Going Through the Garbage 730
frankejames writes "This is a very funny piece on how Portland politicians said it was okay for police to seize a citizen's garbage without a search warrant. But when some reporters swiped their garbage (and reported the contents!) they screamed foul play! Read Portland's top brass said it was OK to swipe your garbage--so we grabbed theirs."
Need to pulverize all garbage... (Score:5, Insightful)
hypocrites (Score:5, Insightful)
How often do they consider how it would feel if these laws were applied to them?
Will the government officials who enacted the USA PATRIOT act ever have to really be subjected to the same things they allowed to be done to us?
If you... (Score:3, Insightful)
Small Difference (Score:2, Insightful)
2600 Mag (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Anthro (Score:5, Insightful)
I could also host a party for people who drink, even though I don't.
Yes, these are just examples, but they illustrate that the survey technique is fundamentally flawed.
Re:Small Difference (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah. The difference being that the police doing it violates the 4th Amendment to the Constitution if they did it without a search warrant, while the reporters may have violated your right to privacy.
Go ahead, ask me which one I think is worse...
And then think about which one you might have more redress for.
Re:They have every right (Score:1, Insightful)
Brillant arguement...
Application to the Internet world... (Score:5, Insightful)
As I understand it, the basic claim of the police is that if it's easily accessible, it's public information.
So, how does this apply to the Internet?
For instance, is unencrypted email now public information? What about information on a HTML page - with no links leading to it?
I particularly like the police officers claiming that the lack of a "No tresspassing" sign / "don't open garbage" sign gives them the right to do this... Does a woman have to wear a "Don't Rape" sign to make this clear to potential attackers?
Perhaps the "Don't Rape" sign should really go on the Constitution - particularly the Fourth Amendment.
Effective... (Score:2, Insightful)
Now...if we could only figure out a way to limit the power of major players in the news business. Drudge Report [drudgereport.com].
Re:confused... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the biggest issue here is in using that trash as *evidence* in an investigation, who's to say it's actually *your* trash?? I throw garbage in other people's trash all the time, if I throw some some drug residue in there, and the cops confiscate it, they can prosecute the home owner for possession?? That is not a good thing.
It's legal (Score:2, Insightful)
It is legal for police to take garbage without a search warrant. IANAL, but from civics classes, trash falls under "abandoned property", so police can take it without a search warrant. It's kinda like if a police office thinks you're speeding, he doesn't need a search warrant to aim his radar gun at you to check your speed. Not exactly the same thing, but kinda in the same category.
Re:They have every right (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:They have every right (Score:5, Insightful)
Being a policeman yourself, you'll know that a policeman without a warrant is just a citizen like any other, and if it's good and leagal for you it's good and legal for anyone else.
Seems to me there is a difference... (Score:3, Insightful)
That said, why would anyone expect that something they've acknowledged they no longer want and have therefore basically thrown up for grabs on the curb to be secure? As someone who lives in NYC, where it's routine for people to pick up junk they find lying on the side of the street, this just strikes me as idiotic. Not just dumb, not just stupid, but completely moronic. You threw it away; it's on the curb, it's no longer yours. End of story. Whether it's the police or the press taking it, if you're at all worried about it you should have either kept it or destroyed it.
There's a reason why shredders exist. And if you don't want to use one, that's your choice. But then don't complain when people go rummaging through your garbage looking for credit card statements and pay stubs. You put that stuff out on the curb of your own free will.
Re:Small Difference (Score:5, Insightful)
The 4th Amendment to the US Constitution:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, 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.
Garbage may not be property per se, but it may also be (YMMV by state, I understand). However, the implication is that your "effects" are not to be improperly searched, which includes things you may not own- for example, the police can't search your rented home without a warrant and/or probable cause, even if you don't own the house. You don't necessarily have to own something for it to be protected from search under the 4th Amendment.
