Re:Accessing Publicly Available Information on the Internet ...
by gehwartzen on Thursday December 14, 2017 @01:45PM
(#15925333)
What about walking up to someone's door and knocking to see whos home? What if there is a picket fence around the yard with a latched gate that you have to open to get to the front door?
Re:Accessing Publicly Available Information on the Internet ...
by bdamm on Thursday December 14, 2017 @02:32PM
(#15926004)
In the only jurisdiction where I've actually read the trespass law, it stated that a "legal fence" was sufficient to indicate no trespass, and that a "legal fence" was any number of acceptable structures that were at least 4 feet high.
In that context, a wall of a house being at least four feet high, would carry an implicit "No Trespassing" sign on it, but the picket fence would not. However, if the property had an obvious path to an entryway, then walking up that path to the entryway was not trespass. So walking through a picket fence with a low-latch would not be trespass, unless the pickets were four feet high, or if the latch was locked.
If you don't have a legal right to be on a piece of property, in a given structure, or in a vehicle, you're trespassing.
If you used force to gain access to the property, vehicle or structure, it will often be considered breaking and entering. Typically, these laws use a very loose definition of "force" which includes opening an unlocked door.
If you leave your door ajar, it's just trespassing. If you had to open the door, it's probably B&E even if you didn't break anything to do it.