
William H. Rehnquist, and Justices Sandra
Day O'Connor and Anthony M. Kennedy."
This was a constitutional issue of great merit that cut through "idealogical" boundries and appealed to the sensibilities of at least 5 of the justices. It disturbes me that the dissenting 4 could even argue against this opinion. Using anything to peep into the private lives of citizens without a warrent is anathemic to the principles of liberty. Shame on Renquist, O'Conner, Stevens, and Kennedy!
If a cop walks up and puts his hand on my wall, and it feels warmer than my neighbors' walls, does this violate my rights under the 4th Amendment? Of course not.
If he looks at my wall, does he violate it? Take a picture? No, of course not.
Yet all they've done here is use a device to percieve the radiation emitted from a surface, very little different from taking a picture of it, or looking at it.
Discuss.
Well I think anything the cop may hear would definatly be evidence to get a search warrent, but may or may not be applicable in court itself. As you can't exactly expect a cop to ignore what they hear. Now if the cop was sneaking around listening or accidently overhear, thats another story in and of itself.
It's not a dictatorship of the Supreme Court. If we don't like what they decide about the Constitution and laws, we can go to back to the legislative branch and change the Constitution or the laws. And if you don't like the system as a whole, guess what? You can change the system with Consititutional amendments.
It kinda sounds like you might be miffed about the Bush v. Gore decision that handed the election to Bush. Get over it, that decision will be seen in 100 years as a great decision. Think about what it would mean had it gone the other way. Then candidates could demand selective recounts based on whatever standards that favor them the most. Gore's mistake was to sue to extend the recount deadline. He should have let the recount finish, then challenged the results (as provided for in Florida law) based on the widespread reports of voting irregularities.
Also, you might want to inform O'Connor's and Ginsburg's husbands that their wives are actually grumpy old men. I'm sure it'll be news to them.
-sk
Remember those guys who barely made it out of your intro to [comp.sci, biology, physics, chemistry, statistics, etc]? They are now no longer referred to as 'idiot'; the proper terminology is 'your honor'.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
This is simply another waveform that is being detected. How do they decide at which point you need a court order, and at which point is it okay? How many nm detector? That's all we are dealing with. How much difference is there between the red on my Dr. Pepper can and the red that these sensors pick up?
What about 'visual wavelengths'? Well, in some cases, you need a special viewer (aka binoculars) to see an alleged criminal act. Are these now illegal? What is the difference between a pair of binoculars and an infrared camera? Both augment human vision beyond that which naturally occurs. For that matter, are police on stake-outs no longer allowed to wear eyeglasses or contact lenses?
"Oh," you reply, "but you can just put up curtains." Yeah, well you can also 'just' put up infrared deflecting panels (I believe that Pink Panther chap sells some consumer grade ones).
What about microphones? How is this different? We take a waveform that humans cannot naturally perceive (either due to amplitude, frequency, or simple placement of the sound emitting source) and modifies it for consumption.
I'm not saying that this is a bad decision necessarily. It does seem to be the right one. But how is it possible for the Supremes, not known for their scientific or mathematical skills, to have made a decision which is a technological one?
This issue is far from as black and white as others are posting.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
(Small video cameras often are sensitive to infrared, although usually there is a filter to block IR)
Spock: "Captain, do you have a search warrant for this sensor scan?"
The court made a distinction between technology (including eyballs) commonly available and those that only well-funded law-enforcement personnel would have. Presumably, if I don't want to be perceived by eyeballs, I can close the curtains. If I don't want others to know what music I listen to, I can soundproof my home.
If high-res thermal imaging became common, people would presumably become aware of how to mask it or otherwise limit its effectiveness. As I believe was noted in the decision, maybe you don't want your neighbors knowing exactly when you like to use your jacuzzi.
I'd rather the courts made it even more restrictive than this, but hey, it's a nice first step.
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
I agree with the Supreme Court decision. This decision is not about the drugs on war, it's not about the police looking at my trash cans, it's about my right to be secure in my own house.
This decision is somewhat surprising considering that a few weeks ago they upheld the decision to jail a soccer-mom for not wearing a seat-belt.
Go back and read the decision. It was Florida's electroal process, but a national election hanging in the balance with the results becoming less and less certain and reliable with each successive recount. The SC should never have been involved in that case, I agree, but Gore's unwillingness to admit defeat after repeated recounts (all of which have upheld Bush even after the fact) forced the issue there.
Scalia is the most consistent strict constructionist on the court, but even he has his bad days from time to time...
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last
If this doesn't highlight the importance of strict constructionists on the Supreme Court, I don't know what does.
Scalia is absolutely right here, as usual: any other decision would result in our rights being quickly eroded away by advances in technology.
It's too bad the Democrats are already planning to "fight dirty" to prevent another legal mind like Scalia's from sitting on the court. (Of course, that presupposes that Bush has the cojones to nominate someone of that caliber, a very iffy proposition given his demonstrated invertebrate nature to date...)
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last
Id mod you up, but i cant dammnit.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
Nice to see that I've been wearing a tin foil sailor's hat for all the right reasons. I wonder how much 4x8 sheets of 1/8" copper go for?
Laugh.
I keep trying to pick fights, but I can't shake this Excellent karma.
It's not really a conservative-liberal issue, but a statist-liberty issue. Both conservative statists (most Republican politicians) and liberal statists (most Democratic politicians) want to control everything you do in your life, they just want to require you to do different things. Privacy is an essential part of liberty, so you can understand why statists are so afraid of it.
This is a consolidated reply, thanks to the other poster for the correction regarding the Democrats, though frankly I always suspected the Carville-crowd, even though I should have been more specific about the media rather than accusing the national Democrat party for the actions of one individual (and scary) Democrat. On to the main reply...
The Third (and the Ninth) mean what they both say. The Third is the only one that hasn't been violated with impunity since its passage, so let's stick to the Ninth, which is FAR from an inkblot. I repeat: "The enumeration in the constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." To put it in simple terms, privacy's not there, so privacy's there. Your flossing example rings only-too-true these days, frankly it makes my point better than it makes yours, as laws like your hypothetical (albeit all-too-easy-to-imagine these days...) anti-flossing law are what SHOULD BE struck down on Ninth amendment (privacy & body-ownership) grounds.
I've never said that judges should be able to argue laws into existence on the basis of the Ninth; rather, I've said that laws (and LOTS of 'em, have you ever seen the entire dead-trees version of the United States Code? It's immense.) should be repealed because of the Ninth, and it hasn't happened! Privacy IS there, and daycare isn't, because privacy (leaving us both the hell alone, as long as we have no victims) doesn't involve enslaving someone else to look after my kids (or to pay the taxes on April 15th to hire someone to look after my kids).
Think of a ratchet that only turns one way, judges properly interpreting the Ninth might UNdo plenty of the damage done by the legislature, but could not ever DO the kind of damage that unthinking Federal judges now do (think mandated spending that leads to more taxes) under the interstate commerce clause, which has been stretched beyond all recognition by a grossly irresponsible Federal judiciary.
I have no illusions that the judiciary (or most of it, at least) would see things my way without a fight (that's why I rant about these things, challenge law professors to debates, etc.) I just think that an expansive reading is fully justified for "magnificent generalities." The "textual bounds on the rights the courts can concoct" in the case of a 'fair wage' would be the contract clause, which has been ignored almost as much as the Ninth. A proper interpretation of the contract clause would mean no minimum wage (a politically-unpopular position that's ideally suited to an unelected judiciary, since it's also the right position IMO).
The "So what" about the tax-&-spend drugwar's racist past is that a lot fewer people know about it (or admit it) than should, I have no argument that the constitution also has racist roots but a lot more folks know about that. Plenty of laws (think gun control, for another example) have racist roots that their advocates today don't like to think about, so Jim Ray gets to be a walking, annoying-history-lesson whether or not I want to be. (Having my first & last names -- no relation BTW -- doesn't exactly help...)
The racist effects of the tax-&-spend drugwar can today be seen in just about any prison. Just look at the crack vs powder disparity of the US sentencing commission, which should upset you much more than it apparently does, since it usurps judicial determinations of leniency in many cases. Go visit any US prison, look at the drug inmates, and remember that this country is about 11% black. If you see 11% black inmates, I want to know what prison it is. Typical rates are more like over 50%. You can quibble about people, motives, and effects, but you've not convinced me, so the effects still ARE racist, period. It's harder to speculate about people and motives, but effects can be seen very easily.
The problem with seeing the Tenth in the absence of the Ninth is that Tallahassee can then take over where Washington DC left off in the oppression-game. I own Jim Ray's body, not Washington politicians and (here's where the Tenth comes up short on the drugwar) not Tallahassee politicians with the same last name! IOW, I don't trust the politicians in Washington, but I don't trust the politicians in any of the 50 state capitals, either. Plenty of laws should be repealed on Tenth Amendment grounds (Jenna Bush wouldn't be in trouble for drinking at age 18 if it were followed, for example, but federal highway funding is too complex an issue for this discussion).
The laws against using medical pot (to give a recent example of a Supreme Court unanimous botch-job) should have been repealed on the basis of the Ninth, with the Tenth in the background at best for the medical pot issue, since the Ninth (IMO) covers recreational drug use (like it or not). Viewing the Tenth in a vacuum is a mistake, the Bill of Rights should be read as a whole, and rights of individuals should come first, with states second, and the feds third, as a last resort if the first two can't word (example, the United States SHALL MAINTAIN a Navy, but can raise armies - the founders didn't trust a standing army for good reason -- but that's getting back to the Third amendment). Reality these days is exactly the opposite heirarchy -- Feds over States over lowly individual rights -- obviously I think that's wrong. It's not a mistake that individual rights were always put before group-rights in the Bill of Rights, and always next to the ones that mattered, and the Ninth and Tenth need to be read together just like (IMO) the first and second need to be read together, and thought of at the same time. If you think that the Ninth (or the Third, for that matter) is an inkblot, then by all means, go argue for repeal! (I doubt I'll see this happen, I have yet to find anyone who will argue for that proposition.) You don't have to, because the irresponsible Federal judiciary has effectively repealed it by ignoring it. I'm the one who has to argue and rant, the inkblot crowd merely has to sit back and relax (unless I'm too hard to ignore)!
JMR
Again speaking ONLY for myself here, I'm probably a minority of one in this.
Try e-gold - (contact me). I'm NOT e-
elefantstn is right that the process got VERY dirty with Bork, but it's wrong to say the Democrats were Bork's only opposition (far from it, check the CATO archives from the period if you doubt me) although with video-rental records, it's safe to say that Democrats were clearly the dirtiest.
:)
CATO (and Jim Ray, I'm chairman of the Ninth Amendment Foundation in my other life) opposed Bork in part because of his writings on the Ninth Amendment, which he called "an inkblot." The Ninth Amendment states:
"The enumeration in the constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
Doesn't seem like an inkblot to me! Plainly, the US constitution and especially the Bill of Rights -- no matter what Bork or (left-wing Democrat Senator) Joseph Biden or a variety of ignoramus-law-professors may say -- is not an exhaustive list of rights, but merely a starting point for the rights we SHOULD expect, and (as Jefferson called them) the Ninth & Tenth Amendments are "magnificent generalities." No, the right to privacy (and even the word, "privacy") never gets mentioned in the constitution, but IT DOESN'T MATTER! because the enumeration in the constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people, and one of those "others" is privacy, like it or not. If you don't like it, I heartily suggest an attempt at repeal!
