Federal Court Nixes Weeks of Warrantless Video Surveillance

An anonymous reader writes with this news from the EFF's Deep Links: The public got an early holiday gift today when a federal court agreed with us that six weeks of continually video recording the front yard of someone's home without a search warrant violates the Fourth Amendment. In United States v. Vargas local police in rural Washington suspected Vargas of drug trafficking. In April 2013, police installed a camera on top of a utility pole overlooking his home. Even though police did not have a warrant, they nonetheless pointed the camera at his front door and driveway and began watching every day. A month later, police observed Vargas shoot some beer bottles with a gun and because Vargas was an undocumented immigrant, they had probable cause to believe he was illegally possessing a firearm. They used the video surveillance to obtain a warrant to search his home, which uncovered drugs and guns, leading to a federal indictment against Vargas.

Comments

Re:What?

[Tokolosh]

Anything not forbidden to the Federal Government by the Constitution is allowed, assuming the appropriate laws are passed

You have this backwards. Everything is forbidden to the Federal Government, except that explicitly granted by the Constitution.

Re:What?

[Shakrai]

Notably us white Northerners were not suddenly beset with swarthy skinned Southerners taking our jobs.

Which explains why David Cameron is trying to amend the freedom of movement to gain the ability to deport EU nationals that move to the UK without first securing employment. Or the borderline racism I personally observed in Sweden and Finland directed at EU nationals who moved there from the former Eastern Bloc.

You might ask why your American governments don't afford you the same freedoms.

You can freely move through the 50 States with more ease than EU nationals can establish themselves in another EU State. Common language and all, plus there's no such thing in the States as a residency permit for American citizens. But don't let the facts get in the way of your conceptions. :)