US Supreme Court asked if cops can plant spy cams around homes The American Civil Liberties Union on Friday asked the US Supreme Court to consider whether surveillance cameras placed on utility poles by police without a warrant should be allowed to watch people in their homes. The ACLU petition [PDF] for a writ of certiorari – asking the Supreme Court to review a lower court's decision – …
If not, then Ring doorbell cams should be illegal.
I agree, a comment apparently given by an urban resident.
My driveway is 450 feet long. My Ring camera captures quite a decent portion of it even if the motion detection is only activated much closer than that.
Still, back to the topic at hand: you bet there's a reasonable chance that our currently right- leaning SCOTUS will favor the police rather than upholding personal rights.
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And yet passers-by can stroll past your property, filming to their heart's content? Because I'm fairly certain I can dig up any number of street scenes in the country of your choice archived on TehIntraWebTubes, including full views of all the private properties along the way.
Some laws are just plain silly.
It's not silly,it's only that you haven't spotted the difference between a fixed camera recording everything 24/7, and a passer-by taking a single shot as they walk along.
And you also forgot the obvious: the passer-by is not allowed to stop and install their camera to record your house 24/7, either.
There's a big difference from the government specially placing a camera to surveil a particular house and a homeowner deciding to place a camera on their private property. Now if Amazon shares that video with the police without the owner's knowledge or opt-in permission that's a different matter.
The correct comparison would be the police showing up at the house across the street and offering to give them a free Ring if they could have access to the video.
Now I'm sure the police are arguing "well we could have staked out the house for 8 months, this is pretty much the same thing" and I wouldn't be surprised if the courts accept that view.
Correct you are, except that the police doesn't need to give that homeowner a "Ring" branded camera. The brand doesn't matter whatsoever.
In the case of Ring video, in the TOS, you grant a right to Amazon to do whatever they want with that content. They have accordingly resold that right to both private and public entities for their purposes.
Since Amazon has a right to those videos and has agreements to provide those videos to various government entities, the Fourth Amendment no longer applies. This would be no different than a security camera of a private business that recorded a crime and the Police used that video to identity the criminal and further use that video in a Court of Law.
Speaking further about cameras which a Government installs, one has to look no further than the botched surveillance of Robert Kraft (plus 30+ others) vs Palm Beach County/Jupiter Beach PD for recent, prior case history.
"If I wanted to be observed 24/7, I'd go on reality TV."
If you don't want to be observed 24/7, you probably shouldn't live where the neighbor's doorbell can see into your front door and windows.
The only thing that travels faster than light is gossip. Shakespeare knew this long before computers & clouds.
The 4th Amendment protects against government searches. It does not protect you against a private party. If the private party snuck onto your lawn, that's trespass, a criminal act. But if they take a picture of you, independent of whether the camera is on their property or public property, there's nothing you can do about it & they have broken no laws. Furthermore, they can give the images/videos of the camera to Law Enforcement. Whether Law Enforcement can use them in court has more to do with chain of custody issues than much of anything else.
The Bill of Rights applies to the Government, not private parties. That is why free speech and privacy generally do not apply in the workplace in the US.
The UK may have adopted metric units, but they don't seem particularly good at always sticking to them either. I certainly saw plenty of mentions of imperial units before the style change, not to mention that when we have comments written by people from lots of places, we're going to get whatever units the individual writing likes. You can't blame a comment's choice of units on El Reg's writing standards.
We use both. Legally, all of our units are defined in metric, but any law or signage referring to distances still has to be written in miles, feet, and inches. All of our building materials are metric. Most tape measures use inches on one side and centimetres on the other.
It works. Why force the issue?
> And pipe threads use the European 'metric' standard too -- British Standard Pipe
Yeap!
Where my German made shower is connected to my British pipework it needs a converter to go from the UK 15mm pipe to the German 3/4" fittings.
It's not just pipes.
Hang around the classic car forums and here the lamentations of the poor bastards who've ended up with a car with metric diameter wheels and need new tyres.
From discussions working with Europeans over the years it seems lots of countries sell timber in metric lengths and inch cross sections.
My local wood-yard sold prepared timber priced in units of "square-inch per foot". You think this is bonkers until you want to price a job. Of course, this is sawn-timber; planed comes out 1/16" smaller on each side. It is surprising how modern 'metric' timber conforms to these sizes.