Buy a shredder (Score:5, Insightful)
Screw privacy: Speaking as someone who had my credit card numbers stolen from my trash, EVERYONE should have a shredder to shred bills. It's incredibly cheap insurance.
As far as people taking the rest of my garbage, they're welcome to it. Less I have to take to the curb!
Well, if they're not doing anything wrong... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're not doing anything wrong, then you shouldn't have anything to hide.
Re:They have every right (Score:5, Insightful)
If there is a problem with Judge's taking two weeks to sign a search warrant, then there is a problem with the judge and the system, not a reason to create 'special rights' for people who should not be considered 'special people.'
Just my 2c.
Re:If you... (Score:2, Insightful)
As for lowing paying jobs in general, how differnt would your life be without them? Have you thought about that? Chances are your daily life would turn upside down if these people did not show up to work one day. So, take a moment to thank the people smarter than you for invetning things like trains, planes & automobiles and thank those not as fortunate as you for pumping your gas, flipping your burgers and stocking the food at your local grocery store.
Re:They have every right (Score:5, Insightful)
Because being a policeman myself, I know that by the time a search warrant is signed off by a judge and executed (around a week), the trash will be long gone. So, the policeman have a perfectly valid arguement.
So you are claiming that the police should be allowed to ignore due process because "due process takes too long". Nice argument. Would you like to define "too long" for us. If a week is too long, how about 6 days? 5 days? The point was that the police (in this case) had absolutely no proof before they stole someones garbage and then had some of it analysed. Can I ask the relevance of testing a used sanitary pad for semen? Is being sexually active a crime? If so then I suspect a lot of us are in trouble... So, in this case they stole some garbage (not knowing what was in it) found some evidence and then considered due process. I suspect they didn't wait for a judge to sign a search warrant because any judge in his (or her) right mind would say "you want to search this persons garbage because you think it might contain some evidence to some crime that may have been committed, but you don't actually have any evidence at all. Just some rumours, innuendos and 'hunches'... Go away and come back when you have a clue."
The councilman have every right to call foul play, because the police are an investigation bureaucracy devoted to helping people (legally), while the reporters are going through garbage in order to report what bills the councilman paid last week (illegally).
Huh? The Mayor claimed foul play, the Chief of Police claimed foul play, the City Attorney cracked some jokes... The police (and we are talking Portland Police here) have been shown frequently to not be an "investigation bureaucracy devoted to helping people"... In fact some recently leaked documents show that that same police force performed various illegal investigations into all sorts of innocent citizens. Check the Portland Tribune coverage [portlandtribune.com] of this for details. The reporters did not say what bills were paid last week. They reported the contents of the three "victims" garbage and painted an interesting picture of their lives.
What I found scariest was that the Chief of Police threw internal police memos into his own trash. Surely these should be disposed of in a much more secure manner.
Z.
either everyone can do it, or no one can. (Score:3, Insightful)
What if a cop just doesn't like someone and is looking for a reason to book them? My I made the mistake of dating a cops ex-girlfriend. It's in the outside, in the open, in the garbage so probable cause is easy to "justify".
What if the person is part of a prosecuted social or political group? "We just know they had something to do with it but we need proof" mentality.
Again, How do you know these things in my garbage are really mine? How easy is it for a someone else to drop something illegal in my garbage?
Involuntary BLOOD SAMPLE (Score:5, Insightful)
The article (which was kindly copied by a decent slashdotter) said that the police not only took a fellow officer's garbage without her permission... they went further against the privacy of her body itself by using a bloody tampon as a drug test sample which led to her dismissal!
Folks, this is not a case of stolen "property". This is an involuntary medical examination; an invasion of privacy to the highest degree.
Re:Seems to me there is a difference... (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, the former are agents of the government, who are prohibited from doing certain things by the US Constitution AND the laws, while the latter are private citizens who are covered only by laws.
