The body-cam video also shows that one of the detectives was able to see inside the car without the assistance of an iPhone by cupping his hands around his eyes and looking through the windshield.

The police were also there serving an arrest warrant on the owner of the car, so keep in mind they had broad discretion to search incident to the arrest --- as the record here shows, the police originally attempted to open the car.

Seems perfectly fine to me.

Which is absolutely preposterous, given how hot it is getting. Window tint laws need to be repealed.

I’m on the opposite side of the issue. I think that tinted windows don’t allow for enough visibility for pedestrians and cyclists. This is anecdotal but they also seem to be used in higher portions of the population breaking driving laws. And lastly, I really don’t enjoy the militant “badassness” associated with these. I want the roads to be more chill, not people going around thinking they’re God’s gift to mankind and any who dares cross them will be punished.

These are mostly opinions based on anecdotes. I’ve lived in a few cities now and this remains true. Which is why I’d like to hear your experience.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

"I don't like window tint and others agree with me, so let's take the rights from others to lower the heat in their idle cars and also keep the sun out of their eyes away. Now let me find a list of disconnected anecdotes to justify this"

That being said, I still disagree with your assessment. I don't really have a better way to describe completely dark tinted windows, blacked out windows, blacked out rims, other than militant. How would you describe this? In movies they use this look to describe the bad guy. We now sell those vehicles to match that "vibe".

Once again, I did say it was anecdotal. These individuals tend to drive at a much higher reckless rate in the areas I have lived. If I see someone coming up behind me at 15+ MPH faster than speed of traffic, they'll have windows tinted darker than the majority of others, a majority of the time. They also tend to swerve and run individuals off the road.

Please note, I asked if heat was the issue because I genuinely wanted a shared experience. I haven't seen a good example of the need for these windows. But most of the areas I live only get to 105. Looks like sibling comments of yours have warmer experiences - which is what I needed to know.

Let's disentangle the aesthetics from the usage. To claim that a tinted window is a symbol of militancy or a display of superiority is to judge a book by its cover. A film on glass does not a character assessment make.

Now, onto the practical side of things. It's not merely about beating the heat - though in regions where temperatures soar well above your mentioned 105 degrees, the difference can be crucial. Window tints can block up to 99% of harmful UV rays, offering significant protection against skin damage and eye ailments. Furthermore, they reduce glare, enhancing driver comfort and safety.

Your anecdotal observations of tinted-window drivers might be biased by a confirmation bias. You remember the reckless ones because they fit your preconceived notion, and you discount the countless tinted-window drivers who operate their vehicles responsibly because they don't fit the narrative.

There's also a point to be made about privacy - not in service of "militant badassness", but for the sake of personal comfort and security. And while visibility for pedestrians and cyclists is a valid concern, it's worth noting that there are laws stipulating the extent of tinting precisely to address this issue. Complete blackout windows are generally illegal for this very reason.

Finally, to characterize this discussion as a matter of 'rights' may seem overblown, but it highlights a broader point about individual choice and autonomy. It's about finding a balance between personal preferences, public safety, and common good.

It's currently 112 F where I am and there isn't a cloud in the sky. Humidity is very low so water isn't absorbing radiation.

Nobody is riding a bicycle or walking long distances six months of the year here, except for the unhoused, and they can only move at night. Cars are mandatory to participate in the economy.

A car with un-tinted windows is impractical for two reasons: solar heat and UV.

The A/C can be running full blast and my legs will still get hot. Normal side window glass doesn't block UV well so I can get a sunburn with my windows closed.

I have to equip my windows with dark tints. It's like a Canadian putting on snow tires except I can't change it out with the seasons.

So my state doesn't have laws against tints because it can't. Ok, so I drive to another state in my car... now I'm breaking the law.

You can say "human beings shouldn't live in such a place" but first, about 114 million Americans live in similar conditions, and second, these conditions are moving north.

