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."
Good Lord! (Score:4, Funny)
Are they being hosted by that "webserver-on-a-gameboy" guy, or what?
Re:Good Lord! (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Good Lord! (Score:4, Funny)
Ah, the price of being witty on /. :)
Anthro (Score:5, Interesting)
The lying on these surveys is astounding.
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:Anthro (Score:5, Interesting)
"When someone in your house reads a porno mag, does s/he toss it when it's soiled, or keep it?"
"... no one in this house reads pornos."
Next garbage day, I find that my informants not only toss the pornos, but toss them when they appear to be unsoiled! Not that I investigate too closely, mind you...
THis is a fictional account of how one might design a simple study that 1) wasn't full of sh1t, and 2) reveals some truths about the consumption patterns of the house in question. It's all about how you ask; good questions are hard to think up, and that's more than 90% of good anthropology.
Now, using dumpster diving to make a point about inconsistent standards in privacy, that doesn't require any good study design standards at all. Moral inconsistencies are really easy to reveal, and even clueless laymen (read: willie week reporters) can pull it off without a sweat.
However, don't write off the truths that can be found in the garbage just because not *every* study that involves trash is done with rigor - good design goes a lot further than nifty jscript menus.
(no, anthro isn't a science. just wanted to get that out of the way. of course, that doesn't mean that it can't establish truths in a rigorous manner...)
Re:are you mad or stupid? (Score:4, Informative)
All of these studies only estimate probabilities. Any statement that claims more of them needs to be examined quite closely. Usually it will turn out to be someone oversimplifying to ease the flow of communication, and still get something approximating the correct answer across.
So single instances (i.e., the results from single subjects) don't provide much certainty. You need a larger database. The noise level is never zero. And probabilistic inferences are almost inevitably required. So, yes, the low probability occurances happen, and skew the data. But they are infrequent, and occur in different directions.
Re:Anthro (Score:3, Funny)
really? I've always thought that telling the truth
on those surveys was a bit odd. I mean, what's my
incentive for giving true answers?
Need to pulverize all garbage... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Fraud? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Fraud? (Score:3, Informative)
I understand this. But it still CAN be re-constructed. There is a person within the intelligence community whose job it is to verify shredders. You put a blank sheet through, clean the rollers and cutting blades, then pass though a test sheet. This sheet is then collected in its entirety in a bag and send to this person. They then try to re-assemble the test sheet. Consequently I trust very few shredders.
And the shredder I am talking about has a security rating of TOP SECRET. It cuts and cross cuts, with the resulting cut sized about one/half millimeter by 4 millimeters. This shredder I trust.
ashes are intact
Not after I get through mixing them around, burning wood with them, and pouring water on the fire. I do this once a year on the annual camping trip.
Re:Fraud? (Score:3, Interesting)
The problem doesnt become easy, but it does become a lot easier. And compared to cracking crypto it becomes downright simple.
Not that I've ever seen such a device, but I'd be rather surprised if some government agencies did not have something like that.
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.
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?
Re:hypocrites (Score:4, Interesting)
People despise one-way mirrors for perfectly valid reasons, and I hope the magnifying glass stays focused on those behind it until it's replaced with transparent glass, or brick. (ick... this analogy needs work :)
--
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.
-
Re:hypocrites (Score:3, Informative)
Jenna Bush's garbage is more likely to give away info that she gets stoned.
Jenna Bush: likely drunk,
Noelle Bush: likely stoned.
Keep it straight.
Re:hypocrites (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
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: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.
If you... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:If you... (Score:5, Informative)
they actually make like 25-30/hour, at least in Nevada they do.
NYC (Score:3, Informative)
Re:If you... (Score:5, Interesting)
Not to disparage the work of sanitation engineers, but I think teachers should make at least as much...
Garbage is dangerous (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:If you... (Score:3, Informative)
From The Western States Petroleum Association [wspa.org]:
Small Difference (Score:2, Insightful)
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:Small Difference -- NOT (Score:3)
I believe that courts have routinely ruled that once you put your garbage on the street, it isn't yours anymore. IMHO, anybody -- cops, reporters, garbage collects, dumpster divers -- are be free to go through it. I might not like it, but I threw it out. It ain't mine no more.
Re:Small Difference -- NOT (Score:3, Interesting)
believe that courts have routinely ruled that once you put your garbage on the street, it isn't yours anymore. IMHO, anybody -- cops, reporters, garbage collects, dumpster divers -- are be free to go through it. I might not like it, but I threw it out. It ain't mine no more.
