Smell that evidence
Do you smell something?
Sniff.
Why yes, I believe that's the Fourth Amendment smoldering.
If police need only "reasonable, articulable suspicion" to use drug-sniffer dogs to remotely search an apartment, can they get away with the same standard when using infra-red cameras? How about other search techniques that don't require physical entry into a premises?
Technology marches on and search and seizure protections need to keep up--or else they'll become irrelevant relics of a simpler age.
Sniff.
Why yes, I believe that's the Fourth Amendment smoldering.
Burnsville police acted properly in using a narcotics-detection dog outside the apartment door of a man suspected of illegal drug activity, the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled.
In a 5-2 decision, the court found that police needed only reasonable, articulable suspicion - not probable cause - that the defendant was engaged in illegal activity to conduct the dog sniff. Moreover, information from a private citizen informant - that maintenance workers believed they saw marijuana-growing lights in the apartment and that the defendant would not let the workers in to fix a water leak - supported a finding that the police had reasonable suspicion that there was illegal drug activity inside the apartment.
If police need only "reasonable, articulable suspicion" to use drug-sniffer dogs to remotely search an apartment, can they get away with the same standard when using infra-red cameras? How about other search techniques that don't require physical entry into a premises?
Technology marches on and search and seizure protections need to keep up--or else they'll become irrelevant relics of a simpler age.
Labels: privacy
posted by J.D. Tuccille at
3:42 PM
3 Comments:
"Search and seizure" gets to be a more complicated issue every day. Should you expect to have privacy in your own house? Of course, unless you've made all the walls out of glass.
Increasingly, technology is making all of our walls into glass. Given that it's impractical, at the least, to outlaw technology, perhaps we should be looking into building better walls. Or ventilation systems, as the case may be.
Outrageous for the police to use infrared cameras? Umm. You do know that anyone can buy these, right? If anyone walking down the street can look in on you, you don't have a reasonable expectation of privacy to begin with.
Technology is potentially turning all of our walls into glass, for sure. But some step must be taken in each case by officialdom to peer through that glass, whether it's using a dog, or a camera or some other device. If we say that search and seizure protections are only for those who have taken the trouble and expense to block new technologies, we'll turn the Fourth Amendment into a special toy for legally savvy rich people.
Remember the story of King Canute ordering the tide to stop coming in? He'd have gone for DRM laws, too, no doubt. Whether these things are desirable or not is beside the point. Total surveillance capabilities are rapidly becoming well within the reach of everyone. I expect one of the results will be a redefinition of privacy. To the extent that "real" privacy remains at all, it may well become a rare commodity. Like it or not, the tide is coming in.
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