Of course, another of those 'other' rights is self-medication and general body-self-ownership, whether the Supreme Court, Congress, the states, and various lower courts agree or not. The tax-&-spend war on (some) drugs is un-American and morally wrong and wasteful, and it has provably-racist roots in the past and provably racist effects today, but nobody wants to admit it and honorably opt for repeal. Instead, they want me to be "reasonable," and spend even more money every April 15th on "treatment," which is a nicer version of prison, and will cost even MORE than too-many prisons letting violent offenders out to make room for more drug "criminals"!
It's funny how nobody wants to debate me on these points in an equal-footing situation. It's easy to find a law professor who will claim that the Ninth is "not important" and "means nothing" (just go to any law school & sit in on con-law if you doubt me) but find me one who thinks that the Ninth should actually be repealed and will debate me in an open forum! You can't? That's because they'd rather not think about it. I may make them mad, but I also make them think about it. The Supreme Court has never invalidated ONE LAW solely on Ninth Amendment grounds, and that's THEIR intellectual problem, not mine. I'm just a thorn in their sides on the issue, and they'll get the respect they want from me when they deserve it, not before! Ok, rant over, back to work.
JMR
(ESPECIALLY speaking only for myself today, even more than usual...)
"It is disappointing, but perhaps not surprising, that Supreme Court justices and other constitutional interpreters have typically fled from the hard moral judgments called for by the Ninth Amendment."
-- Steven Macedo, _The New Right v. The Constitution_ p. 7.
(Go find and read this book.)
Try e-gold - (contact me). I'm NOT e-
Scalia is far from a "strict constructionist." (A notion associated more with the jurisprudence of Bork and, to some extent, Thomas than Scalia). Indeed, he expressly eschews notions such as original intent and congressional intent -- the doctrinal view (euphemism for how he explains how he reaches some, but not all of his results -- same deal with the left by the way) is called textualism, whereby he presumes that text plainly resolves all questions, and that it is an anathema to pierce beyond the text to the "intent" of the author of a statute. (OT, but for completeness, Rhenquist's views seem to me to be neither originalist nor textualist, but rather statist in nature.)
."; Bork can do some things here Scalia simply can't), his record on the Fourth Amendment is abysmal. Since his term on the Court, he has virtually made the Fourth Amendment an obscure exception. This case is remarkable in view of this, and I look forward to carefully studying it.
At any rate, while I agree that Scalia has been somewhat solicitous of first amendment issues (textualism really doesn't permit much messing around with "Congress shall make no law . .
First, before you make assumptions, know that I voted for Nader.
Second, as I understand it, the law in florida (like that in most states) does not require recounts. Recounts (like all election events across the country) are a county by county thing and are only necessary when a candidate asked for one within 10 days of the election. And guess what? Gore didn't even suggest (let alone apply for) for a complete recount until after the 10 day deadline had passed. Florida also has a requirement that recounts be done when the difference between winner and loser is less than five percent but, again, that's for each county not for the state as a whole.
Sigh - get over it. The real truth is that the election was within the margin of error, that many, many first time voters mangled their own ballots and that we will never know who "really" won in Florida, any more than we will know who won in New Mexico or the other states where the difference between candidates was only one or two percent.
--
Clear, Dark Skies
Looked at another way, 200 years is very young and immature for a country...
As for emergency situations in general, the best policy (for police or anyone else) is to do what you have to, but be prepared to explain yourself to a court of law afterward and go to jail if they don't buy your explanation.
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
I said "complete". There was never a complete recount. Many counties never recounted, even though the law required them to.
Best Slashdot Co
Now, let's watch that karma burn.
Best Slashdot Co
Movie with Roy Schneider made in about '84. With the LAPD using infrared imaging technology and Apache-like helicopters.
Best Slashdot Co
Er, no it doesn't. In fact, the police were arguing specifically that since the thermal imaging system they were using could NOT read infrared THROUGH WALLS, it was OK -- because they could only 'see' the heat on the outside of the building, not through the walls.
The majority didn't buy it. Sure, they accepted the contention by the government that all they could detect were 'amorphous hot spots' on the exterior of the house, but they didn't accept that that made the use of the the infrared imager not a 'search'. In fact, they said, specifically, that their bright-line definition of a 'search' (requiring a warrant is:
The police could not have detected those "amorphous blobs of heat" without tresspassing a constitutionally protected area: the house or the curtilage around it.
The cases they cite (specifically US v. Karo) have a similar viewpoint. In the Karo case, the DEA placed an electronic tracer in a can of ether that an informant was selling to the suspect. They then used that tracer to follow the can around for a few weeks until it they found the cocaine lab they were looking for. The court found that the use of the tracer to find the can of ether was an unconstitutional search, for much the same reason as this case.
But it isn't about being able to see through walls.
Has anyone noticed the backlash of the world against america? We got kicked off of two UN commissions. There was a huge kneejerk reaction from Europe regarding our execution of McVeigh. The same european nations are fond of calling Gee Dubya Shrubya a "Mass executioner". America is slowly becoming more and more a laughing stock - the world's comedy relief - because some of the stuff that goes on within our borders. Except most countries are too scared to publically laugh, because our collecive military phallus is so much larger than anyone elses.
Only in America could someone sue a tobacco company and win $3 billion while we sentence a 14 year old to life imprisonment for a crime he committed when he was 12 years old.
A friend of mine has pointed out that many of his overseas friends say that nobody in the US is responsible for their actions. Arguably someones mother didnt hold them enough or daddy liked to get the switch after his son a little too often, but in the end we make the decision to go ahead and do something. In other nations i've picked up, someone is more and more responsible for their actions every day, while in the US the equation for your responsibility varies on so many factors its hard to describe (Among them is your fame, riches, color, upbringing, number of warnings, if you were on springer, age (often inversely), sex (both gender and who you choose to mate with), sexuality, the music you listen to, the color or type of clothing you wear, religion and area of the country you live in).
KYLLO v. UNITED STATES (99-8508)S .html
Web-accessible at:
http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/99-8508.Z
Argued February 20, 2001 -- Decided June 11, 2001
Opinion author: Scalia
Suspicious that marijuana was being grown in petitioner Kyllo's
home in a triplex, agents used a thermal imaging device to scan
the triplex to determine if the amount of heat emanating from
it was consistent with the high-intensity lamps typically used
for indoor marijuana growth. The scan showed that Kyllo's
garage roof and a side wall were relatively hot compared to the
rest of his home and substantially warmer than the neighboring
units. Based in part on the thermal imaging, a Federal
Magistrate Judge issued a warrant to search Kyllo's home, where
the agents found marijuana growing. After Kyllo was indicted
on a federal drug charge, he unsuccessfully moved to suppress
the evidence seized from his home and then entered a
conditional guilty plea. The Ninth Circuit ultimately
affirmed, upholding the thermal imaging on the ground that
Kyllo had shown no subjective expectation of privacy because he
had made no attempt to conceal the heat escaping from his home.
Even if he had, ruled the court, there was no objectively
reasonable expectation of privacy because the thermal imager
did not expose any intimate details of Kyllo's life, only
amorphous hot spots on his home's exterior.
Held: Where, as here, the Government uses a device that is not
in general public use, to explore details of a private home
that would previously have been unknowable without physical
intrusion, the surveillance is a Fourth Amendment "search," and
is presumptively unreasonable without a warrant. Pp. 3-13.
(a) The question whether a warrantless search of a home is
reasonable and hence constitutional must be answered no in most
instances, but the antecedent question whether a Fourth
Amendment "search" has occurred is not so simple. This Court
has approved warrantless visual surveillance of a home, see
California v. Ciraolo, 476 U.S. 207, 213, ruling that visual
observation is no "search" at all, see Dow Chemical Co. v.
United States, 476 U.S. 227, 234-235, 239. In assessing when a
search is not a search, the Court has adapted a principle first
enunciated in Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 361: A
"search" does not occur--even when its object is a house
explicitly protected by the Fourth Amendment--unless the
individual manifested a subjective expectation of privacy in
the searched object, and society is willing to recognize that
expectation as reasonable, see, e.g., California v. Ciraolo,
supra, at 211. Pp. 3-5.
(b) While it may be difficult to refine the Katz test in
some instances, in the case of the search of a home's
interior--the prototypical and hence most commonly litigated
area of protected privacy--there is a ready criterion, with
roots deep in the common law, of the minimal expectation of
privacy that exists, and that is acknowledged to be reasonable.
To withdraw protection of this minimum expectation would be to
permit police technology to erode the privacy guaranteed by the
Fourth Amendment. Thus, obtaining by sense-enhancing
technology any information regarding the home's interior that
could not otherwise have been obtained without physical
"intrusion into a constitutionally protected area," Silverman
v. United States, 365 U.S. 505, 512, constitutes a search--at
least where (as here) the technology in question is not in
general public use. This assures preservation of that degree
of privacy against government that existed when the Fourth
Amendment was adopted. Pp. 6-7.
(c) Based on this criterion, the information obtained by
the thermal imager in this case was the product of a search.
The Court rejects the Government's argument that the thermal
imaging must be upheld because it detected only heat radiating
from the home's external surface. Such a mechanical
interpretation of the Fourth Amendment was rejected in Katz,
where the eavesdropping device in question picked up only sound
waves that reached the exterior of the phone booth to which it
was attached. Reversing that approach would leave the
homeowner at the mercy of advancing technology--including
imaging technology that could discern all human activity in the
home. Also rejected is the Government's contention that the
thermal imaging was constitutional because it did not detect
"intimate details." Such an approach would be wrong in
principle because, in the sanctity of the home, all details are
intimate details. See e.g., United States v. Karo, 468 U.S.
705; Dow Chemical, supra, at 238, distinguished. It would also
be impractical in application, failing to provide a workable
accommodation between law enforcement needs and Fourth
Amendment interests. See Oliver v. United States, 466 U.S.
170, 181. Pp. 7-12.
(d) Since the imaging in this case was an unlawful
search, it will remain for the District Court to determine
whether, without the evidence it provided, the search warrant
was supported by probable cause--and if not, whether there is
any other basis for supporting admission of that evidence. Pp.
12-13.
190 F.3d 1041, reversed and remanded.
Scalia, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which
Souter, Thomas, Ginsburg, and Breyer, JJ., joined. Stevens,
J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Rehnquist, C. J., and
O'Connor and Kennedy, JJ., joined.
Favorite
I suppose this is only logical in view of the court's opinion that I'm not entitled to decrypt HBO's microwaves that are streaming through my house. If HBO owns what they radiate at me, then I'm entitled to privacy despite whatever IR I might be radiating through the walls of my house.
But seriously, it's good to see someone putting the brakes on the whole "if you're clean, why should you care?" mantra that the would-be big brothers keep chanting.
Of course, knowing that thermal imaging is possible just makes me want to make sure that I use foil-faced insulation in case I want to have an armed standoff with Lon Horiuchi [1] someday.
-jcr
[1] The FBI murderer of Vicki Weaver. Look it up.
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
So, if the supremes have ruled against using IR scanners, what about the thing they've been doing for a few years (ostensibly) to catch people growing pot indoors?
Rumor has it that the cops are looking for large power bills to indicate the use of indoor grow lights for large-scale pot cultivation.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
So following that logic, should the cops also be able to use a very sensitive recording device to record your private conversations? After all, the sound waves emitted by your voice do carry through the walls and can be examed "from the outside".
Whoa, you mean you'd prefer the Constitution to mean whatever the Executive Branch thinks it means today? Or the Legislative Branch?
> The real truth is that if Antonin Scalia's Lincoln Continental was hit a by Mac truck while he was boffing Ruth Bader Ginsburg in the back seat
Thanks for that image. I really needed that. I'm off to visit goatse.cx. To numb the pain.
Hey! Don't stop there. Keep going! I want to know how the story ends :-)
A dingo ate my sig...
...but only under certain tests, which this did not meet. Interesting to note that this had Ginsberg and Clarence "Oh my god he's so conservative he'll kill us all" Thomas in the majority together.