You may be correct about what the courts have ruled (I don't know if there's clear case law or precedent set) but that does not mean that the police can use a search of your trash to compile evidence against you. Law enforcement is and must be held to a higher standard; searches of your garbage by police seeking evidence of a crime, is, in my opinion, tantamount to a search of your effects, and should be protected under the 4th Amendment.
And as I stated above, the 4th Amendment does not only apply to things you own yourself. Rented houses, leased cars, and other items you don't own are protected from search by government officials- why not your trash?
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.
Privacy and ownership aren't the same. (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm no lawyer, but it looks as if you're going strong. Keep going: a logical extension might be something like this: Your ownership interests and your privacy interests are not identical, and you may have a privacy interest in something which you never owned, or in something which you no longer own.
As a serious dumpster diver, the idea that your trash remains your property bugs me. Does that mean that if I go to the dumpster and grab something good, I'm stealing? When does it STOP being yours? If your trash is spilled on the way to the dump, are YOU the litter-bug?
We shouldn't confuse ownership with privacy. As you were on the verge of pointing out, they are different.
The difference is if we try to assert ownership in order to assert privacy, we have to screw up a lot of existing arrangements which are perfectly satisfactory. If we try to assert privacy without regard to ownership, we might do ourselves some good.
2600 Mag (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:2600 Mag (Score:3, Interesting)
Also, it doesn't hurt to say you are a college student looking for hardware to practice on. I got a guy to go back in his house and give me to stuff he wasn't planning on trashing.
Re:2600 Mag (Score:3)
I live in a city and behind my building is a dumpster that gets picked through by at least 10 homeless people every day (sad but true). I have never seen a cop hassle any of them over it.
A while ago there was a citizens group that tried to get a ban enforced claiming that some of these people are identity thieves looking for personal information with which to get credit cards, etc...
they didn't get it though...
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.
Pointdexter (Score:2)
text from site (Score:4, Informative)
Portland's top brass said it was OK to swipe your garbage--so we grabbed theirs.
by CHRIS LYDGATE AND NICK BUDNICK
clydgate@wweek.com
nbudnick@wweek.com
Web-only content:
Vera Katz's press release
Stories that have appeared in other media
KATU
The Oregonian
It's past midnight. Over the whump of the wipers and the screech of the fan belt, we lurch through the side streets of Southeast Portland in a battered white van, double-checking our toolkit: flashlight, binoculars, duct tape, scissors, watch caps, rawhide gloves, vinyl gloves, latex gloves, trash bags, 30-gallon can, tarpaulins, Sharpie, notebook--notebook?
Well, yes. Technically, this is a journalistic exercise--at least, that's what we keep telling ourselves. We're upholding our sacred trust as representatives of the Fourth Estate. Comforting the afflicted, afflicting the comfortable. Pushing the reportorial envelope--by liberating the trash of Portland's top brass.
We didn't dream up this idea on our own. We got our inspiration from the Portland police.
Back in March, the police swiped the trash of fellow officer Gina Hoesly. They didn't ask permission. They didn't ask for a search warrant. They just grabbed it. Their sordid haul, which included a bloody tampon, became the basis for drug charges against her (see "Gross Violation," below).
The news left a lot of Portlanders--including us--scratching our heads. Aren't there rules about this sort of thing? Aren't citizens protected from unreasonable search and seizure by the Fourth Amendment?
The Multnomah County District Attorney's Office doesn't think so. Prosecutor Mark McDonnell says that once you set your garbage out on the curb, it becomes public property.
"She placed her garbage can out in the open, open to public view, in the public right of way," McDonnell told Judge Jean Kerr Maurer earlier this month. "There were no signs on the garbage, 'Do not open. Do not trespass.' There was every indication...she had relinquished her privacy, possessory interest."
Police Chief Mark Kroeker echoed this reasoning. "Most judges have the opinion that [once] trash is put out...it's trash, and abandoned in terms of privacy," he told WW.
In fact, it turns out that police officers throughout Oregon have been rummaging through people's trash for more than three decades. Portland drug cops conduct "garbage pulls" once or twice per month, says narcotics Sgt. Eric Schober.
On Dec. 10, Maurer rubbished this practice. Scrutinizing garbage, she declared, is an invasion of privacy: The police must obtain a search warrant before they swipe someone's trash.
"Personal and business correspondence, photographs, personal financial information, political mail, items related to health concerns and sexual practices are all routinely found in garbage receptacles," Maurer wrote. The fact that a person has put these items out for pick-up, she said, "does not suggest an invitation to others to examine them."