I think you missed the point completely. The police say that it is not stealing. They say that you've abandoned the trash and thus they do not need a search warrant to search it. If the police are correct, then it cannot be stealing for someone else to take the trash. The fact that you call it "stealing" only points out that you disagree with the cops.
What I haven't seen yet is how the cops are justifying entering the suspect's property to get to the trash to search it. The can belongs to me, and the driveway it sits on belongs to me. If they don't need to have a warrant to conduct a search ON my property without my permission, then just what is this 4th Amendment thing supposed to be all about?
Quite the contrary (Score:5, Insightful)
A policeman who does not follow due process is the greatest threat to lawfulness there is.
Contrarywise, a journalist going through the trash of a public official to find out the truth has long been held to be one of the *greatest* preservers of democratic law that there is. See the Pentagon Papers.Protections for such behaviours were specifically written into the Constitution.
The entire function of the Constitution is to *restrict* the actions of government and law enforcement and *empower* citizens.
Indeed, some of the restrictions on law enforcment ( such as it taking a week to get a warrant) were overtly written to make it impossible to effectively prosecute certain unjust laws. That's the frikkin' *point.*
I don't wonder why some polititians might object to this.
KFG
Re:this has been already laid out (Score:5, Insightful)
I lived in Portland until 6 months ago, and I Loved the WWeek's reporting. Mark Kroger (the police chief, one of the officials who got his garbage peeked at) calls the stunt "cheap" in the article, but people in government need to be kept in check by having exactly this kind of thing done by the press. WWeek is honest enough to spell out the fact that no scandalous material was uncovered, and thourough enough to print a full, detailed list of the "dirt" they did dig up. If I were religious, I'd thank God there are reporters out there willing to do this kind of thing.
Way to go WWeek! Three cheers for the Free Press. Great way to ring in the New Year!!
I got into a fight with a garbage guy once (Score:2, Insightful)
He wouldn't let me swipe it. I explained it was trash going to the landfill, he still said it was quite illegal. Couple minutes of protest got me nowhere. I would have used some whup-ass but I was only 14 or so at the time and this was a big fat smelly teamster looking guy...
But to this day I still have no idea why such a thing would be illegal. I think we need to pay the legislators less, they seem to have too much time on their hands...
Re:They have every right (Score:3, Insightful)
Hey, copper, GARBAGE IS FAIR GAME. It is not against the law to take someone else's garbage, because it is abandonned property left on the public way.
But of course, you're only a cop. A lawyer would be smart enough to be the difference.
Re:Buy a shredder (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't want to live in a world where I have to shred everything I throw away. My vote is for more privacy. Aside from the convinience, it's:
a.) not fair to make everyone buy a shredder: even if they're cheap, some people won't be able to afford them, and
b.) impossible to shred a tampon (see "blood sample" posts elsewhere).
This is a serious problem, and a shredder won't and shouldn't have to solve the problem!
Re:confused... (Score:2, Insightful)
Yup, welcome to America.
http://fear.org
Re:If you... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Buy a shredder (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't want to live in a world where I have to shred everything I throw away.
Well, I don't want to live in a world where people break into my house either, but I still have locks on my doors.
Something tells me that if a criminal isn't worried about using stolen credit card numbers, then they won't be worried about breaking some privacy laws either.
you're wrong (Score:2, Insightful)
This is ancient news. Heck, it was covered on the TV Show "Law & Order" 5 years ago or so.
You cease to have an interest in something when you put the garbage out. It becomes literally garbage.
Don't like it? Shred it? Or keep it. There are secure disposal companies you know.
How can something which doesn't even have value to you be considered valuable enough to protect?
Re:Involuntary BLOOD SAMPLE (Score:3, Insightful)
How do they know it was her tampon? Could have been a guests who used the bathroom.
Can they prove it was her garbage? Do they need to for court purposes?
Anyone can drop a bag of garbage on someone's lawn.
All in all, very very disturbing.