This wasn't a "liberals +1" vote, people. That's what's sad...liberals used to be able to be counted on for such things but now I can't even trust them to guard us against the police.
Should those sound waves be private, too ?
Absofuckinlutely. If law enforcement would like to sit outside your house with a laser mic they should have to get a warrant as well.
------------------------ What's a Sig?
You seem to forget we had a little war almost 250 years ago so that the US would not be like the UK.
British subjects are so completely spied upon by the government that George Orwell's nightmare has come true. Compared to the multitude of cameras spying on you on every street corner, the t.v. detectors are insignificant.
-- Will program for bandwidth
The ruling, as I understand it, pertains to technology that is not available to the public. What happens when technology like this or much, much better IS available to the public? Can (or should) cops be able to equal the technology that the criminal (or law abiding citizens) are using to spy on the police? Is it not the same with gun technology, also?
It doesn't matter though, I've almost finished my force field technology. It's pretty cool, in addition to blocking the normal things force fields block (bullets, bombs, lasers, photon torpedos, etc.) it even blocks light and sound!
A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices. -- William James
Power consumption. I'm not sure if they need a warrant for that, or who's the subject if there is one (you, or the power company?), but one thing DEA and friends can check for is power consumption, because all those heat lamps, et al, will use a disproportionate amount of electricity.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
To prevent crimes, subject to restrictions imposed by Federal, state, and local law.
There wouldn't be much crime by non-police if they simply arrested everybody they saw, beat people up for looking at 'em crosswise, searched random homes at will, used flamethower teams and other ordnance when raiding suspects' residences, and executed suspects on a whim without trial, would there? But they're not allowed to do that.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
The problem is that this won't hamper the police too much. They'll still scan houses with FLIR, violating the privacy of the citizens they're sworn to serve. They just can't go get a warrant with the results of the scanning, or use it in court. How many of you have confidence that when they take the scanner out to scan someone *with* a warrant, that they won't get "curious" and check some other places they are suspicious of for any reason? Then, if they can find anything that might indicate an illegal activity, how long do you think it takes for them to wait and watch until they've got enough evidence for a warrant? I think police use illegal means of gathering evidence all of the time, they just need to "clean up" the evidence by "finding" it in a legal way afterward. Which is much easier once you know what the evidence is.
The real problem is not FLIR or any future technology, it's the corruption in our police force. New technology just enables them to become more corrupt if they choose to be. And in the end, as the corruption becomes more widespread and more routine, it is the honest citizens that get the shaft, since they effectively lose their 4th amendment rights.
"Ask the cop on the corner; ask the cop in the store; ask the cop on the rooftop; ask the cop in the woodpile; ask the cop that's knock, knock, knockin' at your back door."
*knock knock*
Go ahead, ask him!
-Firesign Theatre
I've had a slightly different take on this for quite a while. I believe that federal laws that make it illegal to descramble satellite or other signals like that of cell phone traffic that pass through my property are bogus. The information is there, it is on my property, I didn't ask for it to be there, I should be able to do what I want with it.
Obviously the US government does not agree with me on that issue. But, at least they are being consistent here. The heat and other non-obvious emissions from my property are not intended for law enforcement or any one else to be able to use, even if they pass through public property.
So, as long as it isn't legal to watch pirated satellite tv I think it is proportional that the cops can't watch us in our own homes.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Is it? Should the FBI be limited to investigating reported crimes or should they be constantly surveying private citizens for evidence of undiscovered crimes? The latter turns them into keepers of the populace and unfortunately many accept this. "It only affects those who have something to worry about" and "I don't mind because I'm innocent" appear too often in Slashdot postings. Politicians are only too happy to grant these powers and advance their careers and coalitions saving the children.
If left unchecked it will become impossible to police the police. The residents of LA and NY already know what kind of people will be in control of that power. Does anyone really believe that the FBI will stop using thermal imagers? The images are inadmissable evidence, that's all.
The officers measured heat patterns outside the home and used that information to deduce something about conditions inside the home. How would things have been different if they had set up an x-ray emitter on one side of the house and a detector on the other side to measure x-ray levels outside the home, and used that information to deduce something about conditions inside?
The distinction between "off-the-wall" and "through-the-wall" surveillance is completely spurious. If the judge had decided that surveillance from a position outside the home did not constitute a search, I would have understood his position. But the idea that you can find out what's going on in somebody's home without making use of information that originates inside the home is just plain stupid, whether it comes from a Supreme Court judge or anyone else.
--
If he looks through your window using a pair of spectacles, he is not violating your rights.
If he looks through your curtains using a pair of X-Ray Spex, he is violating your rights.
That's why the ruling focussed on the use of equipment not available to the general public. Surveillance with the unaided senses, or with the senses aided by everyday items such as spectacles and hearing aids, is permissible. Surveillance with high-tech devices (by the standards of the day) requires a warrant. Unfortunately the dissenting judges didn't appear to understand this distinction. From the Washington Post:
Stevens overlooked the fact that nothing can be learned about conditions inside the home by measuring signals that are independent of conditions inside the home. Any sensor that is physically located outside the home is measuring conditions outside, but those conditions may reveal an unacceptable amount of information about conditions inside (as in the case of X-Ray Spex that use x-ray levels outside the home to determine the positions of objects inside the home).--
Legalisation of drugs would have some desatbilizing effects on the us economy; The people who are getting rich (politicians, drug lords, boyz 'n' da hood, etc.) will have to come up with something else to bring in their millions.
God forbid, these assholes might have to get a real job, or something.
Also, the deaths due to an unlimited supply of coke would certainly lower the number of people in the job market. Note that this would not likely kill your average geek; we know about things like dosage limits and toxicity. The Cheerleader/football class would be wiped out rapidly, causing economic upheaval. After all, who would get all those high paying govt. jobs if you killed off all the stupid people.
The Cartels own too much of our govt. for legalization to ever happen, though. They keep congress on a short junkie leash, and would nip any legalization move in the bud, so to speak.
Why do you think that drug testing is used, anyway? Most companies use it to see if you're motivated enough to pass (cheat) on the test, not because they care about the result. The only time it is generally given in a way hard to circumvent, is when you're in the hospital, and they want to deny your workmans compensation claim.
Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
Thermal imaging is nothing. A number of companies are being funded by the Department of Justice to develop a new type of radar that would allow police to scan somebody on a sidewalk to see if they had a gun - without their even knowing it. Details here...
In the opinion of the Justices as soon as this technology becomes readily available for public consumption then the police ARE allowed to use it.
They are my favorite justices and I think we need more of them!
Does this 'other high tech snooping' include say Carnivore snooping my email?
The ultimate network admin tool needs HELP!
As the saying goes - if you're gonna commit the crime, you better be willing to do the time.
There's a difference between breaking the law in a "let's go rob a bank" sense ("knowingly breaking the law and williningly accepting the risk that entailed") and breaking the law in a "I have every right to do [whatever]" sense. If I believe I have every right to do something, why should I be willing to "do the time" because someone else has decided that I shouldn't?
---
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
It's not the convservative making a pro-privacy decision that shocks me. It's the courts making an educated decision.
I am !amused.
----
I hereby inform you that I have NOT been required to provide any decryption keys.
"OK sir, I'm going to confiscate your car to prevent you fro exceeding the sped limit
Or how about castration to prevent rape?
Or - sheesh there are so many laws you could break I guess I'd better just execute you to be on the safe side, after all it's my job to prevent criminal acts."
----
I hereby inform you that I have NOT been required to provide any decryption keys.
A straw man argument is to argue against something which was not said, to create a false opposing argument in order to easily defeat it. This I did not do.
In my opinion the job of the police is not to prevent criminal acts but to protect the public. This protection may well require the apprehension of wrongdoers and the prevention of acts of malfeasance, but the protection is paramount. In the UK there is a (low-key) debate about whether the Police should engage in routine high-speed pursuit because of a number of incidents involving injury and death to bystanders.
It's interesting to consider the dual nature of the police - are they to enforce government policy or to protect the populace?
----
I hereby inform you that I have NOT been required to provide any decryption keys.
That's why I (briefly) created a chain showing the extremism : confiscation; mutilation; execution. Just a short way of indicating those little steps which can lead from banning a critical newspaper article to book-burning. Each step may seem reasonable but the journey is abhorrent, admittedly I left out an awful lot of little steps, but then this is
I think you can see that my extrapolation from the original premise to preventative euthanasia was a logical (but admittedly extreme) chain. Hence it is reductio ad absurdam and not arguing against a specious position which my 'opponent' had never held in the first place, but which I would find easy to defeat.
Straw Man arguments aren't R.A.A. of necessity - sort of a "Have you stopped beating your wife yet?" approach. Another example (in the context of this topic) is to say "Well I don't believe the police should be able to tap your 'phone lines without a warrant" - this implies that the other party believes something about which no opinion has been expressed.
BTW I believe that "straw man" comes from the dummy used for bayonet training in the forces, or possible even from the middle ages for similar purpose.
PS I also believe that while fun most attempts at categorisation ultimately break down, the Dewey Decimal system of book classification is a good example, there are lots of unassigned (highish) numbers but the CORBA book I borrowed has a classification of 005.712769, and it's not all due to the age of the Dewey.
Also - when does a tadpole become a frog?
----
I hereby inform you that I have NOT been required to provide any decryption keys.
Come to that how many ubergeeks have server farms that could cause a knock on the door? "ER well Judge the electricity usage was high for a few months while I set up my beowulf cluster so I could get first post on SlashDot........"
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I hereby inform you that I have NOT been required to provide any decryption keys.
What other major countries go back 200 years? Sure, many go back culturally far beyond that, but in terms of government, very few, if any, are as old as the United States.
"The point here is that anyone can make it to the presidency still."
I actually agree with your main points, but try telling THIS point to 51% of the popultiaon of the ocuntry - all females. Or to black people, jewish poeple, or homosexuals. Pretty much any relatively well connected ambitious WHITE MALE can become president, yes...
ooky
We're all in it together.
Rehnquist, according to Robert Ellis Smith, is an enemy of privacy, one of the guys who paved the way for Nixon to spy on adversaries in the pre-Watergate era.
I tend to agree with you, as did the framers of the Constitution. That's why they included a procedure for amending it. If you (generic you) believe that American culture has changed to such a degree that private ownership of firearms is a bad thing (or that protection from unreasonable search and siezure is counterproductive, or that due process of law is overrated), there is a remedy, and it isn't through the courts. You need to get legislatures involved, and amend the Constitution.
Until it's amended, though, it is the supreme law of the land (in its own terms), and every federal and state official in the country takes an oath to "preserve, protect, and defend" it. IMO, that is not effectively done when judges substitute their feelings of what the law should be for the fact of what the law is.
No, they have done no such thing. Criminals have (in theory) the same protections against unreasonable searches as the rest of the public (almost none, in other words). If the police have probable cause to believe that you're involved in criminal activity, they can get a warrant, specifying where to search and what to search for--but even then, you haven't waived anything; it's just that you don't have an absolute right to never be searched.
Sounds pretty likely to me. Reinquist and Scalia were on opposite sides of the issue, he probably had no idea who he should stand for.
If you consider a law criminalizing getting high an injustice, then you could easily claim that this is breaking the law to correct existing injustices.
Although it's demonstrably false, most people do have expectations of privacy when it comes to the Internet. That's why encryption hasn't taken off nearly as much (analogy: closing the blinds on the window).
--Fesh
--Fesh
Kill -9 'em all, let root@localhost sort 'em out.
