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:If you point the camera on a politician..

[dgatwood]

If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged.
—Cardinal Richelieu (allegedly)

Re:What?

[Loki_1929]

Because it's impossible to secure 3,000 miles of border, and he would just sneak back in if that's all we did.

Pardon me, but that's bullshit.

Let's just take the forces we already have today. We have 1.4 Million in active duty military personnel and 850,000 reserves. Obviously we can't take every single one, so let's take half: 1.1 Million people. Now stick them on a 3-man rotation minus 1/3 for duty rotations and leave and spread them out across the 1,954 mile border with Mexico. That puts 125 people plus their equipment per mile of border, plus all their R&D budget going into technologies to increase protection. Those personnel aren't just idle all day; they're building fences, digging trenches, laying sensor grids, and basically doing all the stuff that completely shut down the San Diego zone for crossings and they're doing it 24/7/365 at 125 per mile or one person every 14 yards.

I think that's all way overboard for what we'd need to actually secure (~99% reduction in successful unauthorized crossings) that border, but in any event, don't try to say it's impossible to do. Say we lack the political will. Say we choose not to do it. Say we just aren't interested enough in the problem to do what's necessary to solve it. But don't say it's impossible; that's absurd. I'm not even getting terribly creative here; just sticking boots on the ground and a whole lot more boots than we'd ever actually need at that.

Re:Presidential Oath of Office - how quaint

[smooth wombat]

Which has nothing to do with the question I asked.

No one is saying people from other countries shouldn't be allowed to work in the U.S. (I'm not), what is being asked is they do it legally and with proper documentation.

So again, I ask the question, do you let random people walk in and out of your place without knowing who they are?