USA V. JUAN PINEDA-MORENO

[kandrathe]

But, rereading the opinion, it seems the judge sidestepped that issue entirely. The police did not conduct a "search", in the constitutional meaning of the term, because they did not enter into an area in which the defendant had a reasonable expectation of privacy. His driveway was open to view to the public, and lacking any clear attempt to render it private. Tracking his car with a device, or even entering his property (but not his house) to plant one was not legally different for the police than simply staking the place out and following him - no warrant required. Had he made attempts to keep his Jeep private, that would (apparently) be a different matter, but it appears he did not.

What if he had left his car in the garage, but the garage door was open? How about if it were just unlocked? This misses the point anyway. The place isn't afforded constitutional protection, a person is afforded protection. When we leave our mail in the mailbox, we expect that government agents will not secretly open it and read it. If we were to carelessly leave a file folder on the front steps, we would still expect a certain amount of privacy protection from unwarranted search.

Repeating the finding from Katz v. US;

"For the Fourth Amendment protects people, not places. What a person knowingly exposes to the public, even in his own home or office, is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection. ... But what he seeks to preserve as private, even in an area accessible to the public, may be constitutionally protected."

I'd say that when I leave my car parked in my driveway, that I have the reasonable expectation that my private property is not tampered with or altered. In fact, we sort of assume that when our vehicles are parked in public places as well, but maybe that is naive on our parts. I feel the focus on vehicle is just a red herring anyway. It doesn't matter if it is a car, shoes, or a ballpoint pen. Does the government have the right to plant a tracking device on people without a warrant?

Whether doing this was good policy, for the police or for the public, is another question, and one where I strongly disagree with the police. But it does not appear his constitutional rights have been violated, at least, under the current interpretations of what "privacy" and "search" mean.

If what you say is true, then nothing protects us from being watched by the government or each other. Anyone could just as well go to Radio Shack and buy the tracking device and keep track of our every movement. Nothing would protect us from some person incessantly monitoring our position. Useful if you are a stalker, or a paparazzi. The bottom line is that "privacy" is not spelled out clearly in the Constitution, but we expect that our privacy is a fundamental principle of liberty.

Consider this case; Lawrence Maynard v. US where the Washington DC circuit court has ruled opposite of the 9th Circuit, and 7th Circuit courts. The important stuff starts about page 20. They even cite how the 7th, 8th, and 9th circuits misinterpreted Knotts v. US. In that case, the government planted a tracking device within a container to aid them in following a suspect from one location to another. The Supreme Court ruled that the device aided the government agents in following the suspect over what would already be public roads. These cases use GPS to track all movements of the suspect over many days to many months to compile evidence of all their movements. "First, unlike one‘s movements during a single journey, the whole of one‘s movements over the course of a month is not actually exposed to the public because the likelihood anyone will observe all those movements is effectively nil. Second, the whole of one‘s movements is not exposed constructively even though each individual movement is exposed, because that whole reveals more — sometimes a great deal more — than does the sum of its parts." -- pp.22

"Applying the foregoing analysis to the present facts, we hold the whole of a person‘s movements over the course of a month is not actually exposed to the public because the likelihood a stranger would observe all those movements is not just remote, it is essentially nil. It is one thing for a passerby to observe or even to follow someone during a single journey as he goes to the market or returns home from work. It is another thing entirely for that stranger to pick up the scent again the next day and the day after that, week in and week out, dogging his prey until he has identified all the places, people, amusements, and chores that make up that person‘s hitherto private routine." -- pp.26