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Going Through the Garbage
frankejames writes "This is a very funny piece on how Portland politicians said it was okay for police to seize a citizen's garbage without a search warrant. But when some reporters swiped their garbage (and reported the contents!) they screamed foul play! Read Portland's top brass said it was OK to swipe your garbage--so we grabbed theirs."
Ok. So I need to delete all of the data on my hard drive at least 7 times before it is *really* deleted, and now I need to pulverize all real life garbage just to make sure the cops (or reporters, or neighbors) don't use it as evidence? Jeesh.
Sex - Find It
How often do they consider how it would feel if these laws were applied to them?
Will the government officials who enacted the USA PATRIOT act ever have to really be subjected to the same things they allowed to be done to us?
Really cared about the security of your garbage, you wouldn't set it on the curb so a guy who makes $7.50 an hour can come by and take it with him.
Last issue of 2600 magazine had a four page article dedicated to the art of dumpster diving. Best advice: Bring a bunch of empty boxes in your car, that way, you can tell a police officer that you are helping a friend move, and your just looking for more empty boxes.
I could also host a party for people who drink, even though I don't.
Yes, these are just examples, but they illustrate that the survey technique is fundamentally flawed.
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
Brillant arguement...
This seems to be an interesting precedent...
As I understand it, the basic claim of the police is that if it's easily accessible, it's public information.
So, how does this apply to the Internet?
For instance, is unencrypted email now public information? What about information on a HTML page - with no links leading to it?
I particularly like the police officers claiming that the lack of a "No tresspassing" sign / "don't open garbage" sign gives them the right to do this... Does a woman have to wear a "Don't Rape" sign to make this clear to potential attackers?
Perhaps the "Don't Rape" sign should really go on the Constitution - particularly the Fourth Amendment.
Doing things of this nature are becoming an effective means of grabbing attention of the people involved. It is much more effective that "changing the system from the inside" because it allows people who don't want to be politicians, executives, etc to shake things up. It is also is exponentially more effective than just being a pain in the ass.
Now...if we could only figure out a way to limit the power of major players in the news business. Drudge Report.
It might be legal for anyone to take it,
I think the biggest issue here is in using that trash as *evidence* in an investigation, who's to say it's actually *your* trash?? I throw garbage in other people's trash all the time, if I throw some some drug residue in there, and the cops confiscate it, they can prosecute the home owner for possession?? That is not a good thing.
I haven't read the article because it seems slashdotted (already?).
It is legal for police to take garbage without a search warrant. IANAL, but from civics classes, trash falls under "abandoned property", so police can take it without a search warrant. It's kinda like if a police office thinks you're speeding, he doesn't need a search warrant to aim his radar gun at you to check your speed. Not exactly the same thing, but kinda in the same category.
I completely disagree, as in your example your as assuming that the judge will approve the warrant. The police could go throw the garbage, have the warrant refused, and say 'Oh well, we already have the evidence and it was obtained legally'. Why not work on shortening the time required instead of giving more leeway to the police?
Being a policeman yourself, you'll know that a policeman without a warrant is just a citizen like any other, and if it's good and leagal for you it's good and legal for anyone else.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
It seems to me there is a difference between the police, who are guided by local, state and federal laws regarding use of evidence, and reporters, who have pretty much free reign under the US constitution in what they report. Quite honestly, despite the anti-government, anti-authority slant by both the article and the comments in the posting here, I would be far less comfortable with reporters stealing my garbage than with police collecting it. And I can entirely see the city's point about why reporters going around rummaging through peoples' garbage is a bad idea. Reporters are not answerable to anybody - government is.
That said, why would anyone expect that something they've acknowledged they no longer want and have therefore basically thrown up for grabs on the curb to be secure? As someone who lives in NYC, where it's routine for people to pick up junk they find lying on the side of the street, this just strikes me as idiotic. Not just dumb, not just stupid, but completely moronic. You threw it away; it's on the curb, it's no longer yours. End of story. Whether it's the police or the press taking it, if you're at all worried about it you should have either kept it or destroyed it.
There's a reason why shredders exist. And if you don't want to use one, that's your choice. But then don't complain when people go rummaging through your garbage looking for credit card statements and pay stubs. You put that stuff out on the curb of your own free will.
Screw privacy: Speaking as someone who had my credit card numbers stolen from my trash, EVERYONE should have a shredder to shred bills. It's incredibly cheap insurance.
As far as people taking the rest of my garbage, they're welcome to it. Less I have to take to the curb!
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
The U.S. Government seems very fond of this phrase so I'll throw it back their way...