But local law enforcement officials pooh-poohed the judge's decision.
"This particular very unique and very by-herself judge took a position not in concert with the other judges who had given us instruction by their decisions across the years," said Kroeker.
The District Attorney's Office agreed and vowed to challenge the ruling.
The question of whether your trash is private might seem academic. It's not. Your garbage can is like a trap door that opens on to your most intimate secrets; what you toss away is, in many ways, just as revealing as what you keep.
And your garbage can is just one of the many places where your privacy is being pilfered. In the wake of 9/11, the U.S. government has granted itself far-reaching new powers to spy on you, from email to bank statements to video cameras (see "Big Brother's in Your Trash Can," below).
After much debate, we resolved to turn the tables on three of our esteemed public officials. We embarked on an unauthorized sightseeing tour of their garbage, to make a point about how invasive a "garbage pull" really is--and to highlight the government's ongoing erosion of people's privacy.
We chose District Attorney Mike Schrunk because his office is the most vocal defender of the proposition that your garbage is up for grabs. We chose Police Chief Mark Kroeker because he runs the bureau. And we chose Mayor Vera Katz because, as police commissioner, she gives the chief his marching orders.
Each, in his or her own way, has endorsed the notion that you abandon your privacy when you set your trash out on the curb. So we figured they wouldn't mind too much if we took a peek at theirs.
Boy, were we wrong.
Perched in his office on the 15th floor of the Justice Center, Chief Kroeker seemed perfectly comfortable with the idea of trash as public property.
"Things inside your house are to be guarded," he told WW. "Those that are in the trash are open for trash men and pickers and--and police. And so it's not a matter of privacy anymore."
Then we spread some highlights from our haul on the table in front of him.
"This is very cheap," he blurted out, frowning as we pointed out a receipt with his credit-card number, a summary of his wife's investments, an email prepping the mayor about his job application to be police chief of Los Angeles, a well-chewed cigar stub, and a handwritten note scribbled in pencil on a napkin, so personal it made us cringe. We also drew his attention to a newsletter from the conservative political advocacy group Focus on the Family, addressed to "Mr. & Mrs. Mark Kroeker."
"Are you a member of Focus on the Family?" we asked.
"No," the chief replied.
"Is your wife?"
"You know," he said, with a Clint Eastwood gaze, "it's none of your business."
As we explained our thinking, the chief, who is usually polite to a fault, cut us off in midsentence. "OK," he said, suddenly standing up, "we're done."
Hours later, the chief issued a press release complaining that WW had gone through "my personal garbage at my home." KATU promptly took to the airwaves declaring, "Kroeker wants Willamette Week to stay out of his garbage."
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.
Actually, we couldn't snatch Katz's garbage, because she keeps it right next to her house, well away from the sidewalk. To avoid trespassing, we had to settle for a bin of recycling left out front.
The day after our summons, Wednesday, Dec. 18, we trudged down to City Hall, stack of newsprint in hand. A gaggle of TV and radio reporters were waiting to greet us, tipped off by high-octane KXL motor-mouth Lars Larson.
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.
A few moments later, her office issued a prepared statement. "I consider Willamette Week's actions in this matter to be potentially illegal and absolutely unscrupulous and reprehensible," it read. "I will consider all my legal options in response to their actions."
In contrast, DA Mike Schrunk was almost playful when we owned up to nosing through his kitchen scraps. "Do I have to pay for this week's garbage collection?" he joked.
We told Schrunk that we intended to report that his garbage contained mementos of his military service. "Don't burn me on that," he implored. "The Marine Corps will shoot me!"
It's worth emphasizing that our junkaeological dig unearthed no whiff of scandal. Based on their throwaways, the chief, the DA and the mayor are squeaky-clean, poop-scooping folks whose private lives are beyond reproach. They emerge from this escapade smelling like--well, coffee grounds.
But if three moral, upstanding, public-spirited citizens were each chewing their nails about the secrets we might have stumbled on, how the hell should the rest of us be feeling?
HAUL OF FAME
Decked out in watch caps and rubber gloves, we are kneeling in a freezing garage and cradling our first major discovery--a five-pound bag of dog poo.
We set it down next to the rest of our haul from District Attorney Mike Schrunk's trash--the remains of Thanksgiving turkey, the mounting stack of his granddaughter's diapers, the bag of dryer lint, the tub of Skippy peanut butter, and the shredded bag of peanut M&Ms.