What about private trash collection? (Score:2, Insightful)
Clearly it has to become public at SOME point, right? You don't think it should be criminal for the people at the junkyard to, for instance, sift thru trash looking for soda bottles do you? Or rubber tires? I mean, you THREW IT AWAY, you SENT IT OFF via public servants to a public land, to be stored by agents of the state. Do you think you still "own" the trash you threw out in 2001? 1996? 1939? Why not? At WHAT POINT did you think you lost that ownership?
Anyway, like I said, I think it's sneaky, but I also think the Supreme Court made the only reasonable legal decision. Here's the bottom line: if you want to throw away something incriminating, break it apart, shread it, or what have you, first; take it to a public dumpster; no, take it in pieces to FIVE public dumpsters; better yet, don't throw it away in the first place.
It makes me wonder whether an entrepeneur could make money with a "private" trash collection scheme, where things are left on your driveway (private land), picked up by private trashmen, put in a private truck, and taken to a private landfill where things are (perhaps) stirred up, burned, crunched, and otherwise mangled before being burried forever -- where the government would have no rights to the stuff. Hmmm...
Re:hypocrites (Score:5, Insightful)
Jenna Bush's garbage is more likely to give away info that she gets stoned. The news stories on that would probably distract the president away from important duties even more than her kidnapping would.
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Why garbage men make more than teachers... (Score:1, Insightful)
The guys who collect your trash work are up at the butt-crack of dawn, freezing in the winter, roasting in the midday sun in the summer, collecting the smelly things we don't want in our houses anymore. They go back smelling like all of our garbage mixed with their own sweat.
How many of those teachers work as garbage collectors in the summer?
The Mayor's Criminal Actions (Score:5, Insightful)
If the chief got overheated, the mayor went nuclear. When we confessed that we had swiped her recycling, she summoned us to her chambers. "She wants you to bring the trash--and bring the name of your attorney," said her press secretary, Sarah Bott.
Ok, so she all but commands the reporter(s) to her office. Abuse of authority big-time, though you could argue that they didn't have to appear.
We filed into the mayor's private conference room. The atmosphere, chilly to begin with, turned arctic when the mayor marched in. She speared us each with a wounded glare, then hoisted the bin of newspaper and stalked out of the room--all without uttering a word.
If this is accurate and not missing any details then the mayor STOLE that material. After all, if the garbage is "open for trash men and pickers" then it belonged to the reporters. It was no longer the property of the mayor. So the mayor, under color of authority, robbed a reporter.
That is positively amazing.
George Bush's Garbage (Score:2, Insightful)
Probably nothing in there except for razor blades, dusty mirrors, pretzel bags and whiskey bottles. Maybe a Constitution or two.
Outrageous - - but legal (Score:1, Insightful)
Part of the rationale for the decision is found in the following line from the case: "It is common knowledge that plastic garbage bags left along a public street are readily accessible to animals, children, scavengers, snoops, and other members of the public."
So, yes, if you put out trash, anyone can get it -- even police and identity thieves.
Use your common sense here -- buy a shredder. Other stuff that might be incriminating? Don't throw it in your trash.
P.S. This news article illustrates one of the reasons why David Brin's thesis in the "Transparent Society" will never be right -- government will never allow the public to shine a light on activities that they'd rather we not know about. What do you want to bet that Portland passes a law making it a crime to go through someone else's garbage?
Good for the goose|gander, folks (Score:3, Insightful)
I think it's bogus to say that cops can rummage through trash without any oversite because they are officials, and reporters can't because they aren't. The fact that one is acting in an official, governmental capacity doesn't settle the issue at all! Cops are not necessarily good guys. The subjects of investigation are not necessarily bad guys. We have to watch the watchmen. Who does that better in our society than journalists?
Re:this has been already laid out (Score:1, Insightful)
California supreme court really screwed over your rights.
Do I expect my garbage men to go through my trash, yes. Do I expect them to analyze my trash, test blood samples, look for suspect criminal activities? NO. Unreasonable, i dont think so.