If you're not doing anything wrong, then you shouldn't have anything to hide.
I believe in Dallas the new chief of police earned some respect from the citizens around here by arresting city employees, policemen, and firemen for unpaid tickets, etc. etc.
If there is a problem with Judge's taking two weeks to sign a search warrant, then there is a problem with the judge and the system, not a reason to create 'special rights' for people who should not be considered 'special people.'
Just my 2c.
The article (which was kindly copied by a decent slashdotter) said that the police not only took a fellow officer's garbage without her permission... they went further against the privacy of her body itself by using a bloody tampon as a drug test sample which led to her dismissal!
Folks, this is not a case of stolen "property". This is an involuntary medical examination; an invasion of privacy to the highest degree.
A policeman, on duty, is an arm of the government, not a citizen. The policeman has sworn an oath to uphold the law *as* an instrument of the government. Actual ordinary citizens have to trust the police to do so or their entire function, indeed, the entire function of *law* falls into disrepute.The Constitution puts certain limits on the actions of police officers *because* the second they put on the that shield they are the government, not a citizen. Police have *fewer* rights than citizens.This is why the police have adopted the dodge of hiring ordinary citizens to go places and do things that they cannot.
A policeman who does not follow due process is the greatest threat to lawfulness there is.
Contrarywise, a journalist going through the trash of a public official to find out the truth has long been held to be one of the *greatest* preservers of democratic law that there is. See the Pentagon Papers.Protections for such behaviours were specifically written into the Constitution.
The entire function of the Constitution is to *restrict* the actions of government and law enforcement and *empower* citizens.
Indeed, some of the restrictions on law enforcment ( such as it taking a week to get a warrant) were overtly written to make it impossible to effectively prosecute certain unjust laws. That's the frikkin' *point.*
I don't wonder why some polititians might object to this.
KFG
I lived in Portland until 6 months ago, and I Loved the WWeek's reporting. Mark Kroger (the police chief, one of the officials who got his garbage peeked at) calls the stunt "cheap" in the article, but people in government need to be kept in check by having exactly this kind of thing done by the press. WWeek is honest enough to spell out the fact that no scandalous material was uncovered, and thourough enough to print a full, detailed list of the "dirt" they did dig up. If I were religious, I'd thank God there are reporters out there willing to do this kind of thing.
Way to go WWeek! Three cheers for the Free Press. Great way to ring in the New Year!!
Someone up the block threw out a perfectly good, actually quite expensive skateboard. My friend told me about it so I went up to swipe it. By the time I got there the garbage truck was there.
He wouldn't let me swipe it. I explained it was trash going to the landfill, he still said it was quite illegal. Couple minutes of protest got me nowhere. I would have used some whup-ass but I was only 14 or so at the time and this was a big fat smelly teamster looking guy...
But to this day I still have no idea why such a thing would be illegal. I think we need to pay the legislators less, they seem to have too much time on their hands...
You lack imagination - under civil forfeiture laws the cops can grab the house and the owner has to put up a bond and prove he wasn't using it for a crime.
Yup, welcome to America.
http://fear.org
If you want it changed, change the law.
This is ancient news. Heck, it was covered on the TV Show "Law & Order" 5 years ago or so.
You cease to have an interest in something when you put the garbage out. It becomes literally garbage.
Don't like it? Shred it? Or keep it. There are secure disposal companies you know.
How can something which doesn't even have value to you be considered valuable enough to protect?
I agree. It's not that I want the police rifling thru peoples trash all the time (I don't, and I agree with the article in calling it "reprehensible"), but what other legal conclusion could you come to? I mean, at what point DOES trash become public?
Clearly it has to become public at SOME point, right? You don't think it should be criminal for the people at the junkyard to, for instance, sift thru trash looking for soda bottles do you? Or rubber tires? I mean, you THREW IT AWAY, you SENT IT OFF via public servants to a public land, to be stored by agents of the state. Do you think you still "own" the trash you threw out in 2001? 1996? 1939? Why not? At WHAT POINT did you think you lost that ownership?
Anyway, like I said, I think it's sneaky, but I also think the Supreme Court made the only reasonable legal decision. Here's the bottom line: if you want to throw away something incriminating, break it apart, shread it, or what have you, first; take it to a public dumpster; no, take it in pieces to FIVE public dumpsters; better yet, don't throw it away in the first place.
It makes me wonder whether an entrepeneur could make money with a "private" trash collection scheme, where things are left on your driveway (private land), picked up by private trashmen, put in a private truck, and taken to a private landfill where things are (perhaps) stirred up, burned, crunched, and otherwise mangled before being burried forever -- where the government would have no rights to the stuff. Hmmm...