The police do not have to be blind to what your neighbors can readily see and know. "General public use" surely means the police officer can wear ordinary corrective lenses or contacts when looking at your house. High-powered telescopes are out, as such behavior is generally illegal even for private people for looking into homes. (Peeping Tom laws) The whole question turns around what is "reasonable."
Pot odors would be enough to get a warrant for sure. Loud music, if a distubance of the peace, could justify him going up and knocking on the door and getting a better whiff. Heck, might justify an arrest w/o a warrant, but I don't think so.
The justification for scanning Kyllo is that he lived NEXT DOOR to somebody the cops suspected of growing pot. No noise, no smell, no bother, no justification, just random nosiness.
I did learn here that commercial hemp operations could be devastating to marijuana production. I learned here that marijuana pollen does have forensic value to law enforcement. I learned here that in Spain, "the hemp pollen count is broadcast on the nightly TV news" as some people are allergic.
Hopefully, I will have learned from your most encouraging comment to contribute to Slashdot in a botanically-friendly fashion.
sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.
"Subpoenaed utility records showed that, from May 1991 to December 1991, the residences at 878 and 890 Rhododendron Drive used an abnormally high amount of electricity. Warrant Aff. 16-17. Electrical use at 890 Rhododendron Drive was high for approximately three to four months, then decreased for three months; electrical use at 878 Rhododendron Drive was consistently high. Id. at 17. In the experience of Agent Elliott, those figures were consistent with a staggered indoor marijuana grow operation: persons cultivating marijuana commonly start the plants in one location, then transfer them to another location, in order to facilitate a continuous supply of mature marijuana plants. Ibid. Based on his experience, Agent Elliott inferred that a marijuana grow operation began at Tova Shook's residence at 890 Rhododendron and was completed at petitioner's residence at 878 Rhododendron Drive. Ibid."
sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.
I recall reading some time ago that in certain area, the pollen count for marijuana was extremely high. In this case, establishing that type of empirical evidence may be sufficient for a judge to sign a warrant.
If I also recall, part of this case originated with much higher than normal consumption of electrcity in the guys home. That information was not private.
sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.
But seriously, The police enforce the law.. If you break it, they arrest you. They CAN'T arrest you because you "MIGHT" break a law... They need probable cause to investigate that you HAVE Broken/are breaking the law (and they are suposed to prove it to a judge that they have enough probable cause to get the warrent - "We've found catalogues from green house companies and boxes from hydroponic equipment. We believe he's growing pot.")...
UPS Sucks
You have to understand something about Scalia, he isn't necessarily a straight "conservative" as many people believe. People like to draw political lines around Supreme Court justices because they are nominated by politically minded animals (presidents). But those types of labels don't apply nearly as broadly on the Judicial branch (realistically they do still apply somewhat). As for Scalia, he's a strict constructionist, which means he doesn't like interpretation of the Constitution, he prefers to use the literal meaning. This often makes him very conservative in his view points (for instance he believes Roe v. Wade to be abhorrent in its interpretation of the intent of the Constitution). But then he turns around a makes himself the critical 5th vote in ruling in Texas v. Johnson (flag burning) which makes him seem liberal. For him, it's not a matter of political ideals, it's a matter of Constitutional interpretation.
Actually, they didn't AGREE with the legal significance or correctness of that distinction or the exact place where you personally are drawing it. I know its perfectly natural human thinking to assume that our own opinions are the complete revealed truth and anyone who disagrees with us just doesn't understand , but this part of our nature is something we have to rise above in order to have mature political discussions. When talking about a sizable minority of the supreme court its even more foolish looking to treat them as ill-informed slowpokes who could be educated by the IANAL denzins of a technology discussion group.
Kahuna Burger
...will work for Chick tracts...
No, there are 4 justices who don't AGREE that this is a high tech extension of searching you home. Those 4 justices consider it a high tech extension of the "plain view" doctrine. They disagree with the 5 majority justices and aparently with you. But the use of a term like "realize" over what is a well informed difference of legal opinion is just egotistical.
Yes, this is both a rant and a nitpick, but this is the kind of language that makes me crazy on this group. There will be times in life where people don't agree with you because there is some facet of the issue that you understand better than they do, but there will be far, far more times in your life where people who are just as well as or better informed than you will still disagree in the end judgement. If you get in the habit of dissmissing these people intelectually because they don't agree with you, you will never change anyone's mind. (this, IMHO and to be a teensy bit flamish, is one of the reasons that libertarians have never gotten much of anywhere. I see this attitude with them more than from any other political group I've dealt with.)
Kahuna Burger
...will work for Chick tracts...
Dogs are not generally considered to be technology, so that likely has an effect on such rulings. Another issue that may come into play if someone tried to use this ruling against trained dogs is the level to which your privacy is invaded in the process of finding out about illegal activity. On this issue I'd say they are totally different. Dogs don't come into your home unless there is already a warent for your home. You don't encounter them unless you are already in a public place - which is probably why they are considered just a part of the officer. More importantly, a dog trained to sniff for drugs tells the officer he thinks he smells drugs. A dog trained to sniff for guns tell the officer he thinks he smells guns. He does not observe, record or report anything else about you, even if he has the senses to know that you also have been shagging your secretary, not using deodorent and have a twelve year old's soiled panties in your pocket. Other forms of warentless search/observation that are being rejected may have more of a capicity to invade your law abiding privacy in the course of finding illegal activity. Libertarians probably don't care if a form of warentless seach/observation is finely tuned to only detect an illegal activity without infringing at all on the rest of a person's privacy, but I suspect that it will matter to most folks.
If the use of dogs hasn't been rejected before this, I doubt this ruling would be the one to revisit the issue. They really aren't that similar.
Kahuna Burger (just posted this AC, but it killed my moderation anyway, so screw that.)
...will work for Chick tracts...
Just a thought...
But America *HAS* lasted over two hundred years. That is a feat many a nation cant brag about.
Maybe things are going a little downhill and some of the flaws of our republic are glaringly obvious now yes that is true.
But it is still a nation where one person can makea difference. Obviously people like GWB can make it to the presidency. Jimmy Carter made it and he arguably was a pretty laid back southerner. The point here is that anyone can make it to the presidency still.
I just want to voice my opinon that while not perfect there isnt much better out there ya know?
America is a huge economical force. I live my day to day life with no governmental guidance, okay I know it is there but by and large im free. That says a lot. I can hop in my car and drive to the edges of our country without anyone caring. I can buy a gun and shoot it, hopefully for a long time to come. I can do all of this and hey I can still become nearly instantly rich if I was lucky.
While not perfect I don't think America has held together without some very strong glue, perhaps not everlasting perfect glue. Good stuff nonetheless. Anyways.... Just a little tired of all the unfounded political bashing going on around here. People fly off the handle complaning about GWB, the justices yadda yadda.. yet how many of you can give irrefutable proof that our president is on a course to destroy our nation and unhinge our morals and destroy the economy? Till then...
Jeremy
It has to do with the expectation of privacy. I expect people to be able to see through my windows, I don't expect people to be able to see through my walls.
The Economics of Website Security
If we follow this to the end, the police should make available to the public all their databases, for instance those that record the "modus operandi" of criminals. If they are not allowed to use heat sensors to look inside my house, they shouldn't use computers to look into my personal habits either.
basically this means that in the future, when everyone has thermal imaging glasses, you'd better expect most people to have really, really good insulation on their homes. imagine living in glass houses. what this means is that sure, if you have an open window, everyone can see in because eyes are in public use. if everyone could see infrared, we'd expect everyone to have nice thermal shields on their houses, just like now most people do not have clear walls.
The REAL sam_at_caveman_dot_org is user ID 13833.
The REAL sam_at_caveman_dot_org is user ID 13833.
It's disturbing that the FBI tries to do this sort of thing, sure. But that's their *job*. Their job is to track down crooks, by any means the law deems acceptable. I'm no lawyer (or lawyer-wannabe), but that's a huge gray area, and if the difference in making a case (which is your job) lies in getting a piece of evidence, you're going to be willing to go quite far to get it.
This means, by the way, that it's our job to view the FBI's attempts to control surveillance technology with utmost distrust if we want to preserve our freedom.
Ray
there is still hope that common sense can win out in the court system regarding technology.
Keep writing those representitives, you have the power.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Insightfull? what are the mods smoking... oh wait.
You really need to stop getting your facts from high times.
Right now the government is being over zealous in its hunt for drug offenders, and in the process it generally over punishes offenders. I believe that many of the punishments for drug laws should be changed and lessoned.
There was a time when I believed as you do, however once a started doing my own research about this subject, I quickly relized that most 'facts' that proponents of legalization are just heresay. marijuana is addictive, and long term use causes many health problems.
Societies that have legal drug use have serious problems.
I urge you to spend a couple years studing the effects of wide use of drugs on society as a whole.
One final note, I do believe that ANY drug that helps someone medically should be made available to that person through prescription. To disallow any drug that has legitament medical use is nothing but cruel and inhumane.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
To me, "widely available" means that the Supreme Court said to themselves "are we going to think this through" and came either to the conclusion "no, we are too lazy - leave it up to others to decide, and then we'll use their decision as definition of 'widely available'", or they were in a hurry to a particular case stopped right away. Seems like it is not thoroughly thought through either way... Either way, this decision will sooner or later be killed, and then all of the work gone into this by the Supreme Court, other justice instances, police et cetera is thrown out the window.
The powers of the Federal Congress, for instance, are exhaustive; it is perfectly correct to argue that, if the authority is not granted in Article I, Section VII, the US Congress may not do it. It is not correct to argue, however, that because the right of an individual to do something is not listed in the Bill of Rights, or elsewhere in the Constitution, that individual may not do it. If this sort of argument were possible, it would easily allow judges to argue laws into existence, and circumvent the legislature.
So you're quite right to say that it's not an exhaustive list. I have the Constitutionally protected right to petition for redress of my grievances, and the Constitutionally unprotected right to floss my teeth before bedtime. The difference is that a law might legitimately be passed to prevent my flossing, if the dentists' lobby found it was losing money. :-)
I found this comment to be particularly interesting:
one of those "others" is privacy, like it or not
It is? Whether I like it or not? Because, I suppose, you *do* like it. Well, frankly, I like it too, but to the contrary, it ain't there. Should be, IMO, but is not.
Along the same line, though, which other rights do we have, whether we like them or not? The right to health insurance? The right to a fair wage? The right to affordable daycare? I've heard these things and others argued by people in high positions. There are no textual bounds on the rights the courts can concoct for me, so any distinction you make between uses of the word 'right' are bound to be contentious and easily usurped. Having abandoned the need to write down our laws, perhaps they'll give me the right to a new car; that would be nice, anyway.
Following your expansive interpretation of the Ninth, it's hard to see any real distinction between the Legislature and the Judiciary, except that the judges are more dangerous and less accountable lawmakers. It's a cheerful fantasy to think that, given such unlimited power, the Judiciary would prove to be wise and benevolent rulers, protecting our freedom. One might entertain the same hopes about kings, with as much historical grounding.
I must say as well that it seems very ironic that you'd quote Jefferson, that great advocate of judicial restraint, to support your position. A few of many quotes which give a better view of Jefferson's opinion of judicial activism:
This member of government was at first considered as the most harmless of all its organs. But it has proved that the power of declaring what law is, ad libitum, by sapping and mining, slyly, and without alarm, the foundations of the Constitution, can do what open force would not dare to attempt
The concrete nature of law is one of the greatest things we have in defense of liberty. Viewing the Ninth as a carte blanche for (especially unelected Federal) officials to make up what rights suit their tastes is not only textually unjustified, but would be practically disasterous.
