US vs. Poller: Ruling says police can use iPhones to circumvent tinted windows(drive.google.com)

69 pointsby coloneltcb3 tahun yang lalu133 comments

drive.google.com

US vs. Poller: Ruling says police can use iPhones to circumvent tinted windows

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tFS1wmG8LtYdpvz_w-qnwYwa9Rac8DsZ/view

141 comments

tptacek3 tahun yang lalu

This seems like a sideshow, given:

The body-cam video also shows that one of the detectives was able to see inside the car without the assistance of an iPhone by cupping his hands around his eyes and looking through the windshield.

The police were also there serving an arrest warrant on the owner of the car, so keep in mind they had broad discretion to search incident to the arrest --- as the record here shows, the police originally attempted to open the car.

VWWHFSfQ3 tahun yang lalu

Definitely a sideshow. But this is still important case law. The police can use a commonly available technology (iPhone) to observe things through some kind of obfuscated barrier. They've been allowed to do this with a flashlight (darkness) and now they're allowed to do it with iPhones (tinted windows).

Seems perfectly fine to me.

tptacek3 tahun yang lalu

This particular obfuscated barrier is already disfavored by the law; for instance, where I live, window tints sufficient to block inspection of the passenger compartment of the car by an officer standing next to the car are already effectively illegal.

tehwebguy3 tahun yang lalu

zdragnar3 tahun yang lalu

I'm actually fine with this. Tinted windows in police cars help to protect the identity of a person (while in transit, at least) who has not yet been tried and found guilty of anything.

atmavatar3 tahun yang lalu

The videos appear to be those of cops pulling out of a parking lot with their personal vehicles after their shifts are over.

They're just a few of a much larger set of examples of those in US police departments showing little regard for the very laws they are supposed to enforce, though I admit window tints and front license plates seem rather tame to me.

However, it would be of no surprise to me should someone who themselves received an expensive ticket or tickets for it made it their mission in life to document off-duty cops' violations of the same.

csdreamer73 tahun yang lalu

Are you sure it is not an undercover car? Tinted windows are allowed for them.

https://www.windowfilmmag.com/2012/08/california-assembly-pa...

giraffe_lady3 tahun yang lalu

Unmarked police cars are still otherwise pretty standard police cars, based on a handful of models. These are very clearly a full range of normal consumer cars. Undercover cars are a completely different thing and would be nowhere near a police station in the first place.

zdragnar3 tahun yang lalu

My bad, I'd only briefly looked and assumed they were unmarked cars for on duty cops.

xxpor3 tahun yang lalu

I don't think the model 3 is used for prisoner transportation

rationalist3 tahun yang lalu

That's why arrest records are kept secret and not posted on the internet along with mug shots. /s

(Not to imply that I'm a fan of either.)

adastra223 tahun yang lalu

These are personal vehicles.

jstarfish3 tahun yang lalu

It obfuscates the identity of the officers against harassment and retribution for on-duty activity. Same reason narcos wear ski masks.

gorlilla3 tahun yang lalu

Also fascists, terrorists, executioners, etc....

RetpolineDrama3 tahun yang lalu

>window tints sufficient to block inspection of the passenger compartment of the car by an officer standing next to the car are already effectively illegal

Which is absolutely preposterous, given how hot it is getting. Window tint laws need to be repealed.

tonightstoast3 tahun yang lalu

Is heat the reason you want to repeal these laws or do you have others?

I’m on the opposite side of the issue. I think that tinted windows don’t allow for enough visibility for pedestrians and cyclists. This is anecdotal but they also seem to be used in higher portions of the population breaking driving laws. And lastly, I really don’t enjoy the militant “badassness” associated with these. I want the roads to be more chill, not people going around thinking they’re God’s gift to mankind and any who dares cross them will be punished.

These are mostly opinions based on anecdotes. I’ve lived in a few cities now and this remains true. Which is why I’d like to hear your experience.

StrictDabbler3 tahun yang lalu

Where do you live?

It's currently 112 F where I am and there isn't a cloud in the sky. Humidity is very low so water isn't absorbing radiation.

Nobody is riding a bicycle or walking long distances six months of the year here, except for the unhoused, and they can only move at night. Cars are mandatory to participate in the economy.

A car with un-tinted windows is impractical for two reasons: solar heat and UV.