Its a shame, when common sense can be loop-holed. The whole purpose of the 4th amendment is to protect the citizens against unreasonable/unsupported searches. The police searching the garbage have no probable cause.
This is the exact reason the patriot act runs around the 4th amendment, they need to monitor everyones activity on the affirmation that there are criminal activities.
My head hurts...
Re:Buy a cat (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Need to pulverize all garbage... (Score:3, Insightful)
Remember: Nobody, nodoby!, knows all the laws that they are required to obey. This includes you.
State actor (Score:5, Insightful)
Good post. The actual legal term you're looking for here is "state actor".
It's not entirely accurate to say that "police have *fewer* rights than citizens", since as citizens themselves they have all the rights afforded to citizens. However, one power that citizens do not have is the power to arrest people and throw them in jail. That is reserved for (certain) state actors.
A state actor can (as a citizen) search your trash for crack pipes. But then he is doing it as a citizen, and not a state actor, because state actors are forbidden to do that. If the cop does find anything, he cannot follow through and arrest you any more than I can. However, being a citizen, he can put whatever he found on a web page or in a newspaper. There's certainly nothing wrong with that. Paparazzi take pictures through windows all the time. The Constitution does not protect you from paparazzi. Stuff like that is left up to legislation.
Most civil rights are defined as controls on the power of state actors- not citizens or private organizations. For example, a newspaper editor can fire a reporter for writing something he doesn't agree with. Since the newspaper is not a state actor, no First Amendment violation has taken place. This point seems to sail over the heads of most people when they bitch and moan about their First Amendment freedoms being violated by private citizens or organizations. Unless the cops are involved, the First Amendment issues are usually irrelevant. But this isn't always the case. For example, when a state university fires a professor for his political views, that is a First Amendment violation- because as a public institution the university is a state actor! The same rule wouldn't apply to, say, a Bible College that receives no public funds. It makes sense, but no wonder people are confused.
A cop is perfectly free to search your trash and put up a web site with pictures of everything he found, but if he then tries to prosecute you with what he found, a court will be obliged to throw it out. Unless you live in Portland, where judgeships are apparently being dispensed from Cracker Jack boxes. The article doesn't mention whether any Cracker Jack boxes were actually found in these people's garbage so I cannot speculate any further.
Re:Application to the Internet world... (Score:3, Insightful)
- Break in to a location with a computer that has a permanent or transient copy of the email (your house, ISP server farm, router farm, etc.); or
- Splice into a telecom company's trunk lines to intercept the message.
Either action is illegal, so the public isn't considered to have unfettered access to the email.A proper analogy would be to ask, if you send a letter through the USPS, is it accessible to the public? Even if it's unencrypted (hence making it analogous to a postcard), the answer is no. Only the intended recipient and employees of the USPS are able to access the letter legally. Any random individual who wanted to access that letter would have to:
- Break in to a location where the letter is physically stored (your house, the recipient's house, or a USPS office); or
- Intercept the letter en route (on a mail truck or plane, or in a mail carrier's possession after pickup or delivery).
But why am I telling you all this? This was all obvious, wasn't it?Re:hypocrites (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Oregon laws (Score:1, Insightful)
Really.
Also, Oregonians are ornery and like being different from other states. That's why, in a single day, a person in Oregon can (a) smoke pot for their painful illness, (b) have gas pumped for them free, (c) buy a magazine and not pay sales tax, and (d) end it all by taking some pills the doctor gave them.
I know I'm too late to be moderated or seen, but: (Score:5, Insightful)
This is just...evil?....sick?
Hypocracy has reached it's peak in the 'land of the free'. I'm just glad I don't live there. The problem of course is the old joke "When the end of the world comes, be glad you live in the Netherlands...it'll come six months later".
After the PATRIOT acts I was amazed. After the Homeland Security act I was frightened. Now I'm just scared. Call me naive, but this is just freaky scary.