A few other points:
The tax-&-spend war on (some) drugs is ... provably-racist roots in the past
So what? The Federal Constitution itself has self-evidently racist roots. We still use it.
and provably racist effects today,
Umm... what is a 'racist effect'? People may be racists; motives may be racist; effects are just effects. Even looking past your wording to what I believe you're saying here, this point is hard to justify in my view. As it happens, I would like to see most drugs legalized, and most federal drug laws struck down on 10th Amendment grounds, but that's another matter.
"The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed." - Alexander Hamilton
Which is just what I said. Or can you point out to me an occasion when the ennumeration of certain rights in the Constitution was actually used to deny or disparage others?
Statutory laws have been used many times to deny and disparage people's rights. The ennumerated rights have not. End of story.
To put it in simple terms, privacy's not there, so privacy's there.
How do you know it's there?
Really. How? Because it fits with your political theories of the proper role of government? Other people have different beliefs, and will extrapolate different rights. Can you prove that your notion of rights is the true one? I have to doubt it.
What we have in common are laws. We have enough trouble deciding what they mean, but at least they're tangible.
Your flossing example rings only-too-true these days, frankly it makes my point better than it makes yours
I disagree. I don't think it makes your case at all. The fact that a law is bad does not make that law unconstitutional. The fact that you'd like a particular law to be unconstitutional does not make that law unconstitutional either. It does not even mean they should be unconstitutional, really.
If a law is bad, that just means that that law shouldn't have been passed. Same way that if a constituional provision is bad, it just means it's a provision which shouldn't have been passed. Some bad sorts of laws we have categorically proscribed; others we haven't.
I've never said that judges should be able to argue laws into existence on the basis of the Ninth
Nor have you said what would prevent them from doing so if they chose. Sure, they do that now; you're championing a reading of the Ninth which would vastly increase their ability to do so. A broad interpretation of the Ninth inherently involves increasing judicial power. It does not inherently involve your notion of how that power should be used.
Granted, if the judges used their power wisely, as you suggest, all would be well. Is this a good strategy for us to pursue, then, to protect what liberty we have? I think it an exceedingly poor strategy.
Besides which, the Court is under no obligation to the Constitution that Congress is not under also. Why not convince Congressmen to repeal laws which violate our unwritten rights? At least we can attempt to do this without giving them more power than they already have.
Think of a ratchet that only turns one way
That's obviously what you're thinking of. Convince me it'll only turn one way. Either tell me that your reading will not increase Judicial power, or furnish me with some guarantee that it's a one-way rachet.
All of our political history has been spent in search of a one-way rachet.
The "textual bounds on the rights the courts can concoct" in the case of a 'fair wage' would be the contract clause
That's not much of a boundry. Right off the bat, it wouldn't stop federal courts from declaring 'fair wage' rights at all. And even the state courts wouldn't have to impair the obligation of contracts; they could forbid people to enter into certain sorts of contracts. Greasy? Sure. What will you do, take them to court?
To the extent that we don't have unpopular 'positions' being decreed by an unelected judiciary, it's a good thing, not a bad one.
The "So what" about the tax-&-spend drugwar's racist past is that a lot fewer people know about it (or admit it) than should
Should why? For educational purposes? Sure. But I see no way in which this bears on our political evaluation of the laws themselves.
Just look at the crack vs powder disparity of the US sentencing commission, which should upset you much more than it apparently does, since it usurps judicial determinations of leniency in many cases.
I do not, in general, approve of the ability of judges to pick and choose punishments for crimes. It is my opinion that punishments should be as objectively determined and applied as possible; I can think of few reasons why two people who break the same law should receive different punishments. If there's racism about, it's more in the fact that courts sentence blacks more harshly for the same crimes. Again, I call for reigning in the judiciary.
Go visit any US prison, look at the drug inmates, and remember that this country is about 11% black. If you see 11% black inmates, I want to know what prison it is. Typical rates are more like over 50%.
Murder rates amongst blacks are much higher than amongst whites, also. Are our murder laws racist also?
This is simply not a cogent line of reasoning. Further, to view things in such a way denies individuals the sort of personal responsibility which life in a free society requires. People break the law of their own choice, not because they are black or white. Nothing in the act of outlawing a particular drug usurps the rights of people of one race over those of another. Whatever the punishment is for crack or power cocaine, the laws do not curtail my freedom more or less than another's whatever his race.
Now it is my opinion that such laws are bad ones. If I had my way, most of these drugs would be made legal, and non-violent 'offenders' promptly released. This would, as you point out, benefit more black people than white people; but neither would my choice be a racist one for favoring blacks. Those consequences would be incidental.
The problem with seeing the Tenth in the absence of the Ninth is that Tallahassee can then take over where Washington DC left off in the oppression-game.
Indeed, state soverignty is not an unproblematic policy. It is, however, an undeniable feature of our Constitution. The fact that this may have unpalatable implications does not make it otherwise.
since the Ninth (IMO) covers recreational drug use (like it or not)
It would be hard to put the paradox of your postion more succinctly. 'In your opinion', 'like it or not'. What does this mean? I agree that it is your opinion. I do not agree with your opinion, but I agree that it is your opinion, 'like it or not'. You seem to mean also that it's the Truth, 'like it or not', as if the Truth of the Ninth Amendment were some Platonic thing-a-ma-jig, to which you had some strange congnitive access. If this is the case, please explain it.
If you think that the Ninth (or the Third, for that matter) is an inkblot, then by all means, go argue for repeal!
Why on earth would I do that? I approve of both of them. I am pleased that soldiers are not being forcibly quartered in people's houses in times of peace, and I am glad that our ennumerated rights are not being construed to deny or disparage other rights. I just don't think they're particularly significant amendments. The most obvious reading seems to support my view.
"The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed." - Alexander Hamilton
Um, drug laws are the equivalent of moral laws. A law which tries to ban a private activity that doesn't have a direct victim is a law based on (someone else's) morals.
"Drug related crime" is a misnomer, "prohibition related crime" is the more accurate and correct phrase.
Cocaine IS addicting. PERIOD.
He didn't say it wasn't.
Even presenting arguments against this is like arguing against someone saying the sun doesn't produce heat.
Argument from absurdity.
Just one of four paragraphs which show that this person has done no reading or thought regarding the War on (some) Drugs; other than what have been drilled by DARE and the media. Convictions are more dangerous than the truth. Reflect on what you believe buddy.
"Drug related crime" is a misnomer, "prohibition related crime" is the more accurate and correct phrase.
"Rub her feet." -- L.L.
They said it does not apply to new technology. They overturned an appeal court that basically said what you are saying. In other words, I don't have to put up heat shielding in my house in order to have a reasonable expectation of privacy. In still other words, citizens do not have to counter each new advance in technology to have that expectation of privacy.
Exactly, that is what I was saying. If you have a reasonable expectation of privacy, a warrant is required.
"It is my opinion that the Supreme Court has made an mistake. It is the function of the police, not only to apprehend criminals, but to prevent if possible criminal acts from taking place."
Come on now. If this is true, then why not install police cameras on all the street corners, shops, or other public places? In fact, why not install cameras inside your own house to prevent you from committing crimes? And, how do you exactly prevent crimes? If I pick up a knife, should the police come to my house because there's a possibility for crime? What if I look at someone in a threatening manner?
You missed the point of the ruling. Searching is not about walking through a door, and, it's not just about thermal imaging. Sure, if the police wants to look in your closet, they'll have to get a warrant. But what if in the future, some technology was developed that enables them to look in your closet from outside your house? That's still searching, except that they're doing it from a remote location. This ruling trys to prevent the police from doing that without a warrant.
I agree 100%. The problem is that the vast majority of americans are perfectly happy living in their own little worlds and have no interest in politics. But what can we do? I believe that at this point, the only way to return America to what it once was or should be is a full scale armed revolution. We all know that will never happen though. America has screwed herself.
--
Must be handy to be able to see in the dark, eh? Care to tell us where you went for the eyeball upgrade?
"Research is what I am doing when I don't know what I am doing." -- Wernher von Braun
Is that guy a peeping tom? - I dunno, let's throw a flare at him and see if he starts screaming.
This sig is xenon coated, and will glow red when in the presence of aliens
This decision is A Very Good Thing for protection of our Constitutional rights.
Good that they did this, but it's disheartening that the vote was so close.
I there are situations where a warrant should be bypassed. For instance what if a gunman was held up in a house and swat was forced to make an entry because he refused to give up? Wouldn't it be useful to determine heat patterns and have a good guess as to where people were inside?
WURD!!
I actually think the original poster (I think this is very good law) was not only OK but in fact poetic. It would be different had he/she said, "I think this is a very good law". That would speak to the particular, in this case, the ruling. But as formulated, the poster speaks to the universal, that is, the practice of law itself.
Your mileage may vary and I probably deserve the "off-topic" that'll be assessed but, hey, we're not poetical enough these days.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
More seriously, why not say that justices have a minimum tenure of, say, 20 years. Then, on the first day of session (or last), they roll a six-sided die. On a roll of 6, they retire at the end of the term. On average, they'd last about six years past the minimum...
OK, so it introduces some randomness into the process. Personally, I think that's a good thing.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
What impact, if any, will this ruling have on the legality of scanning high school parking lots with drug dogs? Since a drug dog extends what an officer can see, much as was the case in this ruling, it seems to me that this ruling might apply. The reason I ask this is because I knew people in high school (who were NOT drug users) that were harassed because of false positives by the dogs on their cars.
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DOOR!!
I pledge allegiance to the flag...
of the Corporate States of America...
Seeing as most people dont have the means to train dogs to sniff out drugs would this ruling apply? My buddy was driving through georgia a few months back and was pulled over on I-75 with Florida plates. Dogs where called in and he was sent to jail for about $5 worth of weed (1.5 grams). Shouldt the 4th amendment protect us from this kind of harrasment?
Of course it *should*. However, the Supreme Court has in the past ruled that drug dogs are merely an extension of the officer's senses; thus, the use of a drug dog is not considered a search AT ALL - which IMO is a bunch of shit. That's just as ridiculous as saying that in the case this article refers to, the heat-sensing devices were merely an extension of the officers' own senses.
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DOOR!!
I pledge allegiance to the flag...
of the Corporate States of America...
Uh, don't you need a warrant to arrest someone? And just cause?
Nope, not really. You can be arrested at any time, but you can only be held for about 24 hours (or some such number...) before they have to release you or file charges. It's called Habeas Corpus, or literally "Present the body". Show the body (or evidence of the crime), or I get to walk.
--You will rephrase your request for me to go to hell. Goto statements are not acceptable programming constructs
"What were we celebrating again..?"
So would running a web site out of your house.
Oh Damn! Ashcroft might get the idea that only pornographers run web sites out of their home.
"The words of the prophets are written on the Slashdot walls."
What do they care about thermal sensors when you can thrown in jail for any offense?
~~ What's stopping you?
The New York Times article at http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/12/national/12SEAR. html
calls into question how much Scalia and the
Court majority really understand technology.
Since it is likely that the police will not be the only ones to have such advanced snooping technology in the future, we should be concerned about the adequacy of such judicial protections.
We ought also to be concerned about how the conservatives on the court interpret the Constitution--the threat to privacy is not so much from the government and the police today as it is from corporations.
This kind of tortured reasoning has led to an incoherent patchwork of privacy rulings, which provide no clear guidance to law enforcement agents, nor to citizens.
FLIR technology is used to help spot outdoor marijuana farms. because marijuana would keep its heat longer than the surrounding vegitation. It's got nothing to do with this decision, and will continue to remain legal.
My father, a semi-retired small aircraft pilot, once flew missons in Mendocino County, California, looking for marijuana. Marijuana grows greener than the surrounding vegitation, so it's possible to spot visually from the air.
144l. ph34r my 133t l3g4l 5k1lz!
