Thread

Federal judge calls Flock 'indiscriminate mass surveillance'

483 points · 267 comments · sbulaev

joshheitzman · 1791066694 · focus · HN ↗
Yes, that's what they are. But does that mean are they breaking federal law or unconstitutional? I believe we've been told by the courts repeatedly that we should have no expectation of privacy out in public.
1. saghm · 1791067560 · focus · HN ↗
  I think you're greatly oversimplifying what courts have actually ruled on this over the years. Off the top of my head, the Supreme Court explicitly ruled that wiretapping a public pay phone in a booth is unconstitutional[1], and rulings from lower courts on using Stingrays without warrants are a mixed bag[2]. I don't think there's anything close to a broad precedent that the right to privacy evaporates the moment you go out in public.
  [1]: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katz_v._United_States" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katz_v._United_States [2]: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stingray_use_in_United_States_law_enforcement" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stingray_use_in_United_States_...
  1. joshheitzman · 1791070387 · focus · HN ↗
    This looks like the key part for the first link:
    My understanding of the rule that has emerged from prior decisions is that there is a twofold requirement, first that a person have exhibited an actual (subjective) expectation of privacy and, second, that the expectation be one that society is prepared to recognize as "reasonable." Thus a man's home is, for most purposes, a place where he expects privacy, but objects, activities, or statements that he exposes to the "plain view" of outsiders are not "protected" because no intention to keep them to himself has been exhibited. On the other hand, conversations in the open would not be protected against being overheard, for the expectation of privacy under the circumstances would be unreasonable.
    For this case the guy was inside a phone booth rather than out in the open.
    There's nothing from SCOTUS on stingrays, but I looked at one federal case and the data being collected was referred to as a document, so that's where the 4th was found to apply.
    In turn I don't think I've greatly oversimplified anything.
    saghm · 1791073374 · focus · HN ↗
    > Thus a man's home is, for most purposes, a place where he expects privacy, but objects, activities, or statements that he exposes to the "plain view" of outsiders are not "protected" because no intention to keep them to himself has been exhibited.
    And you think this applies to the inside of the woman's car that the article is talking about?
    > In turn I don't think I've greatly oversimplified anything.
    In this reply, no, you're not greatly oversimplifying. In your parent comment, you said that going out in public means no expectation of privacy, and I gave an example of a place in public that had an expectation of privacy, which you've defined as "not in public". I think that if you have to call a place that's available to anyone and not owned by an individual "not public" in order to make your original statement work, then your original statement was oversimplifying.

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