Apologies for not converting this into standard units.
The computer industry does not have a monopoly on confusing standards and incompatibility.
British Standard Pipe thread is a prime example. It's a minefield of things that look the same but don't quite fit together.
I needed to cut a 3/4 inch BSP thread on a pipe in my bathroom. Should be simple enough!
1) I borrowed a thread cutter from my neighbour, but it was a modern one and only had metric dies, so that didn't work.
2) I borrowed a thread cutter from my dad, long ago he was an electrician. But it turns out that BSP thread for electrical conduit is a different pitch to BSP thread for water pipe. So that didn't work.
3) I bought an old second hand thread cutter on ebay. But it turned out that one was for gas pipe. BSP thread for gas pipe is tapered whereas BSP thread for water pipe is straight. So that didn't work either.
4) I gave up and found another way to do the job.
On a building site it's a good idea to make the gas, water and electrical pipes incompatible with each other. And to make sure that each tradesman's tool only cuts the right thread for his trade. Because mix ups do happen and water and gas gushing out of a fuse board can be problematic.
But to call them all "British Standard Pipe" thread is just downright misleading. Why not call them "British Water thread", "British Gas thread" and "British Electric thread" and clearly label the cutting tools appropriately?
2) I borrowed a thread cutter from my dad, long ago he was an electrician. But it turns out that BSP thread for electrical conduit is a different pitch to BSP thread for water pipe.
Conduit isn't BSP, so no, there isn't a "different BSP" for conduits. These days they are metric (e.g. 20mm and 25mm are the most common), but before they went metric, they used specific threads, e.g. see here. Also be aware that there was a range of Pg threads used for a while (starting in Germany and spreading out) before a switch to metric was mandated.
BSP thread for gas pipe is tapered whereas BSP thread for water pipe is straight
Hold on a moment - parallel threads are used where parallel threads are appropriate, tapered threads are used where tapered threads are appropriate. A die will initially cut a (sort of) tapered thread (inherent in the way they are machined to make then usable) but will end up cutting a parallel thread once you get to full thread depth. Ditto taps.
I needed to cut a 3/4 inch BSP thread on a pipe in my bathroom
Out of curiosity, why ?
Was this a case of having a metal pipe that had been cut off and needed threading to bring it back into use ? Or something else ?
Apart from threading the pipe, there are also a variety of non-threaded fittings available which can be used to connect an "old" galv water pipe to something more modern.
A little off-topic, and I know that I saw the story break elsewhere, but right now I can only find it on the guardian without paywalls:
googles-earth-how-the-tech-giant-is-helping-the-state-spy-on-us
The question of whether the police can peer over a wall is all somewhat moot if police can purchase images taken by private companies and then use that to establish probable cause, even for petty things. My recollection is government agencies were looking to fine people for unregistered dogs for instance and saw no issue with using cameras in the sky to do it.
Google earth is not as personal as from atop a pole, but it goes to precedent where the government agency is simply buying the video from a private company. Also, if the pole belongs to a state agency there might be an issue, but if the pole belongs to a private company or the camera is attached to equipment that belongs to a private company it is likely fair game at the moment.
Privacy laws are a very thin veil. We're being sold the emperor's new clothes.
Seems to me the cops aren't even supposed to look over a 6 foot fence without a warrant, unless there is probable cause
It's more complicated than that (isn't it always?), but in the US, it's true that the police aren't allowed to penetrate the curtilage without a warrant or probable cause. Some of the cases testing this are interesting, such as those involving the famous Mullet Doctrine.
Regarding the original post in this thread: In most of the places I've lived, you'd need to secure a zoning variance to have a hedge, fence, or other obstruction more than 6 feet or so tall around your property, never mind 12 feet. That doesn't mean you couldn't get away with having one without a variance, particularly in rural areas, but technically it would be illegal and the municipality or county could make you shorten it.
"How easy is it to simply install that on a whim?"
Simple, if you have money. There even outfits that will rent them to you ... 12 foot hedge, by the foot, by the day/week/month. Comes in anything from a simple shade screen, like a few layers of bamboo, to a nice, dense privacy screen of boxwood, privet, yew or holly. Maintenance is done by the rental company, and typically they are about 18 inches deep.
