They're not towing accused criminals' cars to obtain evidence. They're towing random civilians' cars to obtain evidence. That's like a cop coming to your house (without a warrant) while you're on vacation and running a stakeout from your upstairs bedroom because they think your neighbor might be running a meth lab.
You can also read TFA: "have begun getting warrants for the footage captured by the vehicles"
It is tiresome beyond measure that every time a legal topic comes up, the peanut gallery has to chime in with your dishonest, narcissistic comments.
The law does not exist to enforce your personal policy preferences. It's fine to say that you dislike something, or that the law doesn't take into account changes in society and perhaps it should be changed. However, it is unacceptable behavior to presume that something isn't being done "lawfully" or that it isn't "proper" just because you don't like it. And it is a lie to compare this to warrantless searches of any sort.
HN is for intellectual curiosity. If you're not here to learn, perhaps you should consider using a different site.
No. The closest I come to that is "peanut gallery." Every other criticism is directed at particular behavior, not to anyone's inherent worth as a person.
Being dishonest is bad behavior. Making false accusations is bad behavior. Engaging in rage bait to push ideology is bad behavior. Those actions need to be criticized, and sharply, or HN will become a shitty place.
It is utterly inappropriate for people to come in here and start spamming their anti-law enforcement biases.
The simple, unalterable fact is that vehicles do not get the same Fourth Amendment protection that homes get. It is also an inarguable fact that searches and seizures pursuant to warrants are not the same as warrantless surveillance, as one commenter argued.
It is not okay to come on here spewing cop-hate for ostensibly doing something unlawfully when the officers got a warrant. That kind of partisan political nonsense doesn't belong here, regardless of how popular it may be.
This “holier than thou” attitude doesn’t make your point any stronger. It isn’t rage bait, and it isn’t a personal policy preference.
“Have begun getting warrants” means that they were doing this before, without them.
This is personal property that is being commandeered, bypassing constitutional rights. If the cameras have something the police consider evidence, then the police can go to a judge and get a warrant and then wait until the owner (who can be easily identified with auto registration records) responds.
If a crime happened outside of a store that has security cameras, then the police don’t get to break into the store and try to retrieve the data off of hard drives. They have to go through the proper channels and wait. This is no different.
>“Have begun getting warrants” means that they were doing this before, without them.
Would "have begun buying widgets" mean that they used to steal widgets? At worst, it's an ambiguous phrase; but context and common sense tell us that the ambiguity resolves in the opposite way from how you're resolving it.
It doesn't bypass any constitutional rights whatsoever. There is no constitutional right against police search and seizure of property they have a warrant for. Go read a book.