The A/C can be running full blast and my legs will still get hot. Normal side window glass doesn't block UV well so I can get a sunburn with my windows closed.

I have to equip my windows with dark tints. It's like a Canadian putting on snow tires except I can't change it out with the seasons.

So my state doesn't have laws against tints because it can't. Ok, so I drive to another state in my car... now I'm breaking the law.

You can say "human beings shouldn't live in such a place" but first, about 114 million Americans live in similar conditions, and second, these conditions are moving north.

Protecting the occupants of a car against solar radiation is a reasonable thing to do.

tonightstoast3 tahun yang lalu

That is interesting. The high desert is my current location so it's "only" 105 but with the same low humidity. I find that a sunshade massively reduced any issues that I had with the idleness of the vehicle. But I'll give you that the heat is horrible.

I suppose my rebuttal is: how many months do you feel like tint is necessary? I grew up with routinely high temps (100+, in an area with high humidity). In college our first few weeks were normally 100+, and we did walk to class. I normally would come back with swamp ass and a back covered in sweat. People absolutely can live in these conditions. I just don't think we can remove the human element of it. It's hot, we are going to sweat. It feels like we are trying to control an element of human nature that cannot be controlled.

Edit: I appreciate the reply. Apologies if I sound snarky (as another commenter apparently thinks). It's truly just that the only people I know with tinted windows have been controlling and manipulative. The experiences I get on the road do not help my anecdotal stereotypes.

StrictDabbler3 tahun yang lalu

I don't think you sound snarky. I think it's easy to look at an issue like this through a cultural lens. Heavy tint is indeed popular among jerks.

As for necessity, studies suggest that skin cancer rates vary according to the side of the road a country drives on. [1] So even if you're tolerating the radiation it's still hurting you.

It's also important to remember that paneled vans are legal. They are taller than any car and the visibility through them is 0% because there are no side windows. Frequently the back window is covered or blocked by equipment.

You pretty much have to assume you can't accurately see through any vehicle. Seeing the driver's eyes can be useful, but it can be misleading... I've been hit on roller blades by a driver who'd stopped and was looking right at me but didn't process I was there.

I think every car on the road has to be treated like a panel van. Big opaque block that can kill you and will act unpredictably.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3117975/

throwaway2903 tahun yang lalu

Wow that is a lot of F. It's 95 (105 real feel with humidity) here in tropics but people and bicyclists are out. I don't drive but not having issues you describe sitting in a nontinted air conditioned bus

FireBeyond3 tahun yang lalu

> You can say "human beings shouldn't live in such a place" but first, about 114 million Americans live in similar conditions, and second, these conditions are moving north.

> It's currently 112 F where I am and there isn't a cloud in the sky. Humidity is very low so water isn't absorbing radiation.

114 million Americans live in conditions where it is regularly 112 in the summer?

StrictDabbler3 tahun yang lalu

No. It doesn't always hit 112 F. Temperature is a function of sensible and latent heat.

So Dallas, for example, is only 84 F with a humidity of 83% right now at 9:23 AM central. That's a heat index of 95 F. The high temperature will be 100 F but the high of the heat index will be 110 F.

Corpus Christi recently hit a heat index of 125 F.

It all works out the same. It's brutally hot for months somewhere in every Southern state (including California). These states should all allow tint and account for 114 million people.

bradknowles3 tahun yang lalu

Thing is, you can block both IR and UV light, without impinging on the visible light spectrum.

The UV light will cause things inside your car to break down faster, and of course the IR is what carries the heat.

So, you don't need dark tint to block IR. You just need a different filter material.

mensetmanusman3 tahun yang lalu

Visibly transparent effective IR blockers are quite expensive due to the optics involved.

bradknowles3 tahun yang lalu

Thing is, the dark tint isn't that great at blocking IR. It's blocking more visible light than IR.

So, yeah -- the stuff that actually blocks IR is more expensive. But if you really want to block IR, then that's what you should be getting.

Otherwise, if you're getting the dark tint, then you should be honest with yourself about what it is that you're primarily blocking.

unmole3 tahun yang lalu

Modern automobile window tints do a very job of keeping heat out without impacting visibility. Where I live, temperatures cross 45C every summer. Heavily tinted car windows are banned and we manage just fine.

