| The government needs a warrant to search you, your home, your vehicle, your email, etc. The government does not need a warrant to record you in public spaces. You're correct that the government can't use a third party to circumvent privacy laws. But privacy laws never prohibited what Flock does. The government could directly set up its own cameras in public, and nothing about that violated the Fourth Amendment. |
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| ▲ | text0404 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | The government does need a warrant to surveil someone, though. Which is what is happening here: a third party surveils citizens and the government searches that data. | | |
| ▲ | Manuel_D 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | Whether or not the government needs a warrant to surveil someone depends on how the government is conducting that surveillance. The government does, for instance, need a warrant to wiretap you. They do not need a warrant to record people in public spaces. Nor do they need a warrant to, say, photograph the exterior of your house. | | |
| ▲ | text0404 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | But they need a warrant to follow me around, record my movements, put them into a database which is searchable by other law enforcement. They're not taking a single photograph of a car, they're creating a database of movement of people who have not committed crimes. | | |
| ▲ | Manuel_D 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | No, they do not need a warrant to follow you in public. What more is there to say, besides that you're just wrong about what privacy laws protect? | | |
| ▲ | text0404 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | They need a warrant if they're going to record and track my movements over the course of months. | | |
| ▲ | Manuel_D 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | If they're only tracking your movements in public, the no they do not. Again, you're just wrong about what privacy laws protect. They do not prohibit the police from surveilling or tracking you, they only control how the police is able to conduct that surveillance. If the police want to search your house or car, they need a warrant or at least probable cause for the latter. If they want to photograph you in public, they do not. | |
| ▲ | 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
| ▲ | 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
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| ▲ | UncleMeat 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > The government does not need a warrant to record you in public spaces. This is not true. The question is whether you have a "reasonable expectation of privacy." If you do, then the government needs a warrant. This is why the government can't tap a payphone without a warrant even though it is in public. It is true that a single police officer can post up somewhere and scan license plates without a warrant. The difference here is scale. The question of whether scale affects a "reasonable expectation of privacy" has never been addressed by the supreme court, though it has been raised before and discussed in concurring opinions. | | |
| ▲ | Manuel_D 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | > This is not true. The question is whether you have a "reasonable expectation of privacy." If you do, then the government needs a warrant. This is why the government can't tap a payphone without a warrant even though it is in public. "Reasonable expectation of privacy" covers things like restrooms. Not highways, streets, parking lots, etc. This isn't relevant for Flock. | | |
| ▲ | UncleMeat 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | "Reasonable expectation of privacy" covers whatever the public believes is reasonable. The original case creating this doctrine was about phone booths. |
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