Much loved by Brides for photography. Lookup "hedge wall rental" in the search engine of your choice. Not my cuppa (I prefer a more natural look), but some people like them :-)
I have also seen huge mazes made with these things. Personally, I'd grow corn (maize), but I guess some people don't have the lead-time or the ability to plan in advance.
Yes, and no. Lots and lots of cameras. But very, very few that are actually taking pictures that are worth anything, being low-res and/or B&W, with lenses covered in dust and bird shit. Many/most of the government ones appear to be phony cameras that don't actually do anything at all ... I've found dozens (hundreds?) in scrap yards that were removed from city streets and public buildings, but are just empty shells, and have obviously never actually contained the necessary electronics. For one concrete example, BART was caught doing this a while back ...
The ACLU wants a warrant to be served for installing police cameras on utility poles.
My question : to who do they serve the warrant ?
When the police have a warrant to investigate a house or an appartment, they serve it to the occupant of said habitation. That's normal.
So, who gets to see that warrant when it's a utility pole ? The mayor ? The inhabitants 100 meters around the utility pole ?
to who do they serve the warrant
First off, it's "to whom".
Second they don't serve the warrant. They go to a judge and convince him/her that they have probable cause and so obtain permission - aka a warrant - to proceed with the surveillance. It doesn't have to be served on anyone. In days of yore this was the process by which the cops obtained the right to tap someone's phone. It would be pretty useless if the surveilled had to be informed beforehand.
Not that I condone state surveillance - almost all of it is egregious and illegal.
Monitoring warrants get served to the provisioner of said monitoring.
Old world, cops would go to Ma Bell and get a tap installed on your line, that would allow it to be recorded in a police controlled environment. Usually a room at the switch site.
Now, they typically go to the NP, (even with MVNO target) and get the same process engaged, but with subtly different hardware.
Video wise, where they have a municipally provided system, they go to the operator and get recordings made.
The *target* of the surveillance does NOT need to be informed of said surveillance. This is the point.
The ACLU's single biggest point here is that the camera(s) was/were deployed without the legal over site of a jurist, for *long term* surveillance. The cops can do that "I heard screams" thing for one off, immediate intervention, this is the pivot of the Good Samaritan clauses in a lot of american law, but cannot use that principle for long term surveillance. The cops rebuttal will be that they were deploying it themselves, and did not need a provider. I'm gonna bet that the *owner* of the pole is a local utility provider, either or both electric and telecoms. If the pole owner is a telelcom provider, the cops are loosing this one in a hurry. If it is a power provider, there may be a corner brief about not having in place a well known process for passing the warrant, but that is a razor thin ledge the cops are standing on.
There are practical limits on the number of stakeouts that the police can run at any one time. They have limited manpower.
Using cameras works around that problem, allowing surveillance on a massive scale that would have been unimaginable to the authors of the Constitution.
So the question is is: does the constitution allow the police to do that without a warrant?
Sadly, that will just make the GQP Thought Police suspect that you are grooming your kids to change their gender.
There will be no escape from the cameras unless you have donated at least $20M to the cause every year for the past five years.
Next, all visitors (legal or not) will be required to wear a GPS transponder 24/7 just in case they are committing a crime. After all, and according to Margery TrainWreck Green, everyone coming into the USA is either a criminal or coming to have non-white babies.
Old Adolf had nothing on this lot.
I think your mileage may vary on using net curtains. They block human eyesight pretty effectively, but there are cameras (e.g. infrared) that probably don't even register the presence of those curtains. Perhaps there is a market for something similar with metal fibers woven into the fabric.
How about this - you can use cameras, but they must not be able to see more than the naked eye of a person standing on the ground. Any more than that, and you need a court order. So, you can't just stick one 10m up in the air on a pole without additional oversight ...
If a member of the public isn't allowed to do it outside YOUR house, then you probably need a court order to do it outside THEIRS.
At least they didn't attack / vandalise any trees: https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/17/security_firms_nyc_trees/
"Private security firms in New York City have co-opted public resources – specifically trees – to track their guards as they make their rounds.
According to Gothamist, a New York-focused news site, security contractors have been drilling into trees on public city streets to install signaling hardware to ensure that guards are following their patrol routes."
I didn't think that they needed permission...I thought that they had been doing it for years...with sound, on the television, the radio, your lightbulbs, washing machines, fridges, dishwashers, in your computer laptop and phones...motor car in the driveway or garage...from satellites above and drones. What do they want permission for...
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