[deleted]3 tahun yang lalu

honeybadger13 tahun yang lalu

(1)

yowzadave3 tahun yang lalu

Tinted windows mean it’s impossible for a pedestrian or other motorist to make eye contact with the driver—which is often a way that people communicate to ensure safe crossing.

hyperliner3 tahun yang lalu

goda903 tahun yang lalu

I prefer when I can know where a driver is looking if I'm about to cross their path. Do they see me? Sometimes that's really hard with tinted windows.

tptacek3 tahun yang lalu

I'm not the person you need to convince about that.

IG_Semmelweiss3 tahun yang lalu

In many countries, tinted windows act as a deterrent against would-be car thieves or armed robbery during a traffic light

xtiansimon3 tahun yang lalu

Tinted windows prevent cyclists, pedestrians and other drivers from seeing drivers clearly. If you can’t see the driver, then you can’t know if the driver can see you. Very important for driveways and intersections.

VWWHFSfQ3 tahun yang lalu

If the window tint can be "peered through" by an iPhone (commonly available technology), is it still illegel? This court said no, it's not.

tptacek3 tahun yang lalu

The statute is written in terms of visible light transmittance, so this ruling isn't going to help people with dark tinted windows.

foobarian3 tahun yang lalu

Honestly the real sideshow is that Apple managed to worm its brand into this business. If I were Samsung or Google or any other Android vendor I'd be asking my marketing leadership why the police are not using our phones for this

2OEH8eoCRo03 tahun yang lalu

> cupping his hands around his eyes and looking through the windshield.

That's definitely how I want to approach a car of an individual with a warrant for their arrest.

comex3 tahun yang lalu

According to the document:

> They saw Poller get out of the car and enter one of the apartments. A team of officers then went inside to arrest him on a pending arrest warrant. Soon a group of detectives went to examine the car.

So they knew he wasn’t in the car, though in theory someone else could have been.

babyshake3 tahun yang lalu

Would shining a flashlight have the same effect?

Also, I don't like police overreach but I wouldn't think getting tinted windows gives you any legal right to people not being able to see inside your car, just that it won't be easy for them to casually look over and see inside your car.

gnfargbl3 tahun yang lalu

The linked order addresses that point--

> The Supreme Court has foreclosed such an argument, holding that a police officer did not violate a driver’s reasonable expectation of privacy when he used a flashlight to look inside the windows of a car that was subject to a traffic stop. See Texas v. Brown, 460 U.S. 730, 739-40 (1983).

duxup3 tahun yang lalu

> I wouldn't think getting tinted windows gives you any legal right to people not being able to see inside your car

Especially considering how much tint is allowed is often regulated by the state so that you can safely see out. The idea that you can see through it already is a thing.

retrac3 tahun yang lalu

I always understood the limit on tinting to be bidirectional in its safety benefit. The driver needs to see, but the driver also needs to be seen. As a pedestrian, if I can't see the driver, I don't know if they can see me. I wonder how often drivers in heavily tinted vehicles gesture and don't realize they can't be seen?

duxup3 tahun yang lalu

I agree seeing another driver who isn’t paying attention approaching an intersection has saved me several times.

Izkata3 tahun yang lalu

And on the flipside if I reach an intersection at the same time as a driver, if they see me pause they'll sometimes wave me across. Happens maybe once every month or two.

FireBeyond3 tahun yang lalu

> I wonder how often drivers in heavily tinted vehicles gesture and don't realize they can't be seen?

I have seen multiple vehicles so heavily tinted that their drivers have to roll down the window to turn at intersections at night...

ssalka3 tahun yang lalu

If we're going by the "plain view doctrine", you can cover up any item in your car with e.g. a blanket, and an officer would not legally be able to move the blanket to see what's underneath without a warrant, probable cause to search, or permission from the vehicle owner (I'd add the caveat that seeing the shape of a gun underneath a blanket could probably pass for probable cause).

So, moving that boundary from "the blanket" to "the window" to me seems pretty reasonable, except that a window tint doesn't completely obscure what's behind it like a blanket would. A tinted window fundamentally can't protect from plain view in the same way that non-transparent object can; the owner would be better off hanging curtains from inside the car.

