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Federal Judge Approves Warrantless, Covert Video Surveillance
Penurious Penguin writes "Your curtilage may be your castle, but 'open fields' are open game for law-enforcement and surveillance technology. Whether 'No Trespassing' signs are present or not, your private property is public for the law, with or without a warrant. What the police cannot do, their cameras can — without warrant or court oversight. An article at CNET recounts a case involving the DEA, a federal judge, and two defendants (since charged) who were subjected to video surveillance on private property without a warrant. Presumably, the 4th Amendment suffers an obscure form of agoraphobia further elucidated in the article."
"Callahan based his reasoning on a 1984 Supreme Court case called Oliver v. United States, in which a majority of the justices said that "open fields" could be searched without warrants because they're not covered by the Fourth Amendment. What lawyers call "curtilage," on the other hand, meaning the land immediately surrounding a residence, still has greater privacy protections."
As the article explains: open fields, even when attached to homes, aren't normally covered by the 4th Amendment, because they're not in the plain-terms of the language. The 4th Amendment doesn't protect all property, but rather just the enumerated properties and spaces. Curtilage - the land immediately attached to a home - is sometimes covered, but separate fields such as these aren't.
Go visit your local high school and sit in on a civics class. The head of the executive branch has nothing to do with the decision of someone in the judicial branch. Obama didn't make a cameo appearance in the courtroom. Aside from a judge appointed by the president, you'd have to be a complete idiot to blame the executive office for something a judge decided to do in his own courtroom.
This judge was appointed by Bush, but sure, whatever you say.
Does this square with your expectations?
About what I'd expect, considering he was appointed by Bush. According to Wikipedia:
Griesbach was nominated by President George W. Bush
Anyone care to explain where, precisely, the above amendment specifies that it only applies to indoor, private property?
Now that the SCOTUS has decided your property is now public and thus available to police scrutiny without warrant, is there still anyone stupid enough to think this won't eventually creep past the threshold and into your home?
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
"CNET has learned that U.S. District Judge William Griesbach ruled that it was reasonable for Drug Enforcement Administration agents to enter rural property without permission -- and without a warrant -- to install multiple "covert digital surveillance cameras" in hopes of uncovering evidence that 30 to 40 marijuana plants were being grown."
"Two defendants in the case, Manuel Mendoza and Marco Magana of Green Bay, Wis., have been charged with federal drug crimes after DEA agent Steven Curran claimed to have discovered more than 1,000 marijuana plants grown on the property, and face possible life imprisonment and fines of up to $10 million."
Life in prison for growing plants, fuck our legal system.
The difference is with Obama it's the government/public agencies doing this, while under Romney it'll be private sector doing it and billing anyone who wants to know what they saw.
Well, there goes that "difference". You apparently haven't seen Obama's latest Executive Order.
Remember, folks, it's a "public-private partnership"; we don't call it fascism anymore!
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
Read a bit of the SCOTUS decision on Oliver v. United States (1984) and tell me how this breaks new ground. I was getting my dander up, too, and then I realized this kind of thing was decided 28 years ago. If you want the cops to get a warrant, grow your MJ indoors or in the "curtilage" behind a tall fence (and hope they're not using aircraft).
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." -- George Orwell
False equivalency. The Obama / Holder justice department has cracked down on pot 4 times as hard as Bush ever did, even conducting twice as many raids on medical marijuana facilities in 4 years than Bush did in 8. And this from the President that promised (as a candidate) to leave them alone.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
In other words: if you live in a city, and have a yard with a fairly modest front lawn, let's say, and a fenced back yard, then typically the whole of the property would be "curtilage" protected by the 4th Amendment.
But if you live on a 1000-acre farm, very likely the "protected curtilage" would be only a small area around the actual house. You can help define this "protected curtilage" area yoursef, by building a fence around the residential area you want protected. Maybe you wan the barn to be within the protected curtilage, for example. So you build a fence at an 80 yard radius around the house and the barn. Very likely, a court would rule that to be "curtilage". But the wheat fields or whatever? No.
To elaborate on the other posters, the term curtilage refers to a very small area around your house (like a typical suburban yard), and doesn't include other private property like farmland, etc. These people had a large wooded plot of land with a house on it. They had large fences and no trespassing signs all around the property. The police set up cameras on the private property, but away from the house.
Here is a better article that also links to the full ruling, and has some very informative posts in the discussion.
Again, none of the quotes say it was installed on curtilage!
Again, that's the point. The cameras were installed outside curtilage but still on the property. It's right there in the third quote, "...a location that allows law enforcement to record activities outside of a home and beyond protected curtilage..."
Dude you are on crack ... you would think they would say that it's on the property. What you quoted could be referring to ... wait for it ... public property off of your premises! From another article:
Update: Our original story incorrectly suggested that Mendoza or Malaga owned the property in question. As the magistrate judge explained in a footnote: The government also briefly argues that there was no Fourth Amendment search because neither Mendoza nor Magana owned or leased the Property.