There is something about poking through someone else's garbage that makes you feel dirty, and it's not just the stench and the flies. Scrap by scrap, we are reverse-engineering a grimy portrait of another human being, reconstituting an identity from his discards, probing into stuff that is absolutely, positively none of our damn business.
It's one thing to revel in the hallowed tradition of muckraking. It's another to get down on your hands and knees and nose through wads of someone else's Kleenex. Is this why our parents sent us to college? So we could paw through orange peels and ice-cream tubs and half-eaten loaves of bread?
And yet, there is also something seductive, almost intoxicating, about being a Dumpster detective. For example, we spot a clothing tag marked "44/Regular." Then we find half of a torn receipt from Meier & Frank for $262.99. Then we find the other half, which reads: "MENS SU 3BTN." String it together, and we deduce that Schrunk plunked down $262.99 for a size-44 three-button suit at Meier & Frank on Saturday, Nov. 16, at 9:35 am.
We are getting to know Portland's top prosecutor from the inside out. Here's an empty bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label. There's a pile of castoff duds from his days as a Marine. Is he going "soft" on terrorism!?
Chinese takeout boxes and junk-food wrappers testify to a busy lifestyle with little time to cook. A Post-it note even lays bare someone's arithmetic skills (the addition is solid, but the long division needs work).
Our haul from Mayor Vera Katz is limited to a stack of newsprint from her recycling bin--her garbage can was well out of reach--but we assemble several clues to her intellectual leanings. We find overwhelming evidence that the Mayor reads The Oregonian, The Washington Post National Weekly Edition, U.S. Mayor and the Portland Tribune.
We also stumble across a copy of TV Click in which certain programs have been circled in municipal red. If we're not mistaken, the mayor has a special fondness for dog shows, figure skating and The West Wing.
Our inspection of Chief Kroeker's refuse reveals that he is a scrupulous recycler. He is also a health nut. We find a staggering profusion of health-food containers: fat-free milk cartons, fat-free cereal boxes, cans of milk chocolate weight-loss shakes, cans of Swanson chicken broth ("99% fat free!"), water bottles, a cardboard box of protein bars, tubs of low-fat cottage cheese, a paper packet of oatmeal, and an article on "How to Live a Long Healthy Life."
At the same time, we find evidence of rust in the chief's iron self-discipline: wrappers from See's chocolate bars, an unopened bag of Doritos, a dozen perfectly edible fun-size Nestle Crunch bars, three empty Coke cans.
We unearth a crate that once contained 12 bottles of Cook's California sparkling wine, but find no trace of the bottles themselves. Is the chief building a pyramid of them on the mantelpiece? We stack the crate beside a pair of white children's socks, a broken pen, the stub of an Excalibur 1066 cigar, burnt toast, a freezer bag of date bars, orange peel, coffee grounds, a cork, an empty film canister (no weed--we checked), eggshells, Q tips, tissue paper and copious quantities of goo.
We uncrumple a holiday flier from the Hinson Memorial Baptist Church, which contains a handwritten note: "Mark. Just want you to know one Latin from Manhattan Loves You."
Invasion of privacy? This is a frontal assault, a D-Day, a Norman Conquest of privacy. We know the chief's credit-card number; we know where he buys his groceries; we know how much toilet tissue he goes through. We know whose Christmas cards he has pitched, whose wedding he skipped, whose photo he threw away. We know what newsletters he gets and how much he's socked away in the stock market. We even know he's thinking about a new car--and which models he's considering.
By the time we tag the last item (a lonesome Christmas tree angel), our noses are running and our gloves are black with gunk. We scrub our hands when we get home. But we still feel dirty. --CL
WHAT WE FOUND
POLICE CHIEF MARK KROEKER
* Empty containers and wrappers: Kodiak Washington pears, Washington "extra fancy" fancy lady peaches, Oasis Floral Foam bricks ("Worth Insisting Upon") (2), Kashi Go Lean! cereal, Sunshine fat-free milk, Kirkland Signature weight-loss shake, fat-free Swanson Chicken Broth, mandarin oranges, Coca-Cola, Diet Coke, Arrowhead water bottle, Cook's California sparkling-wine box, fried apples, cheese rolls, Bounty paper towels 15-roll pack, Kirkland facial tissue, 12-pack Dove soap, Quaker oatmeal, See's candy bars, lady's razors, Dentyne Ice chewing gum, Vivant zesty vegetable crackers.
* Hershey's Cookies n Crème mini-bars, uneaten (3).
* Several Oregonian issues, still folded.
* Email correspondence between chief and Mayor Katz's staff in which he preps them on what to tell Los Angeles officials regarding his application to be chief there.