Your point about Carnivore is interesting; I don't know how this ruling will affect those cases, but I think that people's expectations of privacy on the open Internet should be somewhat less than in their own home behind a closed door, so it won't be very relevant.
Just because the Supremes deemed this technological use as illegal by authorities, does not mean that they will not still use it. They just can't enter it into evidence. But by gaining knowlege thru these devices, can gather other evidence to be used against you.
-- "Perceptions create reality. By changing your perceptions you change your reality."
Now, I personally support legalization, but I want a society based on scientific truths and laws, not political expediency. Let's either directly outlaw thermal imaging or not. Using heat is no different than seeing light. Don't try to pretend otherwise.
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You have a reasonable expectation of privacy on your private property. If an officer came onto your property for the express purpose of eavesdropping on you, the evidence gathered cannot be used against you in court. Now if he was there for some other reason (noise complaint, bad parking job, etc.), something he overhears (or I guess "oversmells" when you are talking about pot growers) would be admissible in court.
Enigma
Enigma
IMHO, there will be quite a few. This is a quite common tactic among the police. If the heat scan was the only probable cause used to get a warrant to search the house, the conviction most likely would be overturned. I'll bet the guys at High Times are dancing in the streets ;-)
Enigma
Enigma
I think the difference is you use your eyes to see someone commiting the "heinous crime", but you must use special equipment not available to the general public to scan for these heat signatures.
Enigma
Enigma
D'oh! I should have said, "it's a very good interpretation of a constitutional amendment."
I think this is very good law.
IANAL
IANAL either, but I know that this isn't a "very good law", it's a very good interpretation of an existing law.
I find this interesting in the context of other forms of technology survaillence, such as software back doors, etc. This ruling is probably more important than we first realize, just for that reason.
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Your posting history reads like the rantings of a mind hell-bent on degrading everyone American and everything American. Now, why is this, I wonder? Are each of us 300 million citizens supposed to think in one particular way before you decide to stop hating us?
And, have you even been here? You do realize just how diverse this nation is, right?
If there was a stalker around your neighbourhood, I bet you'd want the police to have a quick look through your house/garden for him with that receiver
What does this ruling have to do with the police use of this when they have probable cause to do so? Meaning, if the police are in pursuit of a suspected criminal, they certainly can use low-light and infrared-detecting devices. Now, on the off chance they happen to notice your house is aglow, they can't use that as cause to search it. Is every single person in public service worthy of the public's trust, hell no! Do you trust every damn officer wherever you are? Despite that, I feel reasonably safe from police intrusion and I always have, wherever I have lived in this country. I will deduce you're in the UK, since you so proudly stated having wooped the Luftwaffe into submission. But we won't go there right now, all I'll say is you have right to be proud, to an extent. But I wouldn't exactly rate the UK as being progressive with regard to the average citizen's privacy.
I submit that if you never test the law with these sorts of cases that you will never know what is legal and illegal. Just like the GPL never being tested does add uncertainty to the legal strength it holds.
There are plenty of gray areas in what you term legal searches already.
I doubt there is a law enforcement person alive whose primary motivation is to violate your rights. When you are looking for a piece of information that you need, do you not try different search engines, do you not ask people, perhaps try something new? The idea is the same; they are doing their job in a professional manner; they determine that perhaps an heat sensor would be helpful to catch law breakers. They try it and find a law breaker. There is not intent to violate your rights; there is intent to catch a criminal.
I think it is because most of the American public does not pay attention to the actual decisions and read the justifications, they merely look at what the media tells them. And the media (at least by using the words of many liberals) has painted Scalia to be this incredible stereotype that is actually pretty far from the truth.
Well, remember that this particular fellow was going to plead guily if the search was determined to be legal.
If you are an FBI agent and you have a *really* good idea that someone is guilty of a relatively serious (by law) crime, wouldn't you feel like you should use those means that you can, especially something simple like a heat imager?
The FBI agent has no reason to expect that it will be ruled an illegal search, they are just trying to do their job and catch someone who is committing a crime (which they did do in this instance, although it may get overturned).
Seeing as most people dont have the means to train dogs to sniff out drugs would this ruling apply? My buddy was driving through georgia a few months back and was pulled over on I-75 with Florida plates. Dogs where called in and he was sent to jail for about $5 worth of weed (1.5 grams). Shouldt the 4th amendment protect us from this kind of harrasment?
In the cited case, they only referred to hot spots on the walls of the house. Furthermore, the quoted decision talked about using the thermal scan as a means of collecting data that was previously only accessible via physical intrusion. However, I wonder if that would apply to a house that was actively venting heat. It seems like it would be possible to feel the heat without using technology. Additionally, you'd be able to see some heat via thermal imaging even if the device wasn't pointed at the house itself. So it strikes me as less of a see-through-walls thing. Given how close this vote was, I could potentially see the fan scenario being on the other side of the invisible dividing line.
If a cop happens to be strolling past your house, and sees you through a window, stabbing your wife, or hears her screams, of course he's going to investigate. That's REALLY compelling proof that the officer should act on immediately. If it was all part of playactng (or something), then maybe the people in the house are a bit embarrased, but the officer's done his job.
What the ruling is saying is that in order to point a device that can read infrared THROUGH WALLS (infrared normally can't be "seen" or "heard" by humans unassisted), you need to have a warrant. I.e. in order to peer into someone's house like that (which does violate their privacy... of course, if they're committing a crime, they've waived such a right). This assumes less drastic cases of, for example, an officer saying "We know several convicted drug dealers keep visiting this house, leaving and picking up packages. We need to scan the house to see what's going on in there."
Nobody's ever said that a cop really needs to get a warrant to interfere with a crime (or apparent crime) already in progress. But the infrared signature generated by things in my house is not something that under normal circumstances gets "broadcast" to the public, like light from my windows or sounds.
Well, yes. If you use "conservative" in the same way that Barry Goldwater did when he wrote "The Conscience of a Conservative."
But by today's common usage, what Goldwater meant by "conservative" is now commonly referred to as "libertarian," and what is now commonly referred to as "conservative" (in the sense that Scalia is a conservative justice) is very different from that.
In short, it is surprising that a conservative justice like Scalia would uphold privacy rights. Your statement that conservatives would support privacy rights seems to be based on a confusion between the two different usages of the word "conservative."
Never take moderation advice from sigs, including this one.
In the case that prompted this supreme court ruling, the power consumption records were subpoenaed after the police received information from snitches. I would hope the power companies and the police have better things to do that presuppose criminal enterprise based on increases in power usage-- especially since it would take a bit of computer time to calculate true rises in consumption.
I do not have a signature
Um, how are they going to know about your indoor veggies or tanning bed if they can no longer scan your home for infrared and use that to obtain a warrant? These scans-- until now-- were a major source of evidence for probable cause, since fans blowing out heat look like flame-throwers on infrared cameras. What I'd like to know is how many people convicted for drug offenses where the prosecution hinged on evidence obtained as a result of these scans will be released or offered new trials on evidence that was legally obtained.
I do not have a signature
In regards to your title...
That's the thing about Scalia that most people don't understand. Because he ruled along conservative lines a couple times, everyone assumes he's Jesse Helms' judicial equivalent, but he's not. It's not about ideology with him, it's about how the law was written. In the case of Roe v Wade, it's not that he thinks abortion is wrong, it's that he thinks that Congress, not the Supreme Court, should decide whether it's right or not. In this case, sweeping the neighborhood looking for pot growers with infrared clearly violates the 4th amendment, and so he ruled against it, even though a law-and-order-type like more radical right-wingers would approve of it.
That's why I admire him as a judge - he makes his decisions based on what the law says, not what he wishes it said. Strict constructionism.
If it ain't broke, you need more software.
I'm sorry if what I said may be a bit misleading.
A major worry is the police using these sophisticated sensors to monitor things like sexual activity in private homes. Given that many states still have sodomy laws on the books, can you imagine the police going around town at night looking inside people's houses for unusual sexual activity. Talk about major violations of privacy rights of consenting adults!
I think the Supreme Court has realized one very frightening aspect of improved sensor technology: it can spy on anyone and anywhere without needing court permission. Especially now with low-cost low-level light and infrared cameras pretty much achieving military quality.
Hopefully, it will prevent things like pointing sensors at private residences on the whim.
Using these advanced sensors to operate on a court-approved surveillance of illegal drug activity is one thing, but using them to do things like trying to enforce our morals laws is quite something else.
Time to go to the store and get reflective foil and big flourescent lights.
Still, with a plan, you only get the best you can imagine. I'd always hoped for something better than that. -CP
So does this mean the cops can't use their Psychic Friends anymore?
I've hit Karma 50 and gotten a Score:5, Troll... I win!
...there are still very many devices, that weren't covered by this ruling, that the Cops can use to spy on you. How about an X-ray gun that lets the user view you like you aren't even wearing clothes. No, not enough? How about an electronic nose that can smell drugs in the air from 60 yds away (hope you don't have any friends who smoke pot, that stuff gets in your clothes more than you think)
e w& record=210
read it and weep....
http://www.lp.org/press/archive.php?function=vi
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
Great. So in future (when these technologies become pervasive and we thus have "no expectation of privacy" anymore) we'll all have to build our houses with infra-red shielding, soundproofing, x-ray shielding and whatever other "circumvention" technologies we'll need. The future does not look rosy under US laws. Thats the problem I have with the US "expectation of privacy" concept, all "they" need to do is say "sorry we can see and hear you anytime, anywhere", and *foof*, no expectation of privacy anymore, so no protection thereof provided. Its stupid.
Of course, the other extreme has more than its share of problems, as well. The law needs to be setup in such a way that it can adapt relatively quickly to changes in society, but make the process such that changes aren't too likely to be frivolous, or dangerous. IMO, the Constitution itself recognizes this, and thats where the roots of the checks and balances system come in. The best place to be in is somewhere between a strict constructionist and loose constructionist approach.
Also keep in mind that I'm not commenting on whether or not I believe gun control is a good or bad thing, merely stating that I believe there are better arguments than "the Bill of Rights said so". I have absolutely no interest in engaging in a debate on this subject.
Sean Daugherty "I have walked in Eternity -- and Eternity weeps."
Examples abound, the biggest of which is the "well-regulated militia" bit, which can hardly be reasonably said to be important to our modern society. But, since I said I didn't want to get into that, I'll go down a less dangerous path and refer to the various "internet decency" laws promulgated over the past few years, a number of which have essentially done no more than outlaw "inappropriate material." That's what the law is (or was, or might have been, or whatever), but, it should go without saying, what I believe is appropriate is possibly quite different from what the Majority Whip believed was important.
Obviously, we're dealing with laws less set-in-stone than the Constitution, but I'd think the same principles apply. What Supreme Court justices feel the law should be is ultimately the most important process in determining what a law really is. Though the responsibility of judicial review may not be outlined in the Constitution, it has not been significantly challenged since it effectively came into existence 200 years ago, primarily because it is often difficult, if not impossible, to determine the intent of a law from what has been recorded. If nothing else, the Supreme Court needs to bring their own beliefs into play if only to end the conflict, and establish, to some degree, what a law actually entails when debate does arise. If everytime a debate arose over the interpretation of a law or amendment another amendment was proposed, our government would be almost constantly paralyzed with ridiculously slow response times almost down to the local level.
One could argue, quite effectively, that in order to "preserve, protect, and defend" the Constitution, it is neccessary for the Supreme Court to bring their own prejudices into play, if not as to what they believe the law oughta be, but what they believe the framers of the law believed the law oughta have been. Ultimately, the difference doesn't amount to much except in the most extreme situations. The reason Scalia is so intelligent is that he's able to step into an opposing viewpoint and judge it as such. It makes him a rare find, and a worthy addition to the SC (even if he is politically evil ::grin::), but he's ultimately as guilty as any other judge as employing his feelings as much as fact.
