Drones, Dogs and the Future of Privacy

An anonymous reader writes "Stanford's Ryan Calo has previously told us that 'that there is very little in American privacy law that would prohibit drone surveillance within our borders.' But will UAVs not only be legally permitted to monitor us in public, but also be used to 'peer' into homes with high-tech thermal and chemical sensors and alert police to the presence of illicit substances or other suspicious activity? Calo writes in Wired about a pending Supreme Court case, Florida v. Jardines, which will determine 'whether the police need a warrant before a dog can sniff your house' like they already do to luggage at airports. According to Calo, if the Court approves of these searches, it's a small leap to extend that same logic to the use of drones, allowing them 'to roam a neighborhood in search of invisible infractions such as indoor marijuana.' He concludes: 'The wrong decision in Jardines makes this and similar surveillance scenarios uncomfortably plausible.'"

Comments

It's already been ruled on.

[scorp1us]

Cops cannot use thermal imaging to see inside without a warrant. What you saw on Weeds was just a TV show.

The walls of your house create an expectation of privacy, and that privacy is protected by the constitution.

Re:It's already been ruled on.

[BlindRobin]

The right to privacy is not explicit in the constitution but a long held extended interpretation of the fourth amendment prohibition against illegal search and seizure. Laws regarding privacy are, at this point in time, undergoing a great deal of challenge and re-interpretation in state and federal courts. This is not a done deal, the law never is. The Patriot Act and similar less publicized legislation have already eroded this presumptive right and state legislatures around the country are pushing bills targeting privacy issues in the pursuit of various ideological agenda with increasing frequency.

Re:It's already been ruled on.

[Dachannien]

Scalia and Thomas, the most conservative members of the court both then and now, both sided with the majority in Kyllo v. US, which held that thermal imaging of a home constitutes a search and requires a warrant. Scalia even wrote the opinion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyllo_v._United_States

False positives

[overshoot]

I am sooooo looking forward to my new house with the "potting" room where I can have grow lamps. Getting no-knock raids in the middle of the night where the narcs find absolutely bupkis is funny enough, but it can't be that hard to come up with extracts that drive drug-sniffing dogs wild. Just a squirt here and there around the neighborhood ...

Re:Privacy Anachronism

[betterunixthanunix]

On the other hand, if you feel that 'big brother' is silently watching your every move, then you must have a huge ego.

I find this statement to be pretty interesting. Google certainly does monitor all the email you send, for advertising purposes (but will fork it over when law enforcement presents a court order). Facebook monitors even more details of most people's lives, and is not going to take a stand against government requests for information. Big brother is watching everyone; the government just has not figured out how best to use the flood of information to its advantage (and the friendly relationship between the government and corporations makes it hard to distinguish between corporate invasions of privacy and government invasions).

Even totalitarian states do not take action on every single piece of information that they are aware of. The point of governments collecting information on citizens is not to target everyone, it is to maintain government power by spotting potential dissidents before their movements grow to "dangerous" sizes. The struggle for privacy is a struggle for power; privacy rights are fundamental to individual empowerment and democracy.

So is big brother going to come after you because of your secret affair? Of course not. Is big brother going to release information about your secret affair when you start talking about changing the social order, reducing political corruption, or working for the benefit of the common people? It is not unthinkable that such a thing could happen.

Re:Privacy Anachronism

[QRDeNameland]

On the other hand, if you feel that 'big brother' is silently watching your every move, then you must have a huge ego.

You don't need to be personally paranoid to realize that the worry is not necessarily constant active surveillance by 'big brother', rather that by making virtually every facet of your life recordable, the authorities will now have the ultimate version of Cardinal Richelieu's proverbial "six lines written by the most honorable of men". I don't think anyone is watching me nor would they have any reason to, but I can honestly say the way things are going would make me far less likely to, for example, become publicly active in a controversial political cause.