The last I heard, the supreme court ruled that if law enforcement wishes to use any technology that is not commonly used by the general public, they need a search warrant.
The example I am referring to involved a case in which law enforcement used a thermal imaging to check a house for heat that is known to be associated with cannabis grow houses. They saw that it had a high electric bill and drove by the house in a van with the equipment.
The court ruled that the use of the thermal imaging equipment violated the homeowners 4th amendment right and was a "search" because, without the use of the "special" equipment, law enforcement would have never known when they learned without entering the home. The court ruling is a little dated but, I fail to see how the use of this technology by NYPD is any different.
I agree with you but one thing to anticipate: if this technology is deployed and is challenged in court, the NYPD will very likely argue that a person has a much different "expectation of privacy" in the home vs. walking around in public. That distinction would definitely factor into the question of whether the use of this technology is an "unreasonable search" for purposes of a 4th Amendment challenge.The last I heard, the supreme court ruled that if law enforcement wishes to use any technology that is not commonly used by the general public, they need a search warrant.
The example I am referring to involved a case in which law enforcement used a thermal imaging to check a house for heat that is known to be associated with cannabis grow houses. They saw that it had a high electric bill and drove by the house in a van with the equipment.
The court ruled that the use of the thermal imaging equipment violated the homeowners 4th amendment right and was a "search" because, without the use of the "special" equipment, law enforcement would have never known when they learned without entering the home. The court ruling is a little dated but, I fail to see how the use of this technology by NYPD is any different.
NYPD looks to scan people on the street for guns, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly says - NY Daily News
Sounds like it's just a matter of time...and probably not long until we start to see it in other cities? I guess NY doesn't have to worry about the 4th amendment, since they already ignore the 2nd.
Or Posse Comitatus. The article did say DoD was working on it with them.
NOTHING in that article indicates Posse Comitatus is being violated.
The difference is that it is not the home; the home is held to a higher standard under the 4th Amendment. The case you are referring to is Kyllo v. United States, 533 U.S. 27, 34 (2001).
The Court held:
"We think that obtaining by sense-enhancing technology any information regarding the interior of the home that could not otherwise have been obtained without physical "intrusion into a constitutionally protected area," Silverman, 365 U.S. at 512, constitutes a search -- at least where (as here) the technology in question is not in general public use. This assures preservation of that degree of privacy against government that existed when the Fourth Amendment was adopted. On the basis of this criterion, the information obtained by the thermal imager in this case was the product of a search."
If it only works a few feet away.....it's rather pointless.
I don't understand why people allow our government to take away our freedoms under the guise of fighting terrorism and keeping the general public safe. Sheeple are annoying.
How on God's Green Earth is this not a violation of the 4th?
“We want to use new technology to protect the public and police officers from illegal guns,” he said.
"We want to use new technology to protect the public and police officers from illegal guns," he said.
^^That's the really cool part of this technology - it will only detect illegal guns!! Cool!! Or maybe the illegal guns will glow red, and legal guns will glow green! Awesome!
Doesn't NY offer some form of LTCH? How many plain clothes police officers are walking the streets at any given time? I think they may be biting off more than they can chew here. Of all the guns they detect, I would imagine a rather small percentage would be illegal ones. The rest would just be wsted resources. Just imagine the ratio in IN! At this first whisper of this technology being tested in the Hoosier state I would smell a concealed carry march.
You know, the implementation of this device might not be a terrible thing. It just might let the people in charge realize that not all people carrying guns are bad. And that it would be counterproductive to stop people based solely on that fact.