The court maintained that Pineda-Moreno had no expectation of privacy because strangers could come on to the property at any time. My first thought on reading that was that constitutional rights have just become the domain of the wealthy. Someone who can afford to live behind a gated wall or fence (or in a gated community) has an expectation of privacy, but the rest of us don't. Therefore, the fourth amendment applies differently to the wealthy.
The news story I read made several references (as did I in the title of this post) to George Orwell and 1984. But let's not forget Animal Farm — all animals are created equal, but some are more equal than others. What comes after this decision? Will freedom of the press only apply if you can afford your own printing press?
There is a glimmer of hope. In another decision on the other side of the country, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Washington, D.C., Circuit found very nearly the opposite. This court ruled that the use of a GPS tracker was unconstitutional because it was used to track a suspect over a long period of time. The prosecutor's argument was that the suspect, because he was in public, had no expectation of privacy. The court maintained, however, that though the suspect could have been seen by anyone at any given time, there was no realistic chance that a stranger would have observed the entirety of the suspect's movements over the several weeks during which his movement was monitored. Once again, the device was placed without a warrant.
My next question is, if all this is going on without obtaining search warrants, what else are these agencies up to?
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