Protecting the occupants of a car against solar radiation is a reasonable thing to do.

I suppose my rebuttal is: how many months do you feel like tint is necessary? I grew up with routinely high temps (100+, in an area with high humidity). In college our first few weeks were normally 100+, and we did walk to class. I normally would come back with swamp ass and a back covered in sweat. People absolutely can live in these conditions. I just don't think we can remove the human element of it. It's hot, we are going to sweat. It feels like we are trying to control an element of human nature that cannot be controlled.

Edit: I appreciate the reply. Apologies if I sound snarky (as another commenter apparently thinks). It's truly just that the only people I know with tinted windows have been controlling and manipulative. The experiences I get on the road do not help my anecdotal stereotypes.

As for necessity, studies suggest that skin cancer rates vary according to the side of the road a country drives on. [1] So even if you're tolerating the radiation it's still hurting you.

It's also important to remember that paneled vans are legal. They are taller than any car and the visibility through them is 0% because there are no side windows. Frequently the back window is covered or blocked by equipment.

You pretty much have to assume you can't accurately see through any vehicle. Seeing the driver's eyes can be useful, but it can be misleading... I've been hit on roller blades by a driver who'd stopped and was looking right at me but didn't process I was there.

I think every car on the road has to be treated like a panel van. Big opaque block that can kill you and will act unpredictably.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3117975/

> It's currently 112 F where I am and there isn't a cloud in the sky. Humidity is very low so water isn't absorbing radiation.

114 million Americans live in conditions where it is regularly 112 in the summer?

So Dallas, for example, is only 84 F with a humidity of 83% right now at 9:23 AM central. That's a heat index of 95 F. The high temperature will be 100 F but the high of the heat index will be 110 F.

Corpus Christi recently hit a heat index of 125 F.

It all works out the same. It's brutally hot for months somewhere in every Southern state (including California). These states should all allow tint and account for 114 million people.

The UV light will cause things inside your car to break down faster, and of course the IR is what carries the heat.

So, you don't need dark tint to block IR. You just need a different filter material.

So, yeah -- the stuff that actually blocks IR is more expensive. But if you really want to block IR, then that's what you should be getting.

Otherwise, if you're getting the dark tint, then you should be honest with yourself about what it is that you're primarily blocking.

- https://twitter.com/FilmThePoliceLA/status/14188561439889285...

- https://twitter.com/FilmThePoliceLA/status/14189266261218631...

- https://twitter.com/FilmThePoliceLA/status/14189750226480701...

- https://twitter.com/FilmThePoliceLA/status/14189794242891079...

- https://twitter.com/FilmThePoliceLA/status/14189834307553402...

- https://twitter.com/FilmThePoliceLA/status/14189874329057894...

- https://twitter.com/FilmThePoliceLA/status/14190012982386565...

- https://twitter.com/FilmThePoliceLA/status/14208918269369753...

- https://twitter.com/FilmThePoliceLA/status/15526546011400724...

- https://twitter.com/FilmThePoliceLA/status/15526592804147077...

They're just a few of a much larger set of examples of those in US police departments showing little regard for the very laws they are supposed to enforce, though I admit window tints and front license plates seem rather tame to me.

However, it would be of no surprise to me should someone who themselves received an expensive ticket or tickets for it made it their mission in life to document off-duty cops' violations of the same.

https://www.windowfilmmag.com/2012/08/california-assembly-pa...

(Not to imply that I'm a fan of either.)

That's definitely how I want to approach a car of an individual with a warrant for their arrest.

> They saw Poller get out of the car and enter one of the apartments. A team of officers then went inside to arrest him on a pending arrest warrant. Soon a group of detectives went to examine the car.

So they knew he wasn’t in the car, though in theory someone else could have been.

Also, I don't like police overreach but I wouldn't think getting tinted windows gives you any legal right to people not being able to see inside your car, just that it won't be easy for them to casually look over and see inside your car.

> The Supreme Court has foreclosed such an argument, holding that a police officer did not violate a driver’s reasonable expectation of privacy when he used a flashlight to look inside the windows of a car that was subject to a traffic stop. See Texas v. Brown, 460 U.S. 730, 739-40 (1983).

Especially considering how much tint is allowed is often regulated by the state so that you can safely see out. The idea that you can see through it already is a thing.

I have seen multiple vehicles so heavily tinted that their drivers have to roll down the window to turn at intersections at night...

So, moving that boundary from "the blanket" to "the window" to me seems pretty reasonable, except that a window tint doesn't completely obscure what's behind it like a blanket would. A tinted window fundamentally can't protect from plain view in the same way that non-transparent object can; the owner would be better off hanging curtains from inside the car.

Be careful in Vegas btw

Tint laws only apply to vehicles while operating, right?

Fine for your fancy boardroom, not so good for a vehicle when a minor hardware fault can instantly render the driver blind.

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/wi-fi-routers-used-to-dete...

Edit: After re-reading, I think you may have a point that Wifi is a commonly-used technology and might technically be allowed. I'd imagine the supreme court might change the standard if that happened though. They generally treat the home as more sacred.

Wiki says this is specific to thermals, which operate ~1,000-14,000nm. I wonder if it would also be applicable to night vision? Those are sensitive ~500-900nm. Visible light is ~400-700nm.

If the police had a device that enabled them to see into car trunks, it would likely constitute a search requiring "reasonableness" to use it.

"Parallel construction" is a message board argument. At the point where you've decided the law doesn't matter, we can just stop talking about this stuff, because none of it matters.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-dea-sod-idUSBRE97409R2013...

It seems very unlikely that anybody parallel constructed anything here, since an officer was able to see the guns with the assistance of a visor made of his fingers.

It could simply have been in a car accident and its driver taken to hospital. It may even have been off the road by the time it was towed to the impound. I see this happen several times a week.

I would have not been happy if that was searched and inventoried.

Does the expectation of privacy go up and down depending if the mobile home is driving?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction

believing anything else is incredibly naive.

Cops are basically plumbers. They are blue collar workers, making mediocre pay and working insane hours. (Plumbers actually make MORE than cops for their 40, cops just work a lot of overtime...) Cops are most likely to just not really chase an investigation versus doing twice the work to use some kind of illegal evidence gathering.

That said, I just want to point out that you have no idea whether they believe that or are simply quoting the relevant legal history. What’s with the naive comment?

Every time I see something like this I have to think it contributes to degrading discussion quality here; we can probably assume the general audience of this site are not obtuse on this matter and wade in with a different tone.

thanks that sums my point up in a single cherry picked word.

They can and do violate the law (without consequence) until they find a foothold that allows them to fabricate the appearance of a legally obtained chain of evidence. Then, they fully suppress the evidence about how that information was originally obtained.

”Now, if officers use legal loopholes to take illegally-acquired evidence and somehow make it legal, that's a practice that should be rooted out and those involved prosecuted.”

If in practice illegal practices, are not rooted-out or prosecuted, and actually condoned, it I think one would need to look askance T the entire concept…

However, I fully recognize how such a process might be abused and the need for a very firm legal hand to avoid accidentally becoming an authoritarian state.

The Wi-Fi in a house thing may pass the bar for tech but doesn’t pass the bar w/r/t your expectation of privacy.

Your house/apartment on the other hand...you should expect a high/higher level of privacy there, even looking into the windows - if something is found looking into the windows it should not be admissible as evidence without a warrant.

I do not know if the law actually distinguishes privacy if it's a car vs a residence.

Your home is private . You have an expectation of privacy there.

Tinting laws are for motor safety, not for the surveillance state. Notably, limousines are fully tinted in the rear as well as most passenger buses. And of course, cargo vans etc are fully enclosed.

Yeah, but if you put your illegal drugs and illegal guns right there in the window where everyone can see them - be that on the dashboard of your car or on your front room windowsill - you can't really say they were "private", can you?

I think police are allowed to look through windows from areas where the public can generally go. Like a public sidewalk or at your front door. Or something like that. I don't think they're generally allowed to walk around the house looking through windows, though.

the language doesn't make it clear whether "in general public use" is the full scope or "in general public use, for the purpose adopted by law enforcement in this case".

iPhones and wifi are in general public use; the former is widely used to illuminate or look at things, the latter is rarely, if ever, used to see through the walls of a house.

If that's even a thing.

You'll be happy to learn IEE 802.11bf standardized wifi sensing granular enough to do gesture detection. When that becomes ubiquitous in ISP provided routers, your friendly neighbourhood police will be one warrant away from tracking your movement around your house.

A prison tried to break a strike of workers who lived in prison dorms by replacing them with members of the National Guard, until a court ruled that this constituted illegally quartering soldiers in their homes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gU-Rrwf1vr0

Unfortunately, I don't see how the logic wouldn't basically be sound based on the existing criteria that, if technology existed and was in widespread public use that allowed ordinary people to routinely see through walls, then yes, being behind a wall would not give you a reasonable expectation of privacy.

Assuming we ever reach that point, the Supreme Court would either need to come up with a new test of what constitutes a search or we'd need to ban such devices so people could still expect privacy in their own homes.

https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/see-through-wa...

That is often not the way it works, most especially when it comes to obtaining evidence.

If some random person breaks into your house, goes through your files until they find documentation of some crime, and then hands that over to the police, it would generally be admissible in court as evidence against you.

Whereas if the cops broke into your house and went through your files without a warrant that specifically permitted that, any evidence they acquired that way would be poisoned and inadmissible.

what exactly does that mean?

The police officers just used iPhone's camera capability to look through the tinted window and see the firearms and drugs in the car.

What makes you think a police officer isn’t allowed to use “non standard equipment” in the course of an investigation? If a private citizen is allowed to use an iPhone to look through the tint on a car window, so is a cop.

It should be a set of clear cut cases: "your house is private", "your car is (or isn't)", and so on, and anything private should need a warrant. Courts shouldn't get to decide, or interpret various techniques attempted to bypass this...

More to the point, this theological business of determining where the expectations of privacy are is exactly the business of declaring what is and isn't private that you're asking them to work out.

I'm asking for clear-cut hard cases, as opposed to ad-hoc divinations. Oh, and that those clear cut cases not be based on vague premises like "expectation".

It should be "these cases are private, enforcing what our society -as represented by lawmakers- believes ought to be kept private". Versus guessing what some founding fathers or amendment authors meant when they said "expectation" and whether this or that place should be "expected to be private" or not.

>where "unreasonable" is a term of art that effectively means "it's up to the judiciary".

Sure, and this is the problem I'm pointing. "Unreasonable" is an open ended term, that doesn't settle anything, and keeps people guessing. In 2023 this person went to court without knowing whether their car is allowed privacy or not. That's not a 21st century law, that's like some ancient oracle prophesy that can be read 20 odd ways.

You know, like that other term of art, about a "millitia", that has lead to centuries of theological arguments about the number of well regulated angels that can stand on the top of a pin.

People have crazy relationships sometimes.

Scuffed 22" alloy wheels, mismatched half-bald no-name tyres, bubbly black window tint film, bubbly Gucci-print gold-on-carbon wrap on the bonnet and tailgate, "Arabic prayer" CD dangly tassley thing hanging from the mirror, huge exhaust pipes.

No tax, no MOT (last MOT failed quite comprehensively on various serious defects), no insurance.

Like, come on, guy, try *not* to be the reason that stereotypes exist, eh?

What's the difference between this and using a flashlight? All the verbiage surrounding the iPhone looks like a red herring.