1letterunixname3 tahun yang lalu

Or a Sony analog IR-peering camera that had an un/fortunate feature of looking through clothing. Is it "plain view" if using a camera that can see differently than humans can?

DropInIn3 tahun yang lalu

Or just using those window sun screens....

agrover3 tahun yang lalu

time for the tinfoil!

[deleted]3 tahun yang lalu

floxy3 tahun yang lalu

Seems like this logic would also allow police to use WiFi to see through the walls of your house?

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/wi-fi-routers-used-to-dete...

henryfjordan3 tahun yang lalu

No, the ruling goes out of it's way to say that putting something on the front seat of a car doesn't provide an expectation of privacy. Your home is very different in the eyes of the law. You can't use IR cameras to see into a home already: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyllo_v._United_States

Edit: After re-reading, I think you may have a point that Wifi is a commonly-used technology and might technically be allowed. It might depend on whether your phone or wifi router could be used as a detector with the right software. I'd imagine the supreme court might change the standard if that happened though. They generally treat the home as more sacred.

riffic3 tahun yang lalu

au contraire. cops can do literally whatever they want and they routinely use parallel construction to get a conviction within the letter of the law.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction

believing anything else is incredibly naive.

vorpalhex3 tahun yang lalu

Why not use spy satellites and just watch you all the time? Or clever Van Eck, or Wifi micro-disturbances?

Cops are basically plumbers. They are blue collar workers, making mediocre pay and working insane hours. (Plumbers actually make MORE than cops for their 40, cops just work a lot of overtime...) Cops are most likely to just not really chase an investigation versus doing twice the work to use some kind of illegal evidence gathering.

Klonoar3 tahun yang lalu

Cops get away with stuff they shouldn’t: details at 11.

That said, I just want to point out that you have no idea whether they believe that or are simply quoting the relevant legal history. What’s with the naive comment?

Every time I see something like this I have to think it contributes to degrading discussion quality here; we can probably assume the general audience of this site are not obtuse on this matter and wade in with a different tone.

riffic3 tahun yang lalu

> history

thanks that sums my point up in a single cherry picked word.

bshipp3 tahun yang lalu

As long as the material presented in court is acquired via legal methods, no laws are being broken, are they? Now, if officers use legal loopholes to take illegally-acquired evidence and somehow make it legal, that's a practice that should be rooted out and those involved prosecuted. But as long as officers can construct a legal case completely independent of the poisonous tree, what's the issue?

balderdash3 tahun yang lalu

That’s a perfectly logical stance to take, but I think it hinges on :

”Now, if officers use legal loopholes to take illegally-acquired evidence and somehow make it legal, that's a practice that should be rooted out and those involved prosecuted.”

If in practice illegal practices, are not rooted-out or prosecuted, and actually condoned, I think one would need to look askance at the entire concept…

bshipp3 tahun yang lalu

That makes perfect sense. I'm no lawyer and am only discussing this out of idle curiosity, so I'm sure my comments were a naive take. The situation I'm envisioning is an audio recording from a 2-party consent state outlining the existence of evidence. Since that cannot be the legal basis of a warrant, an officer might wander through the neighborhood talking with associated citizens to try and independently establish the need for a warrant based on various witness statements. No evidence has been falsified or created out of thin air, and there's no hope of a conviction if the suspected building doesn't contain damning evidence.

However, I fully recognize how such a process might be abused and the need for a very firm legal hand to avoid accidentally becoming an authoritarian state.

rurounijones3 tahun yang lalu

The officer has no probable cause to do what you suggest without the illegally obtained information in the first place.

voakbasda3 tahun yang lalu

If they were only able to construct a "legal" case through the knowledge gained by the fruit of a poisonous tree, then the new tree should be treated as tainted as well. But that's not the law.

They can and do violate the law (without consequence) until they find a foothold that allows them to fabricate the appearance of a legally obtained chain of evidence. Then, they fully suppress the evidence about how that information was originally obtained.

mikeryan3 tahun yang lalu

There’s two aspects to this ruling. The first is the “commonly used technology” but the second is the “expectation of privacy”.

