
Cars and the Fourth Amendment - swibbler
https://newramblerreview.com/book-reviews/law/a-century-of-cars-driving-the-fourth-amendment
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owenmarshall
An old parking enforcement technique is to put a chalk mark on a car's tire:
if you come back after two hours and see the same car with the marked tire you
know that it has parked too long and can be ticketed.

The 6th circuit recently ruled that is an unconstitutional search[1]: a
government agent is physically intruding on a private area (your car) and
searching it for information (how long it's been there).

Neat stuff.

[1][http://www.patc.com/articles/2019_taylor_v_saginaw_chapman.p...](http://www.patc.com/articles/2019_taylor_v_saginaw_chapman.pdf)

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SilasX
That puts them in a weird, paradoxical position:

1) Illegal: Placing a mark on your tires that will quickly fade with time and
invades your car just enough to reveal whether you adhered to the limits.

2) Legal: Monitor the area with video surveillance and take pictures of every
license plate that ever parked there, with timestamps and a photo of the
occupants, and store that information for eternity, to be shared with any LEO
who wants it.

(2) _feels_ a lot more invasive than (1), but courts consider (2) okay because
it just uses stuff visible to the public, while (1) actually physically
modifies your car.

Edit: See also the conflict with the long-standing, uncontested practice of
leaving a fingerprint on a car's tail light at the beginning of a stop before
observing any wrongdoing that warrants such a "search":
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19730452](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19730452)

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kempbellt
Strange how a chalk mark is illegal, but placing a ticket under the windshield
wiper, or sticking a "vehicle to be towed" sticker on the window isn't.

To add: I'd personally much rather local LEOs use the chalk method than the
camera method.

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SilasX
In fairness, the argument is about what you can do to a car _before_ you have
evidence of wrongdoing, and the sticker/tickets happen _after_ they have
observed an infraction, so that's less problematic in the context of the
ruling.

Edit:

>To add: I'd personally much rather local LEOs use the chalk method than the
camera method.

Me too!

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greggman2
It's going to be interesting how it will work with self driving cars. Arguably
the police will push for some kind of police only "pull over and stop" feature
they can aim at any car which I'm sure will get absued. If you're in a self
driving taxi you'd arguably not be the one abliged to pull over, rather the
taxi's virutal driver is the one that needs to pull over. In fact with perfect
self driving the passenger might not even be remotely aware of being asked to
pull over. They could be asleeep, watching video with headphones on, playing
VR games, anything to pass the time.

Also scary to me is the ability to use a self driving car as a slow moving
cruise missle. They have a much longer range than drones. It seems only a
matter of time before someone decides to use one in that way or other scary
ways.

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saagarjha
> Also scary to me is the ability to use a self driving car as a slow moving
> cruise missle.

To what, hit a person?

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Diederich
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Nice_truck_attack](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Nice_truck_attack)

86 people were killed, 458 hurt.

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gsaga
Don't see how these two things are related.

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dv_dt
Cars are an interesting area because I immediately thought of our digital
presence as an even more modern area of struggle for an expansive
interpretation of our rights. If cars are an area of contention, in a sense,
as a portable piece of our homes and persons, then our data and digital
presence should similarly be considered our persons, "papers and effects"
under the fourth amendment.

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mc32
I don’t if I’d want to go in that direction because “behavior” can lead to
probable cause... so probable cause to look at your phone too?

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dv_dt
If the fourth amendment doesn't apply to your phone, then your phone can be
looked at anytime by authorities with no need to cite probable cause, nor a
warrant. Or am I missing something?

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magduf
I don't think digital technology needs to apply here at all. Before there were
phones, were authorities able to stop you and look through your personal
papers or briefcase or other personal effects you were carrying, without
probably cause or a warrant? I don't think. A phone isn't any different, it's
just a lot smaller than a briefcase.

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mc32
Good question. Hopefully someone is familiar with this scenario and could
provide opinion on it.

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grecy
A friend was and LAPD detective for 35 years. He said it gets _a lot_ more
sticky in regards to RVs, because then you can claim is _is_ your home.

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Diederich
I'd love to hear more anecdotes about this if you have any.

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dylan604
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wfr0g7__9YA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wfr0g7__9YA)

While not legal advice, it's pretty much exactly what the GP was describing

Edit: corrected clip to the correct scene

