This could have major impact on the Flock camera issue…
Police found 91 pounds of meth in Melisa Kyle’s vehicle. Nobody has to squint very hard to understand why law enforcement wanted the drugs off the highway.
The harder question is how police got there.
A Tulsa County sheriff’s deputy saw Kyle driving a Mazda SUV with California plates in Oklahoma. He later searched automated license-plate-reader databases, including Flock Safety’s network, and pulled up more than 50 records showing where the vehicle had been during roughly a month of travel. He used her travel history as part of the basis for searching the SUV.
Police found the meth.
U.S. District Judge Sara Hill still ruled the warrantless database search violated the Fourth Amendment, and suppressed the evidence that followed it. She described the technology as a form of “indiscriminate mass surveillance.”
Full article, HERE from PJ Media.
There is more detail in the article, but this does come down to a 4th Amendment issue, especially in view of the ‘warrantless’ searches and the BS rationales used by officers for their searches.
Hopefully, this will cause a lot of the crap to stop, because without a warrant, I ‘think’ any information used becomes inadmissible, e.g. fruit of the poisonous tree…
- The Tree: The initial illegal action by police, such as an unlawful search, bad arrest, or forced confession.
- The Fruit: Any extra proof found because of that first illegal act.
- The Rule: If the main proof is tainted, the extra proof is also tainted and cannot be used in court.
- The Goal: It builds on the Exclusionary Rule to stop police from breaking constitutional laws to gather evidence.
I don’t know what will happen, but this decision at least shows some judges are becoming aware or more aware of the things being done by the street officers…
Yes, everything you do in public IS subject to surveillance, but using that as a basis for probable cause without a warrant does seem to be, or should be prohibited…
I’m not a lawyer, so I don’t know for sure…