The Wi-Fi in a house thing may pass the bar for tech but doesn’t pass the bar w/r/t your expectation of privacy.

alexfromapex3 tahun yang lalu

But would be very good to get a legal precedent set for wifi, if there’s not one already, since it’s extremely ubiquitous and ripe for abuse

TomatoTomato3 tahun yang lalu

What about the trunk of your car?

tptacek3 tahun yang lalu

You have an expectation of privacy for the contents of your trunk, but it's less firm than that of your house --- your trunk can be searched without a warrant to "inventory" it if it's merely impounded, without suspicion or an arrest.

If the police had a device that enabled them to see into car trunks, it would likely constitute a search requiring "reasonableness" to use it.

fragmede3 tahun yang lalu

Which it should be noted, they do. Semi-truck sized x-ray machines exist, especially at border control, but also elsewhere, and is used to see inside of semi-trucks. Using that same device against a car seems entirely feasible. But as you point out, if they impound the vehicle, they can just inventory the trunk directly, assuming they have the key. If you have a locked safe in the trunk, I don't think they're (legally) allowed to x-ray it to find out what's inside of that, although they can parallel-reconstrution their way to having a reason after the fact.

tptacek3 tahun yang lalu

Since the time of the founders, you've had essentially no rights to privacy at border crossings.

"Parallel construction" is a message board argument. At the point where you've decided the law doesn't matter, we can just stop talking about this stuff, because none of it matters.

fragmede3 tahun yang lalu

Parallel construction isn't the theoretical stuff of paranoid hackers on online message boards. In a 2013 statement, it was revealed that the DEA uses parallel reconstruction "almost daily" to build criminal cases using evidence gathered by the NSA.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-dea-sod-idUSBRE97409R2013...

tptacek3 tahun yang lalu

Yes, yes. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

It seems very unlikely that anybody parallel constructed anything here, since an officer was able to see the guns with the assistance of a visor made of his fingers.

chrisco2553 tahun yang lalu

Under what conditions is a car impounded? For a car to be impounded it already was somewhere it shouldn't have been or the driver themselves impaired in some way. Of course they need to be able to search trunks in such a case.

FireBeyond3 tahun yang lalu

> For a car to be impounded it already was somewhere it shouldn't have been or the driver themselves impaired in some way. Of course they need to be able to search trunks in such a case.

It could simply have been in a car accident and its driver taken to hospital. It may even have been off the road by the time it was towed to the impound. I see this happen several times a week.

pests3 tahun yang lalu

I parked an old beater that was full of my personal belongings (finishing up a move) a few years ago in front of a family members house. I accidently left the keys in the ignition but off. The police impounded it within hours claiming they thought it was abandoned; letting them skip their usual 48 hour wait time for nuisance vehicles.

I would have not been happy if that was searched and inventoried.

tacocataco3 tahun yang lalu

What about a mobile home?

Does the expectation of privacy go up and down depending if the mobile home is driving?

Ancapistani3 tahun yang lalu

Interesting.

Wiki says this is specific to thermals, which operate ~1,000-14,000nm. I wonder if it would also be applicable to night vision? Those are sensitive ~500-900nm. Visible light is ~400-700nm.

PaulDavisThe1st3 tahun yang lalu

"sense-enhancing technology like the camera function of an iPhone that is in general public use."

the language doesn't make it clear whether "in general public use" is the full scope or "in general public use, for the purpose adopted by law enforcement in this case".

iPhones and wifi are in general public use; the former is widely used to illuminate or look at things, the latter is rarely, if ever, used to see through the walls of a house.

If that's even a thing.

Ancapistani3 tahun yang lalu

The closest thing I can think of is "in common use", as (poorly) defined in Caetano v Massachussets: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caetano_v._Massachusetts

tpxl3 tahun yang lalu

> If that's even a thing.

You'll be happy to learn IEE 802.11bf standardized wifi sensing granular enough to do gesture detection. When that becomes ubiquitous in ISP provided routers, your friendly neighbourhood police will be one warrant away from tracking your movement around your house.

bagels3 tahun yang lalu

Does it define "sense enhancing"? X-Rays could enhance vision by converting x-rays in to visible light.

saveferris3 tahun yang lalu

Ohhhh, now that is interesting. I think I'd say you don't have an expectation of privacy when you park your car on a public street, people can look into the windows and if they are tinted then using a device to "see" through the tint doesn't go over the line to circumvent your expectation of privacy - if items were in the trunk....maybe that elevates the expectation of privacy but leaving something on the seat or something that can be seen looking into the windows of a car parked out in public seems like you should not expect a high level of privacy.