The guys who collect your trash work are up at the butt-crack of dawn, freezing in the winter, roasting in the midday sun in the summer, collecting the smelly things we don't want in our houses anymore. They go back smelling like all of our garbage mixed with their own sweat.
How many of those teachers work as garbage collectors in the summer?
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.
California supreme court really screwed over your rights.
Do I expect my garbage men to go through my trash, yes. Do I expect them to analyze my trash, test blood samples, look for suspect criminal activities? NO. Unreasonable, i dont think so.
Its a shame, when common sense can be loop-holed. The whole purpose of the 4th amendment is to protect the citizens against unreasonable/unsupported searches. The police searching the garbage have no probable cause.
This is the exact reason the patriot act runs around the 4th amendment, they need to monitor everyones activity on the affirmation that there are criminal activities.
My head hurts...
Empty the litter box on top of everything else.
A policeman, on duty, is an arm of the government, not a citizen.
Good post. The actual legal term you're looking for here is "state actor".
It's not entirely accurate to say that "police have *fewer* rights than citizens", since as citizens themselves they have all the rights afforded to citizens. However, one power that citizens do not have is the power to arrest people and throw them in jail. That is reserved for (certain) state actors.
A state actor can (as a citizen) search your trash for crack pipes. But then he is doing it as a citizen, and not a state actor, because state actors are forbidden to do that. If the cop does find anything, he cannot follow through and arrest you any more than I can. However, being a citizen, he can put whatever he found on a web page or in a newspaper. There's certainly nothing wrong with that. Paparazzi take pictures through windows all the time. The Constitution does not protect you from paparazzi. Stuff like that is left up to legislation.
Most civil rights are defined as controls on the power of state actors- not citizens or private organizations. For example, a newspaper editor can fire a reporter for writing something he doesn't agree with. Since the newspaper is not a state actor, no First Amendment violation has taken place. This point seems to sail over the heads of most people when they bitch and moan about their First Amendment freedoms being violated by private citizens or organizations. Unless the cops are involved, the First Amendment issues are usually irrelevant. But this isn't always the case. For example, when a state university fires a professor for his political views, that is a First Amendment violation- because as a public institution the university is a state actor! The same rule wouldn't apply to, say, a Bible College that receives no public funds. It makes sense, but no wonder people are confused.
A cop is perfectly free to search your trash and put up a web site with pictures of everything he found, but if he then tries to prosecute you with what he found, a court will be obliged to throw it out. Unless you live in Portland, where judgeships are apparently being dispensed from Cracker Jack boxes. The article doesn't mention whether any Cracker Jack boxes were actually found in these people's garbage so I cannot speculate any further.
Entry-level jobs for teenagers and immigrants.
Really.
Also, Oregonians are ornery and like being different from other states. That's why, in a single day, a person in Oregon can (a) smoke pot for their painful illness, (b) have gas pumped for them free, (c) buy a magazine and not pay sales tax, and (d) end it all by taking some pills the doctor gave them.
Christ, this is 1984, or [insert big brother novel here].
/. is no longer enough. E-mail doesn't work. March...let them know that they've crossed the line. Tell, them, vocally. Just don't sit, cos they'll never see. I'm just scared that what's happening over there will make the crosiing to the EU.
This is just...evil?....sick?
Hypocracy has reached it's peak in the 'land of the free'. I'm just glad I don't live there. The problem of course is the old joke "When the end of the world comes, be glad you live in the Netherlands...it'll come six months later".
After the PATRIOT acts I was amazed. After the Homeland Security act I was frightened. Now I'm just scared. Call me naive, but this is just freaky scary.
I knew that science fiction writers are prophets of a sort. What they qwrite is what people aspire to. Case in point, Isaac Asimov, William Gibson. People read their work, and aspire to create giant Manga robots, the internet, geosynchronous satelites. What sci-fi predict comes to pass, because young kids think it's cool, and thionk of that for the rest of their life. But they also have nightmares...and this is one.
Maybe it's the champange, but this double standard scares the shit out of me. This just shouldn't happen. In the seventies, people marched against a war which didn't really even effect them. But now the problems are at home, and no-one gives a peep!?!? WTF!?
That's really all I can say...wtf!?!?
People, posting on
-- Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
Collecting garbage is one of the most hazardous jobs on earth. Heavy machinery, sharps, biological and chemical hazards, exhausting hours... doesn't matter if it takes brains or not, if you want people to work an unpleasant, essential and extremely dangerous job, you need to pay them well.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth