Re:New police radars can 'see' inside homes
by zaroth on Tuesday January 20, 2015 @12:27AM
(#8915606)
If you look at Gizmo's quotes, I think it's pretty clear they considered these kinds of technology tricks in deciding Kyllo, and 'taking the long view' that high tech collection of passively emitted information requires a warrant. I think the general approach is it's the result that matters, not the specific approach, e.g. 'expectation of privacy'.
Your house is constantly saturated with radio waves from TV stations, radio stations, wifi etc.
What if I were to design a device that passively received reflections of these signals rather then generating it's own to achieve the same function as the device in this post.
So I now have the same result, but I am "merely" receiving reflections, rather then making my own.
There is no difference in the function, this is rules lawyering at its best.
I am willing to let police observe emissions on visible wavelengths ONLY because that is a slippery slope to not being allowed to look into windows.
Anything you need a device to view is not ok to view without a warrant, no matter the technique.