Your house/apartment on the other hand...you should expect a high/higher level of privacy there, even looking into the windows - if something is found looking into the windows it should not be admissible as evidence without a warrant.

I do not know if the law actually distinguishes privacy if it's a car vs a residence.

rascul3 tahun yang lalu

> Your house/apartment on the other hand...you should expect a high/higher level of privacy there, even looking into the windows - if something is found looking into the windows it should not be admissible as evidence without a warrant.

I think police are allowed to look through windows from areas where the public can generally go. Like a public sidewalk or at your front door. Or something like that. I don't think they're generally allowed to walk around the house looking through windows, though.

more_corn3 tahun yang lalu

It does. Your car is on a public street. You have no expectation of privacy on a public street. Also the law explicitly addresses tint. You cannot tint the windshield and front windows past a certain poknt.

Your home is private . You have an expectation of privacy there.

chrisco2553 tahun yang lalu

Of course there are limited expectations of privacy in a vehicle. The glovebox, trunk, a box in the back seat, a duffel bag in the front seat, anything concealing the contents has an expectation of privacy. And no, you don't just automatically lose your 4th amendment rights just because you're on a public street.

Tinting laws are for motor safety, not for the surveillance state. Notably, limousines are fully tinted in the rear as well as most passenger buses. And of course, cargo vans etc are fully enclosed.

tptacek3 tahun yang lalu

No, it's not accurate that tinting laws are exclusively for driver safety.

tptacek3 tahun yang lalu

This isn't accurate. You do have some enforceable expectations of privacy in a motor vehicle parked on a public street --- the trunk, the contents of the glove box, the contents of closed containers in plain view in the passenger's compartment. What you don't get is privacy for any of the parts of the car that would ordinarily be in plain view to someone outside the car.

floxy3 tahun yang lalu

What about an RV? In a forest service campground?

Gordonjcp3 tahun yang lalu

> Your home is private . You have an expectation of privacy there.

Yeah, but if you put your illegal drugs and illegal guns right there in the window where everyone can see them - be that on the dashboard of your car or on your front room windowsill - you can't really say they were "private", can you?

adolph3 tahun yang lalu

Also the new generation of mm wave radar devices, which can see through some materials. Here is a good rerun of an Andreas Spiess video covering some recent-ish sensors:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gU-Rrwf1vr0

nonameiguess3 tahun yang lalu

Those were WiFi routers inside the room. They didn't see through walls.

Unfortunately, I don't see how the logic wouldn't basically be sound based on the existing criteria that, if technology existed and was in widespread public use that allowed ordinary people to routinely see through walls, then yes, being behind a wall would not give you a reasonable expectation of privacy.

Assuming we ever reach that point, the Supreme Court would either need to come up with a new test of what constitutes a search or we'd need to ban such devices so people could still expect privacy in their own homes.

floxy3 tahun yang lalu

>They didn't see through walls.

https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/see-through-wa...

duxup3 tahun yang lalu

The courts in the US have been pretty specific about car vs home. They don’t seem to treat them as the same.

seanw4443 tahun yang lalu

Ironically, there have been SCOTUS rulings that state that your vehicle is an extension of your home.

klyrs3 tahun yang lalu

I'm gonna use this next time my (Marine) cousin asks me for a ride to the airport. God bless the 3A

somebodynew3 tahun yang lalu

This reminds me of one of my favorite court cases, a rare application of the 3rd amendment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engblom_v._Carey

A prison tried to break a strike of workers who lived in prison dorms by replacing them with members of the National Guard, until a court ruled that this constituted illegally quartering soldiers in their homes.

websap3 tahun yang lalu

Too bad for the unhoused I guess?

duxup3 tahun yang lalu

I don’t know. I do know the courts treat homes and cars differently.

[deleted]3 tahun yang lalu

kylehotchkiss3 tahun yang lalu

This precedent is nice. I'd prefer less blacked-out windows on the road. I often wonder why a person wants to be so obscured. Around me, the worst contenders are the lifted G-Wagons with basically black mirrors for windows. What are they hiding from?

projektfu3 tahun yang lalu

One of my friends said he didn't want people to talk about who he was driving around with. Essentially meaning his jealous girlfriend. I don't blame him, she drew blood once in front of me.

