> They don't need a warrant to post monitors and record what they see in plain view in public spaces with no expectation of privacy.

They do if it's done to the point where you can track individuals around the city.

https://www.ca4.uscourts.gov/opinions/201495A.P.pdf

> The AIR program uses aerial photography to track movements related to serious crimes. Multiple planes fly distinct orbits above Baltimore, equipped with PSS’s camera technology known as the “Hawkeye Wide Area Imaging System.” The cameras capture roughly 32 square miles per image per second. The planes fly at least 40 hours a week, obtaining an estimated twelve hours of coverage of around 90% of the city each day, 5 weather permitting. The PSA limits collection to daylight hours and limits the photographic resolution to one pixel per person or vehicle, though neither restriction is required by the technology. In other words, any single AIR image—captured once per second—includes around 32 square miles of Baltimore and can be magnified to a point where people and cars are individually visible, but only as blurred dots or blobs.

> On the merits, because the AIR program enables police to deduce from the whole of individuals’ movements, we hold that accessing its data is a search, and its warrantless operation violates the Fourth Amendment

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tptacek 8 hours ago | parent [-]

The decision you're citing explicitly cites precedent for the constitutionality of warrantless mounted pole cameras.

Anyways, I'm not that interested in the broader long-term constitutional debate. I'm just interested in shutting down the glib Anti-Pinkerton cite.

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ceejayoz 8 hours ago | parent [-]

> The decision you're citing explicitly cites precedent for the constitutionality of warrantless mounted pole cameras.

And explicity notes that it's the relative scarcity of them that matters.

> Decades later, in United States v. Jones, 565 U.S. 400 (2012), location-tracking technology crossed the line from merely augmenting to impermissibly enhancing. There, police used a GPS-tracking device to remotely monitor and record a vehicle’s movements over 28 days. Id. at 402–04. Although the case was ultimately decided on trespass principles, five Justices agreed that “longer term GPS monitoring . . . impinges on expectations of privacy.” See id. at 430 (Alito, J., concurring); id. at 415 (Sotomayor, J., concurring). Based on “[t]raditional surveillance” capacity “[i]n the precomputer age,” the Justices reasoned that “society’s expectation” was that police would not “secretly monitor and catalogue every single movement of an individual’s car for a very long period.”

> Thus, Carpenter solidified the line between short-term tracking of public movements—akin to what law enforcement could do “[p]rior to the digital age”—and prolonged tracking that can reveal intimate details through habits and patterns.

Put enough of them up, and the software to track between them, and you're in "enables police to deduce from the whole of individuals’ movements" territory.

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tptacek 8 hours ago | parent [-]

Maybe! I'm skeptical. Either way: Anti-Pinkerton doesn't come into it.

I'll tell you what's not going to happen, with certainty: we're not going to get to a point with ALPRs where it becomes so abusive that the Supreme Court decides municipalities can't track cars at all.

	▲	ceejayoz 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> we're not going to get to a point with ALPRs where it becomes so abusive that the Supreme Court decides municipalities can't track cars at all Sure. But they may get restricted somewhat, as they are if they want to demolish my house without my consent.