I knew that science fiction writers are prophets of a sort. What they qwrite is what people aspire to. Case in point, Isaac Asimov, William Gibson. People read their work, and aspire to create giant Manga robots, the internet, geosynchronous satelites. What sci-fi predict comes to pass, because young kids think it's cool, and thionk of that for the rest of their life. But they also have nightmares...and this is one.
Maybe it's the champange, but this double standard scares the shit out of me. This just shouldn't happen. In the seventies, people marched against a war which didn't really even effect them. But now the problems are at home, and no-one gives a peep!?!? WTF!?
That's really all I can say...wtf!?!?
People, posting on
Re:George Bush's Garbage (Score:3, Insightful)
Not saying that the curbside seizure is right, but you can take steps to insure that noone can get at your garbage, it is just a matter of if you want to spend the time, money or effort.
Re:hypocrites (Score:3, Insightful)
When you get down to it, policemen (and women) are just people. And if they can't get enough cause to get a warrant to search your garbage, then they shouldn't even be thinking about you as a suspect.
Garbage is dangerous (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Involuntary BLOOD SAMPLE (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't agree with that. As someone else pointed out, if you want your trash handled in a secure manner, you either need to do it yourself, or contract with someone else to do it. Most trash companies have no obligation to keep the trash they have collected from you, which is now their property, private.
Re:hypocrites (Score:3, Insightful)
The police are NOT given the power to break the law. The police are expected to uphold the law while doing their job.
Re:hypocrites (Score:3, Insightful)
Wrong back atcha. A law enforcement official is subject to the same laws of trespass as any other citizen. That's kinda why they need a warrant to search someone's private property.
There are exceptions to this, involving blanket warrants in the case of emergency or if the possibility exists that someone's life is in danger. Other then the few exceptions, the police have no more right to your private property than a journalist has. What's worse is that evidence taken from a private residence without a warrant, no matter how guilty someone might be, will be thrown out in court.
This IS the point of the actions taken. To point out the fact that the police are over stepping the consititutionally established boundaries of the 4th amendment. Allowing unwarranted search and seizure to go unchecked weakens civil liberties as well as the successful prosecution of those that really should see time behind bars. There's no win here for anyone.
Re:2600 Mag (Score:3, Insightful)
right, I think it's more the publishing what they found that was the issue (something the cops don't do).
Unless they (the cops) find something 'interesting'. In that case, they'll get a warrant and toss the contents of your home upside down looking for something more interesting.
If they find nothing more (perhaps because 'your' trash contained 'evidence' thrown into your can by someone else), you're left with a house looking like a disaster area and a lot of gawking neighbors who won't be convinced that the police found nothing. At this point, you might expect that the police would pay for the damages and trouble and tell your neighbors it was all a mistake, but you'd be wrong.
I do think you're on to a decent distinction that gets to the heart of how we REALLY feel about our trash.
We do not want the contents of the trash at all, just as the law assumes. If someone wants any of the physical items for themselves, we generally don't mind if they help themselves. However, when we put the trash out, we are definatly not in our minds willingly publishing all of the personal information that may be inferred by digging through it.
We expect that it will be picked up by someone who sees us as just another anonymous can on the curb and mixed in with everyone else's trash. Anything a 'garbologist' might determine about the population as a whole doesn't matter to us because we are rendered anonymous in the aggregate.
The actions of these reporters and others like them may be exactly what is needed to get the courts to revisit the issue and make that distinction about exactly what we have freely relinquished by taking the trash out.
Alternativly, they may help fuel demand for trash service where the trash is placed in a locked box on our property with the trash collectors (and only the trash collectors) contracturally permitted to take posession for the purpose of disposal only.
Yet another alternative (slow to develop but quite possible) would be a common neighborhood dump where we mix our trash with our neighbors' to at least gain reletive anonymity in aggregate.