People have crazy relationships sometimes.

kylehotchkiss3 tahun yang lalu

Seems like he needs a different solution than window blurring. Hope he's able to grow and heal past that one!

suyula3 tahun yang lalu

The sun is too bright.

Gordonjcp3 tahun yang lalu

There used to be a black first-gen BMW X5 that parked up near my partner's house in the Glasgow's South Side.

Scuffed 22" alloy wheels, mismatched half-bald no-name tyres, bubbly black window tint film, bubbly Gucci-print gold-on-carbon wrap on the bonnet and tailgate, "Arabic prayer" CD dangly tassley thing hanging from the mirror, huge exhaust pipes.

No tax, no MOT (last MOT failed quite comprehensively on various serious defects), no insurance.

Like, come on, guy, try *not* to be the reason that stereotypes exist, eh?

[deleted]3 tahun yang lalu

VWWHFSfQ3 tahun yang lalu

> This is a case that arises at the intersection of the Fourth Amendment [unreasonable search and seizure] and the technological capabilities of an Apple iPhone. The defendant Christopher Poller allegedly stashed two guns and illegal drugs on the front seat of his car. He parked the car on a road in front of his apartment and then went inside. Because the windows of the car were heavily tinted, he probably thought no one could see inside. But he was mistaken. The police came along and — by holding up an iPhone to the window of the car and activating the iPhone’s camera viewfinder function — they could clearly see the guns and drugs inside the car.

The police officers just used iPhone's camera capability to look through the tinted window and see the firearms and drugs in the car.

trashcanman3 tahun yang lalu

Wait you access a google drive document and the user sharing gets your email address. Sketch

x86a3 tahun yang lalu

The owner of the Google Doc is Orin Kerr (Prof. at UC Berkeley) if it makes you feel any better or worse https://twitter.com/OrinKerr/status/1681018140724166657

sophiebits3 tahun yang lalu

I believe that’s only the case when opening a non-public doc (such as one shared with your entire company).

2OEH8eoCRo03 tahun yang lalu

Right click -> open incognito

Be careful in Vegas btw

dzdt3 tahun yang lalu

Source? I've wondered about that but had the opposite impression.

trashcanman3 tahun yang lalu

I’ve seen it firsthand when I shared a doc

mayoff3 tahun yang lalu

I just tried this with my iPhone 12 mini on my cars, which were parked in my garage out of direct sunlight. I was shocked by how well it worked.

Scoundreller3 tahun yang lalu

I need vehicle window tint that works like those LCDs on aircraft windows, so I can black out everything with a single central switch.

Tint laws only apply to vehicles while operating, right?

kylehotchkiss3 tahun yang lalu

The annoying thing is when the flight crews black them out for everybody with a single central switch and you have a 14+ hour flight with the lights off and windows disabled and can't even get a dimmed view outside. Great for the flight attendants who cut down on workload by trying to get all the passengers to sleep the entire flight.

_s3 tahun yang lalu

They never go full black though? You can still adjust them (marginally / within some limited bounds of very dark to dark) from what I remember.

blackfawn3 tahun yang lalu

Sounds great until something shorts or fails and the tinting goes full opaque while driving!

elishah3 tahun yang lalu

The problem with LCD windows like that is that they default to opaque, and require power to align the crystals to become clear.

Fine for your fancy boardroom, not so good for a vehicle when a minor hardware fault can instantly render the driver blind.

coldtea3 tahun yang lalu

The whole notion of "expectation of privacy" and the medieval theology arguments around it, is so BS, and yet people are so conditioned to it.

It should be a set of clear cut cases: "your house is private", "your car is (or isn't)", and so on, and anything private should need a warrant. Courts shouldn't get to decide, or interpret various techniques attempted to bypass this...

tptacek3 tahun yang lalu

You'll need to take that up with the authors of the 4th Amendment, who left this matter up to the courts when they gave people in the US the right to be free from "unreasonable" searches, where "unreasonable" is a term of art that effectively means "it's up to the judiciary".

