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| Time | Text |
|---|---|
| An amazing article today, the court has okayed warrantless use of hidden surveillance cameras. | |
| This is a case where the DEA installed multiple covert digital surveillance cameras on private property in order to spy and without getting a warrant. | |
| U.S. | |
| District Judge William Griesbach ruled that warrants aren't necessary because it upheld, and listen to this, the use of technology as a substitute for ordinary police surveillance. | |
| Now, technology is not a substitute for police surveillance. | |
| Just because we're using a different technology doesn't mean that we give up our rights to be searched. | |
| And surveillance is a search. | |
| But the Supreme Court has already rejected in January warrantless GPS tracking. | |
| Uh, they rejected prior to that, warrantless thermal imaging. | |
| They have, coming up before them, they've yet, not yet determined whether warrantless cell phone tracking is, uh, going to be allowed. | |
| So they will be also reviewing this case. | |
| I'm sure it will go to the Supreme Court. | |
| In this particular case, there were no trespassing signs that were posted. | |
| Throughout the heavily wooded 22 acre property and it also had a heavy gate. | |
| Now the legal fiction of all this is based on a 1984 Supreme Court ruling called Oliver vs. United States. | |
| And it found, amazingly, that open fields could be searched without warrants because they're not covered by the Fourth Amendment. | |
| Well, you might want to look at your copy of the Fourth Amendment because mine doesn't have any exceptions for open fields. | |
| And this is all based on a legal fiction called curtilage. | |
| That's a term for the area that immediately surrounds your home. | |
| But what we're seeing here is a gradual encroachment. | |
| First they say that if they don't need a warrant to put surveillance cameras or to spy on you on the outer edges of your property, they only need it to go under the curtilage or if they're going to go inside of your house. | |
| And that's just a creeping encroachment on your rights. | |
| It's the same sort of thing as if your neighbor were to put their fence on your property and leave it there for a while. |
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