We've seen this type of thing happen with Ring, where the police want video from people's private cameras. Do police have the legal right to access/take people's private property like this? I thought the 4th amendment of the constitution protected against unreasonable searches and seizures?
>Do police have the legal right to access/take people's private property like this? I thought the 4th amendment of the constitution protected against unreasonable searches and seizures?
Search warrants specifically exist to give police the "legal right to access/take people's private property", and are widely accepted to be constitutional.
This might be setting a new precedent though. I'm making assumptions here, but I'd have thought that search warrants were historically used at locations where the suspect lived / worked / frequented. Even at premises not owned by the suspect, the police turning up and requiring all the security footage doesn't deprive the premise owner of anything. Towing away an innocent law-abiding citizen's car for a matter entirely unrelated to them seems like it's massively overstepping the line set by any previous precedent.
I can't think of anything else that could be seized by the police from an entirely innocent non-suspect which would cause a similar level of disruption in their life. What happens when the car owner needs to head to work in the morning and find their car has been taken. I doubt a call to the police is going to quickly reveal that it was the police themselves who took it. Even if it does, if they're holding it for evidence, they might not get it back very quickly. What if the lack of car leads to negative consequences for the owner - maybe they miss an important work meeting, flight, date, whatever - are the police going to compensate them for that? What if the owner is out of the country for a month and they only need a week to act on the court order and get all the video - does the owner then have to pay impound fees? Is it discriminatory that the police assume all Tesla's can be seized this way even if they don't happen to be recording, but they wouldn't consider doing to same to any other make of car even though any car might have a dash-cam that records when locked.
>This might be setting a new precedent though. I'm making assumptions here, but I'd have thought that search warrants were historically used at locations where the suspect lived / worked / frequented.
Search warrants exist to give police access to evidence when there's probable cause. Often times this is "at locations where the suspect lived / worked / frequented", but there's nothing in the jurisprudence that limits it to those areas. The standard is "probable cause" in any case.
>Even at premises not owned by the suspect, the police turning up and requiring all the security footage doesn't deprive the premise owner of anything. Towing away an innocent law-abiding citizen's car for a matter entirely unrelated to them seems like it's massively overstepping the line set by any previous precedent.
They can and do break into premises, even if they're "an innocent law-abiding citizen", if the owner isn't there to allow them access onto the premises. The article specifically mentions that they only tow the car if they can't contact the owner, which seems consistent with that.
That's fair enough to some extent. Not sure about the US, but in the UK they are also responsible for re-securing the access point when they leave, and I believe you can claim compensation for the repair work. Presumably also, if there were any thefts while the property was in this vulnerable state, the insurance company would sue the police to try to reclaim the money paid out to cover the loss.
Taking someone's primary mode of transport, perhaps their only viable option, is a whole order of magnitude worse than breaking into a property to carry out a search warrant. For someone who's not even a suspect, or in any way connected, it's a massive violation of their rights.
> only tow the car if they can't contact the owner, which seems consistent with that
To be honest, it seems unlikely they'd easily be able to contact the owner, unless it happens to be parked outside their own residence. And the flip side of them not being able to contact the owner to ask permission is that the owner has absolutely no idea where their car is, and they only find out it's missing when they need it most. And probably not in an area they'd like to hang around too long in, if there's just been a homicide near there.
You pretend this is some obvious fact, but obtaining a search warrant against a person or property that were uninvolved in the crime but may have only been 'witness' to it is not obvious or clear to me.
The standard for getting a search warrant is probable cause, and that includes just probable cause to believe that there is evidence of a crime at the place to be searched.
Taking the witness analogy, even an actual person who's a mere witness can be compelled to testify with a subpoena.
A lot of places, talking to police is a very bad idea both because of the police and the other people in the neighborhood. You could very easily get shot for doing so.
If it’s my outdoor cameras and it pertains to a crime that happened just outside my home, they can have the footage. A very practical contribution I can make to my neighborhoods safety
So if the camera is in your car you are ok with them towing it away to pull the footage if they can't get in touch with you right away leaving you without a car?
What if while looking at your footage for a crime outside your home (not related to you or your property) they see you doing something that could constitute a charge should they be able to share you for it as well?
If someone saw you out in front of your house on your phone during the time of the crime should the authorities be able to seize your phone under the assumption that you were likely recording the incident?
I think these hypotheticals are starting to blur different concepts and questions, namely the distinction between:
1. Generic request
2. Subpeona
3. Warrant (reasonable)
4. Warrant (stupid/crazy/evil)
____
I suspect OP is mainly thinking of (1) and (2), where they get a phone call or letter and they say: "Sure! Here's a link to the video file."
I would also guess OP might be okay with (3) where an officer came to their door and said "I need watch you copy time-range X-Y of your front door footage onto this USB stick I brought", or even "I need to take your entire SD card for a few months" if the footage seems very important.
In contrast, I don't think OP is supporting the idea that police can get a warrant to rip the camera out of the wall and break down their door and seize all their electronics.
In general, if there's a record of something which was captured in the course of ordinary business which is relevant as evidence in a court matter (such as the recording of your Ring camera), and parties to proceedings have good reason to believe you have this record, then they can generally get a subpoena issued to compel you to produce it for the court. This applies to both the prosecution and the defense (both criminal and civil).
The protection against "unreasonable" search and seizure comes in the form of the fact the requesting party has to convince the court (usually the registry) that there is reasonable grounds before they will issue a subpoena.
As an investigative matter (prior to any charges, court listings, and subpoenas), it is possible to get a search warrant including for evidence held by 3rd parties who aren't suspected of anything. Again, police don't have carte blanche. They need to convince a judicial officer of some sort that there is reasonable grounds before a warrant will be issued.
There are ways to challenge a warrant/subpoena. Sometimes a successful challenge only serves to make the evidence inadmissible but doesn't prevent the search in the first place (aka "you can beat the ticket but you can't beat the ride).
All that said, some judges / courts tend to practically be a rubber stamp for whatever warrant / subpoena the police want. Others actually do their job. It ain't perfect, but if you can think of a better system, I'd love to hear it.
Third-party doctrine is a legal way around the 4A: "The third-party doctrine is a United States legal doctrine that holds that people who voluntarily give information to third parties—such as banks, phone companies, internet service providers (ISPs), and e-mail servers—have "no reasonable expectation of privacy" in that information. A lack of privacy protection allows the United States government to obtain information from third parties without a legal warrant and without otherwise complying with the Fourth Amendment prohibition against search and seizure without probable cause and a judicial search warrant."[1]
