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Comment by nness | Hacker News Reader

I don't quite understand how this is a constitution issue?

I get that the Fourth Amendment protects against warrantless entry, but if you're using a device that is producing a signal that leaves the boundaries of your property, is capturing that signal considered warrantless?

I don't see the nuance between the Stingray device and Wifi networks. If a police officer were to identify your home via a wifi network SSID, would that be warrantless entry?

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There's a good deal of nuance to these sorts of questions. For example, police may look at your house from the street in the visible spectrum, but may not look at your house from the street in the infra-red spectrum without a warrant.

Technically speaking, EVERYTHING in your house is giving off some kind of indication that could theoretically be captured and re-assembled.

IMO the only reasonable interpretation is that the 4th Amendment protects you from anything beyond whatever passes for ordinary observation by normal people.

And that's what the supreme court basically said. It's one thing for the police to look in an open window - but quite another for them to scan your home with a thermal imager.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=93127

I seem to remember some interesting stuff about wireless in the US during the Google mapcar fiasco. Something about its not whether its in the clear and broadcast but if people think that it is determining a lot of the law around it.

Memory is fuzzy and my searches aren't turning up the results I'm looking for. Does anyone else remember this?

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