Sean Daugherty "I have walked in Eternity -- and Eternity weeps."
The United States of America is a single country that is, in every measure that matters, the size of Eurpope. The Federal Government is one with teeth to keep this country with one law, and has to deal with the differences of ALL of the various subcultures that come here and grow here.
If the EU had as much power and responsibiilty as the USA's federal gov't, Europe would have just as many problems. (Yugoslavia, anyone? WWII? Hmm... when was the last time there was a war in the USA...)
IANAL but i've been arrested; no, cops don't need a warrant to arrest somebody. Where'd you get that idea?
The FBI agent has no reason to expect that it will be ruled an illegal search,
While the question of the validity of the FBI's expectation of the legality of their search is obviously debatable, one thing i am quite certain of is this: i don't want law enforcement agencies to get creative with their search techniques where there is a grey area legally. Some searches are legal; let those be enough.
they are just trying to do their job
which is to ensure that our laws are upheld, to act as the embodiment of our principles as a nation - not to violate our rights.
Do they even have to admit to detecting the heat at all? Use the scanner to find hot houses, then find some other 'probable cause' to enter into the police report after you search.
or am i just being paranoid?
The court reversed its decision on the Florida recount. Saying it was just joking.
Excuse me? All of these people were breaking the law in order to exercise their inalienable rights. Since when it is not my inalienable right to experience the divine through sacred herbs, which until this century all cultures on the planet have been exercising for 10's of thousands of years! Doesn't anybody around here think for themselves?!!!
www.enthea.org
I hope you do realize that these people were breaking the law. I'm all for controlled legalization, but the law is the law.
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The grocery store has one that relates the UPC numbers to prices, inventory levels, etc.; and that discount tag on my keyring relates my purchases to each other, too. I know they have the information, and the computers to organize it.
- The insurance company has a database that shows the claims charged to my auto policy, and a link to a database the DMV keeps, showing the tickets I've gotten. When I applied for the policy, I signed the form releasing this information to them. Since the information is about things that happened on the streets/highways, it's not like I expect privacy.
These curtains are open.[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
#include <ianal.h>
But I read the opinion. The bright line distinction is that the police used technology that the general public does not use.
If I leave the curtains open on my windows, I have no right to expect people not to look at what can plainly be seen through them from outside my property, even through a backyard-astronomer-grade telescope, two blocks over. But I do expect to be able to speak to my wife or children and not have a TLA van train a laser on one of those windows to pick up the vibrations of our voices. They need a court order to carry out such a "search".
Now, if we apply the reasoning to laws against "hacking", we see the absurdity of a law that presumes an expectation that people won't use technology that is plainly common in (that segment of) the public. If I put a box on the net and have a daemon listening on port 80, I have no reason to bitch about people trying to access web pages from it. It's up to me to close the curtains.
This puts Lawn Forcement in a tricky situation: They can't (admit to) use snoop technology without a proper warrant and enforce laws against the general public using the same technology (by definition preventing it from use by the public). They have to choose one or the other. So don't be surprised if some currently-illegal private uses of low-grade spy stuff are legalized in the near future.
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
But how does these emissions differ materially from, say light bouncing off people in the midst of committing some heinous crime, while in the privacy of their own backyard, or while inside their home in front of an open window ? Should that not be sufficient for law enforcement to take action ? How about sound waves emanating from the sounds of a crime in progress ? Should those sound waves be private, too ?
i use the word _conservative_ much how goldwater would. to be exact, i should use the _Liberal_, as in the true blue political science definition of small government.
Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must be silent. --Ludwig Wittgenstein
i don't really understand why everyone seems so shocked that scalia would be against such searches....true blue conservatives don't want the government to have power to intrude into our private lives. private property was one the basic rights this country was founded upon.
Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must be silent. --Ludwig Wittgenstein
> Uh, don't you need a warrant to arrest someone? And just cause?
Actually, you're mixing two different concepts. The police need an arrest warrant or probable cause. If they want to go to your house and take you in, they need a warrant. If an officer observes something that, within specified rules, gives him/her cause to believe that there's a probable offense, that officer can arrest you based on that probable cause. However, once placed under arrest, you must be formally charged with a crime or released within (I think) 48 hours (legal types, please correct if necessary), as defined by habeas corpus (literally, "you have the body").
Virg
> If a cop walks up and puts his hand on my wall, and it feels
> warmer than my neighbors' walls, does this violate my rights
> under the 4th Amendment? Of course not.
Fact Check required. If an officer walks up to your house and puts his hand against it to see if it's warmer than you neighbor's house, he/she has entered your private property for the express purpose of information gathering, and that is a violation of your Fourth Amendment rights, unless said officer has a warrant to check your house temperature or has probable cause to believe it should be warmer (which has to be compelling, like smoke pouring out a window; a "hunch" isn't good enough).
Not much to discuss here.
Virg
> There's no difference between light and heat radition, and
> there should be no difference in using such tools.
I fully agree. So does the Supreme Court. They stated that the rules of appropriate search must apply to thermal radiation measurements in the same way they apply to visible light. In the same way they can't plant a camera outside your house without a warrant, they can't monitor your thermal emissions without a warrant.
Virg
So you're telling me the police never trawl with illegal means (e.g. infrared scans in helicopters) then arrange for an officer to be in a vicinity of the hot spots to "conveniently" see some probable cause and get a warrant? How touchingly naïve.
CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.
For what I read it aplies to anything inside your home.
Anything that 30 years ago would require physically entering your home and that now can be done at distance with hi-tech devices requires a warrant...
In this case, if someone uses RF detection to see what's going on your 'puter screen without a warant, the evidence won't be accepted in a court.
But I may be wrong...
--
What ? Me, worry ?
"Of course, there's no way to see into the Simpson home without some kind of infrared heat-sensitive camera. So, let's turn it on."
[screen shows blue house, orange Simpsons watching TV]
"Now, this technology is new to me, but...I'm pretty sure that's Homer Simpson in the oven, rotating slowly."
[close-up of turkey]
"His body temperature has risen to over 400 degrees -- he's literally stewing in his own juices."
(Thanks to snpp.com, because I couldn't remember the lines verbatim without looking them up!)
~Philly
If they were sitting on the street using a sensitive mic (read: passive device) to hear sound coming OUT the window of a suspect's home, A-OK. Intrusion into the home by an ACTIVE device, on the other hand, would be considered just that, an intrusion. And obviously the placement of a passive bug inside would require a physical intrusion to the premises.
Looks like it's time to stock up on the Cheetos, Little Debbies, and doughnuts again.
Tell that to the guy that used to live outside Beale AFB, CA. A U2 was doing a checkout flight using one of the thermal cameras that it can carry and the guys house lit up like a Christmas tree. Needless to say the authorities found something like 5 kilos of pot growing under heat lamps in the guys house. I'm sure he would disagree with your statement that it's not invasive. I'm not saying that he was right...I don't believe in drug use, but when should we say enough is enough? I mean had it not been for a fluke of technology he would have never been suspected and there would have been no reason to issue a warrant. It seems perfectly reasonable to require a warrant to use thermal imaging just as it is required for a phone tap. In the US the police need to show probable cause BEFORE they search you. Not justifiable proof after.
"Growing old is inevitable; growing up is optional."
The law got broken? Gee, I hope no one actually got hurt.
One day I feel I'm ahead of the wheel / the next it's rolling over me / I can get back on / I can get back on
...shouldn't throw thermal photons. :)
I suspect that the most important aspect of this decision will not be in home searches, but in the precidents it sets for future cases about illegal search and seizure of data. Hands off my PC, peachfuzz...
Now, that being said, it's surprisingly easy for cops to get a warrant for anything they want to do, at least in Texas. This will only protect people from 'sweeps'. If the cops decided you're growing pot in the back room, they'll get the warrant with little or no effort, even if you're growing normal, non-skunky veggies, or have a tanning bed.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
foriegn communications are not covered by the laws that apply to domestic communications in the US. (i.e., if your not a US citizen then they can violate your rights seven ways to sunday.)
RA7
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"Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds" - RWE
Does this law also apply to DataSniffers and other devices/software that may allow a law enforcment agency access to information Tx'ing or Rx'ing from your Private Network (specificly Im talking about the FBI's Carnivore Project).
This would give them access to information that they would otherwise need to have access to the Suspect machine to retrieve.
Oh, and btw, Remember that in most states Search and Siezure laws that apply to your home, don't apply to your car, boat, rv, etc (even if you live in/on it).
RA7
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"Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds" - RWE
Here is the transcript of the oral argument:m ent_transcripts/99-8508.pdf
http://www.supremecourtus.gov/oral_arguments/argu
And this is the decision:5 08.pdf
http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/00pdf/99-8
I find the oral argument especially compelling as an example of reasoned arguments taking shape.
So, would this also kill carnivore? Billions of R&D dollars wasted because a cop can't keep his high-tech camera... what a shame! :-)
"eh? then why are radar guns (for detecting the speed of a vehicle) not "illegal search and seizure"?
"
I do agree that this COULD be a 4th Amendment violation, but getting it heard by a judge would be unlikely. Most traffic courts are there just to collect your money anyway (as I found out in an Ohio one once when falsely given a speeding ticket (the officer clocked the car that was passing me, then pulled us both over) even when I provided evidence that cast grave doubt on the officer's claim.
Biggest problems with this are states like VA and the DC who outlaw radar/laser detectors.
How, Constitutionally can an agent of the State search you at all and yet deny you the right to detect it?
It's great that this search with hi-tech imagers was ruled illegal, because you KNOW the next step would have been laws making the manufacture or ownership of DETECTION EQUIPMENT to detect such scans illegal.
=== The price of freedom is eternal vigilance
If "widely available" just means that a private citizen can buy it, could not authorities instruct the tech manufacturers to make it available to the public at ridiculous prices, so that authorities don't need a warrant, while keeping the tech out of the hands of almost all citizens?
whats really scary is that this is what will probably happen.. and the only other people who (can afford/will want) this stuff are rich drug dealers trying to protect themselfs.. Thus escalating the situation even more.
"Shut up brain or ill stab you with a Q-tip" Homer Simpson
Does anyone else find it disturbing that the FBI always seems so eager to do "this sort of thing" (e.g. Carnivore)? What motivates these people? They are people, by the way. The FBI is usually referred to as an entity separate from any individual, but it boils down to some people trying to spy on their fellow citizens.
If your point of view differs from mine, try thinking about this comment as if it were sarcastic.
-- Give me ambiguity or give me something else!
Agreed. The Supremes have made many bad decisions in 200+ years and thousands of cases--but I don't remember _any_ case where they made a bad decision that most politicians at that time wouldn't have done the same or worse. It's not perfect, but what else are you going to use as the ultimate authority, computers?
Good suggestion about staggered terms, but one problem. If they can get a second term, that subjects first-termers to political pressures. If retirement is mandatory after one term, then when a judge dies after 32 years, that leaves his replacement in a bad position (3 years and out). If you give the replacement a 35 year term starting from when he begins, eventually the system will get out of sync again...
Yes, but half-senile old fools who have a shot at acting like a founding father, protecting rights rather than eroding them as all other politicians do (being power-hunger, they never seek to lessen government intrusion.)
The dissenters' feeling that it should be allowed unless it is like a "presence in the area being searched" is meaningless. In the future you could conceivably have sensors using nuclear magnetic imaging, god only knows what else, and see almost as clearly as if there were no walls there, and that would be an entirely passive system, only using emanations "outside the home".