More to the point, this theological business of determining where the expectations of privacy are is exactly the business of declaring what is and isn't private that you're asking them to work out.

coldtea3 tahun yang lalu

>More to the point, this theological business of determining where the expectations of privacy are is exactly the business of declaring what is and isn't private that you're asking them to work out

I'm asking for clear-cut hard cases, as opposed to ad-hoc divinations. Oh, and that those clear cut cases not be based on vague premises like "expectation".

It should be "these cases are private, enforcing what our society -as represented by lawmakers- believes ought to be kept private". Versus guessing what some founding fathers or amendment authors meant when they said "expectation" and whether this or that place should be "expected to be private" or not.

>where "unreasonable" is a term of art that effectively means "it's up to the judiciary".

Sure, and this is the problem I'm pointing. "Unreasonable" is an open ended term, that doesn't settle anything, and keeps people guessing. In 2023 this person went to court without knowing whether their car is allowed privacy or not. That's not a 21st century law, that's like some ancient oracle prophesy that can be read 20 odd ways.

You know, like that other term of art, about a "millitia", that has lead to centuries of theological arguments about the number of well regulated angels that can stand on the top of a pin.

tptacek3 tahun yang lalu

What you want is a civil law system, rather than the common law system we actually have in the US.

[deleted]3 tahun yang lalu

dbtc3 tahun yang lalu

Also there's a difference between private and secret.

kazinator3 tahun yang lalu

> "Using the iPhone’s camera viewing function the detective could see through the tint into the interior of the car."

What's the difference between this and using a flashlight? All the verbiage surrounding the iPhone looks like a red herring.

1letterunixname3 tahun yang lalu

This is a slippery slope eroding the 4th a.: at what point can police use X-ray, muon, FLIR, MMW, and SIGINT against private property and persons and say it's "not a warrantless search" and maintain a shred of credulity?

w-ll3 tahun yang lalu

Is this because the camera sensors leak more in the IR spectrum, and the tint doesnt block IR.

midoridensha3 tahun yang lalu

That sounds like crappy tint. IR is what carries most of the heat, so high-quality tint blocks that part of the spectrum well.

bandyaboot3 tahun yang lalu

Fairly obvious ruling. If a civilian is allowed to do it, so is a police officer.

elishah3 tahun yang lalu

> If a civilian is allowed to do it, so is a police officer.

That is often not the way it works, most especially when it comes to obtaining evidence.

If some random person breaks into your house, goes through your files until they find documentation of some crime, and then hands that over to the police, it would generally be admissible in court as evidence against you.

Whereas if the cops broke into your house and went through your files without a warrant that specifically permitted that, any evidence they acquired that way would be poisoned and inadmissible.

bandyaboot3 tahun yang lalu

That’s a bit beyond the scope of what I was referring to, but I also don’t think that really is a counter factual to what I said. A private person is not allowed to break into a house in search of evidence and neither is a police officer. The fact that evidence from the former case may be admissible in a trial doesn’t really change that.

nthitz3 tahun yang lalu

> activating the iPhone’s camera viewfinder function

what exactly does that mean?

geraldwhen3 tahun yang lalu

Sounds like they opened the camera app and looked at the image produced on the screen.

alexfromapex3 tahun yang lalu

Need tint that blocks infrared spectrum

1letterunixname3 tahun yang lalu

May get to the point where tint is replaced with literal tin foil and people use 360 degree stitched camera systems for all situational awareness outside their vehicle.

darkclouds3 tahun yang lalu

Wiretaps are sense enhancing technology and precedent has been set with court's having to issue permission to wire tap.

And an iphone is not standard equipment issue for cops, ergo the cop was acting like a criminal by using non standard equipment in effect behaving like their own militia, over stepping the law.

bandyaboot3 tahun yang lalu

> And an iphone is not standard equipment issue for cops, ergo the cop was acting like a criminal by using non standard equipment in effect behaving like their own militia, over stepping the law.

What makes you think a police officer isn’t allowed to use “non standard equipment” in the course of an investigation? If a private citizen is allowed to use an iPhone to look through the tint on a car window, so is a cop.

Vecr3 tahun yang lalu

Why are the police not allowed to behave like a militia? I guess if they are female or too old to be considered as part of the unorganized militia in the first place, but from what the Supreme Court has said about the draft and the second amendment, I don't think that works. I think it's reasonable that all police are part of the unorganized militia at the very least.

[deleted]3 tahun yang lalu