Comment by dghlsakjg
4 months ago
The 4th amendment is complicated, and the interpretations from the last 250 years, make it more so: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects,[a] against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
There's a few issues
1. Unreasonable is the key word here. You purposely chose an arguably reasonable thing (counting you anonymously as you pass through an intersection).
Many people think that personally logging your movements throughout the day using automated superhuman means crosses the line into unreasonable.
2. There is also a separate issue that the law allows third parties to willingly hand over/sell information about you that many people think would be subject to warrant rules. You only need a warrant when the information is being held by a party that doesn't want to hand it over willingly.
3. Intent matters in the law. The intent behind counting cyclists is very different than the intent behind setting up a system for tracking people over time, even though the mechanism may be the same.
4. There is also the issue that currently legal != morally correct.
The 4th amendment is tangential to my claim.
Your claim is that the local governments shouldn't be allowed to collect this data period.
My claim is that the local government doesn't need a warrant to get information from a contractor whose only reason for collecting that information was to produce it as part of their contract.
> Your claim is that the local governments shouldn't be allowed to collect this data period.
Not OP but that is obviously not his claim..? The cyclist data doesn't identify specific people. How are you missing the distinction between that and a report on specific individuals?
So when you say
> My claim is that the local government doesn't need a warrant to get information from a contractor whose only reason for collecting that information was to produce it as part of their contract.
You're missing the whole disagreement. Yes, even if the contractor might capture specific license plates so that the report can say "yeah this road has X unique users" its very different from a report that says "the road has these specific users".