Would it pass the King George test? King George would have gladly used such a system, and the founding fathers would have specified the need for warrants for passive technological surveillance measures rather than just a literal, physical search and seizure (much like King George would spy on Internet traffic and the Constitution would speak not of freedom of the press, but of freedom of information flow.)
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
Let me quote you a quote: "Unlike some drugs, cocaine is not physiologically addicting."
Where did I come up with this horrendous subversive lie? http://www.ussc.gov. Let's go on from the same source, shall we?
Examples of drugs that cause physiological dependence include:
Cocaine is psychologically addicting, as are most drugs. The big danger with cocaine is that it doesn't limit its intake by inducing nausea like alcohol, nicotine and caffiene, all of which are toxic. However, in dilute form, as in early Coca Cola recipies, the dosage is limited, just as caffiene in coffee is.
Even after having the distinction pointed out to you, you use binge abuse as evidence that the abused substance is inherently dangerous. Alcohol and aspirin are just as dangerous as cocaine when abused to the same degree. Caffiene or nicotine, taken in pure form, would kill you at lower dosages than cocaine.
Please try and understand that the problem isn't the drug, it's the binge abuse, a pattern that is dictated by the illegality. The illegality also causes the inflated cost, which encourages crime.
I accept that this is OT, but I'm happy to burn karma on this one.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
It's about time that thermal imaging was limited to after a warrant is issued... I always feared that my Beowulf cluster of P!!!'s would be mistaken for some hippies growin' dope...
God bless those Albino Ninjas...
Cocaine IS addicting. PERIOD. Even presenting arguments against this is like arguing against someone saying the sun doesn't produce heat.
cocaine is debilitating. People become addicted to it, take increasing doses, their work/school/family/finances/emotions suffers.
Marijuana does physically change you. do any quick searches of the net will turn of hundreds of articles on how there is decreased brain function after repeated heavy use.
Now you can really OC your computer without a RedNeck Cop to come to your place.
Hurray !
It takes 40+ muscles to frown, but only four to extend your arm and bitchslap the motherfucker
Grow up you lot - you don't see other countries acting so childish about laws that are there to protect you.
If there was a stalker around your neighbourhood, I bet you'd want the police to have a quick look through your house/garden for him with that receiver. You're so two-faced it's almost (I saw the election) unbelievable.
Exactly so. The idea is that a policeman shouldn't have to close his eyes to something that everybody else can see; if I have a big bag marked "hash", "contains dope", and "weed here", that alone is probable cause for me to get my bag searched. Similarily, if I'm standing in my living room and flashing passersby out my front window, that's "public" indecency even though I'm in my own home.
Likewise, if everybody on your block has X-ray glasses that can see through your walls, you don't have an expectation that what takes place behind those walls is private, and thus it's not any greater of an intrusion for a policeman to look.
It's not about ideology with him, it's about how the law was written.
I'm sure that you are sincere in what you say, but I think that your statement contradicts itself. When you believe that you can take some vague writings from long ago (like the constitution), and discern from those writings with some degree of certainty (or at least objectivity) what their authors intended, then you have most certainly subscribed to an ideology.
So does this mean that they can't read *any* emissions from someone's house, regardless of the type? Does this mean that we won't have to resort to TEMPEST shielding to ensure that our RF emissions remain private? Or are they saying that this just applies to things like thermal scans?
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Move 'sig'. For great justice!
I heard about this on NPR yesterday. They read from the text of Scalia's writeup. He laid out a general rule for future cases involving the use of technology to spy into private homes. He said that a warrant is needed for any surveillance of a private home using technology which is not widely available to the public. For instance, it is acceptable for cops to use binoculars or a searchlight to peer thru your windows, without a warrant. Some issues this "widely available" clause brings up: What is considered widely available? Just that some private citizen can buy it? Or that some percentage of the publlic can afford? If "widely available" just means that a private citizen can buy it, could not authorities instruct the tech manufacturers to make it available to the public at ridiculous prices, so that authorities don't need a warrant, while keeping the tech out of the hands of almost all citizens? How does this ruling affect the use of advanced, secret programs like Carnivore to spy on our computers? Carnivore spies on traffic thru an ISP, so it seems like it's not spying on the PC in the target's home; but the IR imager spies on the IR radiation in the air near the house; if you can't use IR tech from across the street from a house, to spy on IR radiation which emanates from the walls of a house without a warrant, can you use Carnivore or other similar programs from the ISP to spy on packets emanating from the NIC in your home PC without a warrant? Just some thoughts. Feel free to discuss them.
Ok.. but referring to visual and audio devices - what about a cop walking up to to your door and listening, or looking through the window? It seems that they are preventing the use of technology to do searches, but what about the good old fashioned manual methods, are they 'constitutional'?
"I see. The fact that you...`can't explain'.. explains everything."
Have you seen the size of an infrared scanner? That's a lot of lube..
"I see. The fact that you...`can't explain'.. explains everything."
Clearly this was an excellent decision by the Supreme Court. The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution isn't very hard to understand, yet our law enforcement agencies keep breaking the rules set forth by it.
In this case the thermal imager was being used to detect heat from lamps used to cultivate marijuana. The worst part is that our government shouldn't be telling us that we cannot use marijuana how we like. The only reason our government is in place is to protect us from outside harm and others in this country. Nowhere does it say that it should be protecting us from ourselves. Laws banning the home use of marijuana and other drugs should be repealed. It's clear the drugs do not cause violence, and that drug LAWS do cause violence.
Not only are these laws causing violence now, but they're also causing the government to pass more and more laws that allow law enforcement to invade our privacy and strip us of our rights. There are many other high tech devices out there in use that haven't been ruled against yet. We should consider this a victory, but don't celebrate yet because there's still a long fight ahead of us.
Hmmmm...
I know they have used abnormal power consumption as an indicator of pot farms (all those grow lights and hydroponics).
So, if you factor in power consumption and heat signature, a server farm might look a lot like a pot farm.
WORD TO THE WISE: If you are growing illegal drugs in you house, you should buy at least a T1 and connect it to your "garden." That way you can claim you are just running an internet business. And you have the added bounus of being able to FINGER the plants to see how each is doing!
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Once: you're a philosopher. Twice: a pervert.
The courts are doing something to protect our rights. This was wonderful news to wake up to. I remember reading about the guy who was arrested for growing pot in his house based on evidence gathered with heat-sensing technology (this item was probably about that - haven't read it yet)... and I remember the sinking, sad, sickening feeling that came with it. Now this - our freedom from unwarranted searches and seizures, and perhaps even our protection from testifying against ourselves (nevermind mandatory breathalizers etc..) may be getting a bit of real protection. I wish I could say that I hope things get better - but I suspect the best I can realistically expect is for the damage to our liberties to slow down a bit. As I've heard others say, I love my country and the ideas it was founded upon - but I fear my government and the socialistic trend it is following. Speaking of, I admire Timothy McVeigh - what he did was wrong, but he at least understood that there was something wrong with America. I am glad he died, I am glad a monster is removed from society - but I must admire his recognition of the failures of government and his resolve, his confident and solid worldview (yes, it was wrong, but at least he took a stand, at least he bit the bullet, at least he had the guts to do what he thought was right). Monster, bastard, hell-bound (if there was a hell, that is, which there's not) freak - but still a man of conviction, of independent thought and iron will. If there were men with that kind of inner strength, and the right ideas in their head, the world might be a much different place.
think for yourself, you won't like the results if others do it for you.
This raises my opinion of those 5 justices in the majority.
Now I don't have to worry about cops searching my house, and finding my overclocked computer!
Chika Chik-ah... do-e ow ow.
It is my opinion that the Supreme Court has made an mistake. It is the function of the police, not only to apprehend criminals, but to prevent if possible criminal acts from taking place. It is perfectly legitimate, for example, for a cop to take a good hard look at a house from which loud music and pot odors are coming. That is because simply looking from outside the house is not invasive. Likewise, examining a house from the outside with thermal imaging gear is not invasive in the sense of a true search, and should not require a warrant.
I'm the stranger...posting to
"This could lead to arresting people randomly."
Uh, don't you need a warrant to arrest someone? And just cause? I seem to recall that being in the Constitution somewhere...
I'm the stranger...posting to
This is what i think:
First of all, the homeowner is not at the mercy of anything until they do something wrong. The heat imaging does not detect much other than illegal actions (as far as i know).
I heard a story recently about a guy who was growning tons of marijuana in his house, and to be able to sucessfully do this, he had to create the right enviroment (HOT) to be able to grow it.
Later, after the police had arrested him and he went to court. His lawyers contended that the way that the police/whoever used to detect him was "unconstitutional" (as everything is called these days). I don't know how this case turned out.
George Washington
Thomas Jefferson
John Adams
Thousands of other American Revolutionaries
Susan B. Anthony
Mahatma Ghandi
Jesus of Nazareth
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Phillip Zimmerman
Rosa Parks
Forgive me for forgetting that our purpose as human beings is to worship and revere the arbitrarily-chosen laws in the geographic region we happen to be born into.
"What is the sound of one belly slapping?"
The specific technology, Forward Looking Infrared Radar, has been successfully used to bust thousands of marijuana growing operations over the last few decades. These people's lives were ruined: they were arrested, imprisoned, fined, and subjected to forfeiture of their assets. Between the fines and the asset forfeiture, police nationwide have bought more helicopters, tactical weapons, body armor, dogs, and other Rambo toys--all to use against Americans in the War on (Some) Drugs.
When a law or investigative procedure is found to violate basic Constitutional rights, the ruling should be applied retroactively all the way back to the enactment of said law or investigative procedure. Anyone caught by FLIR should have their fines reimbursed, criminal record expunged, and their assets returned--including all of the plants they were growing, down to the specific strain and height. What sucks is that this won't happen--the case just gets remanded to the lower court, who can decide in this one case whether there was any other evidence available to justify a warrantless search. Anybody who wants this applied to their case will have to hire an expensive lawyer: a ridiculous proposition for someone who no longer has a home to mortgage because it was seized.
This WO(S)D has been nothing but a gateway to a full-blown police state. I'm hoping that this ruling marks the end of the "But Won't Someone Think of the Children???" era that characterized the 80's and 90's and launches the "But Won't Someone Think of the Constitution???" era.
"What is the sound of one belly slapping?"
Anybody can use thermal imaging - it got some use in the 80's for energy conservation...contractors would scan a house and use it to detect heat leaks.
The Supreme Court got this right in terms of privacy, wrong in terms of science. Once again, a complex case turns on a fine point of law.
awwwww, now now... anal probing a touchy subject for you? sorry for bringing it up... (whiner...)
the same supreme court panel also voted 8-to-1 in favor of anal probing as a means of gathering evidence. personally, i'll take the infrared scanning any day.
Consider that listening devices are not legal. This is simply an extension of it into visual devices. Excellent that they did make the right decision though. (for once)
-- Azaroth
I agree. I don't like many of his decisions/opinions, yet they are always well-reasoned. That's the problem that I had when Thomas was nominated. It wasn't that he was a conservative, he was nowhere near the legal genius that Scalia is. Also, at the time of the Bork nomination, I was a Democrat, and I thought Bork should have been confirmed for the same reason.
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
To my knowledge, the only group of people in the US that can use thermal imaging technology, aside from reserachers, etc, is the military. And they're not allowed to scope out your house.
Human logic: 1) I can't so you mustn't. 2) I can but you mustn't.
I'm sure that every copy thinks about seeing thermo porn, it must be the reason that there is such a following, the cops look in my window and they're like oh yeah I see the heat hanging between his legs. But really if people weren't armed or doing things that are against the law they probly wouldn't be arested, but probly is a broad term, and it only prevents home invasion but it doesn't prevent person to person searches which could be covered by probible cause. I wonder if that would hold up in court
Windows I got windows, I got curtains too