The government does need a warrant to surveil me, though, and multiple court cases have found that using an intermediate third party doesn't absolve the government from adhering to the fourth amendment.
The government needs a warrant to search you, your home, your vehicle, your email, etc. The government does not need a warrant to record you in public spaces.
You're correct that the government can't use a third party to circumvent privacy laws. But privacy laws never prohibited what Flock does. The government could directly set up its own cameras in public, and nothing about that violated the Fourth Amendment.
> The government does not need a warrant to record you in public spaces.
This is not true. The question is whether you have a "reasonable expectation of privacy." If you do, then the government needs a warrant. This is why the government can't tap a payphone without a warrant even though it is in public.
It is true that a single police officer can post up somewhere and scan license plates without a warrant. The difference here is scale. The question of whether scale affects a "reasonable expectation of privacy" has never been addressed by the supreme court, though it has been raised before and discussed in concurring opinions.
> This is not true. The question is whether you have a "reasonable expectation of privacy." If you do, then the government needs a warrant. This is why the government can't tap a payphone without a warrant even though it is in public.
"Reasonable expectation of privacy" covers things like restrooms. Not highways, streets, parking lots, etc. This isn't relevant for Flock.
"Reasonable expectation of privacy" covers whatever the public believes is reasonable. The original case creating this doctrine was about phone booths.
The government does need a warrant to surveil someone, though. Which is what is happening here: a third party surveils citizens and the government searches that data.
Whether or not the government needs a warrant to surveil someone depends on how the government is conducting that surveillance. The government does, for instance, need a warrant to wiretap you. They do not need a warrant to record people in public spaces. Nor do they need a warrant to, say, photograph the exterior of your house.
But they need a warrant to follow me around, record my movements, put them into a database which is searchable by other law enforcement. They're not taking a single photograph of a car, they're creating a database of movement of people who have not committed crimes.
If they're only tracking your movements in public, the no they do not. Again, you're just wrong about what privacy laws protect. They do not prohibit the police from surveilling or tracking you, they only control how the police is able to conduct that surveillance. If the police want to search your house or car, they need a warrant or at least probable cause for the latter. If they want to photograph you in public, they do not.
Police do need a warrant to place a GPS device on your vehicle.
Data continuity is a function of data point frequency [0]. If all public space (and some participating private space) is monitored, the practical difference between a GPS device and a retroactive dragnet system disappears.
You are correct that police do not require a warrant to follow someone around in public, but these systems aren't that, and in practice much closer to the GPS tracking, which does require a warrant. It's unclear without trying this further in court which this should qualify as.
IMO: If the system has seen me exit the public space outside my home, or work, or someone elses home, or a store, or whevever, the system knows where I am at all points in time, like a GPS, with very little exception.
Where does "Flock tech might currently be illegal pending adjudication" land? Just because someone is doing it, does not make it legal.
For reference, US v. Jones was a 9-0 in the SC, in favor of Jones, though bipartisan split on the reasoning, which might be what carries over to any case that gets tried regarding this tech.
> Where does "Flock tech might currently be illegal pending adjudication" land? Just because someone is doing it, does not make it legal.
It's legal until your expected Supreme Court decision lands. This is just another way of saying "Flock tech is legal, but if the Supreme Court rules the way I want then it will become illegal."
> For reference, US v. Jones was a 9-0 in the SC, in favor of Jones, though bipartisan split on the reasoning, which might be what carries over to any case that gets tried regarding this tech
"Might be" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. And again, until the court actually gives that ruling, Flock is legal.