* Rough draft, internal police memo.
* Various cash-register receipts.
* Half-full bag of fun-size Nestle Crunch bars.
* Slice of burnt toast.
* Photocopy of WW Nov. 13 "Murmurs" item on chief, hand-dated in blue pen, reporting scuttlebutt that Katz has "taken over the day-to-day running of the Police Bureau."
* Half-smoked stub of an Excalibur 1066 cigar.
* Paper cups from Starbucks and Torrefazione.
* Pears, lettuce, grapes, bread, eggshells, goo, potato salad, wire hangers, a 75 watt light bulb, orange peels, coffee grounds, wine cork, dish rag, film canister, used Q-Tips.
* Half-eaten protein bar, still in wrapper.
* Newsletter from Focus on the Family, a conservative political group. Insert, addressed to "Mr. & Mrs. Mark Kroeker." Insert asks for "one last year-end contribution."
* Photos of chief and a bare-chested man moving a large appliance.
* Creased wedding photo of a prominent Portlander.
* Broken pen.
* Three envelopes from California, hand-addressed, sent on consecutive days.
* Notice from mortgage company for payment.
* Internet printout of "How to Live a Long Healthy Life."
* Postcard from friend vacationing in Arizona.
* Post-it with notes about a new car.
* Extremely personal note on dinner napkin, handwritten in pencil.
* Account summary from Fidelity Investments for the chief's wife.
MAYOR VERA KATZ
* Trader Joe's "Happy Holidays" paper bag.
* Several issues of The Oregonian.
* Several issues of The Washington Post National Weekly Edition.
* A copy of U.S. Mayor (a monthly magazine devoted to mayors).
* A copy of TV Click. Someone has marked several programs in red, including Wargame: Iraq, Simulated National Security Council meetings, MSNBC; Everwood: Ephram tries to revive his mother's Thanksgiving traditions, KWBP; CSI Miami: A dead man is found hanging from a tree, KOIN; Life with Bonnie on KATU; The West Wing on KGW; The National Dog Show on KGW; Figure skating: ISU Cup of Russia, ESPN; Biography: "Audrey Hepburn, the Fairest Lady," A&E: Figure skating: ICE WARS: USA vs. The World, KOIN.
* Several issues of the Portland Tribune.
* Daily Journal of Commerce from Dec. 3, 2002.
DISTRICT ATTORNEY MIKE SCHRUNK
* Empty containers and wrappers: Cozy Fleece Baby Blanket, Bee Cleaners, Nibblets Corn and Butter, Johnnie Walker Black Label, Fred Meyer unflavored gelatin, Burger King beverage cup and straw, possible Chinese takeout (lots), Dreyer's Mocha Almond Fudge ice cream, Skippy peanut butter (creamy), Land's End, Fred Meyer green beans, Campbell's Chunky New England Clam Chowder with 100-watt bulb inside, Meier & Frank, Jelly Belly jelly beans, Foster Farms boneless and skinless Oregon chicken thighs.
* Coffee grounds.
* Used pekoe tea bags, many.
* Used Christmas napkins, used Kleenex, used Q-Tips.
* Remains of Thanksgiving turkey carcass, drumstick intact.
* Remnants of roast beef.
* Soiled baby diapers.
* Plastic bags containing dog poo, very clean, with some blades of grass (2).
* Bag of dryer lint.
* Christmas wrapping paper.
* Orange peels, empty Millstone coffee bag, containing two very ripe but uneaten bananas, two half-eaten loaves of wheat bread.
* Disposable razors.
* Remnants of peanut M&Ms bag.
* Energizer AA batteries (2), wrapped in plastic bag.
* Shopping lists.
* Baseball cap with crustacean emblem: "DON'T BOTHER ME. I'm CRABBY."
* Baseball cap for Outward Bound.
* Baseball cap with embroidered green fish.
* Military khaki shirts with "SCHRUNK" embroidered on pocket and collar (4).
* Jacket, olive drab, with fading stencils of "USMC" and "Schrunk."
* Yellow Post-it note with sample of someone's arithmetic: The addition is successful (54 + 32 = 86), but the long division of 32 divided by 6 comes up a little bit wide, at 5.4.
Gross Violation
Officer Gina Hoesly has long had less privacy than the average cop, thanks to the Portland Police Bureau's rumor mill.
Hoesly (below), 34, has dated rock musicians, other cops and Portland Trail Blazers. She's had breast implants and once posed for a photo on a website selling motorcycle gear--badpig.com--showing plenty of skin. In 1996, she won a $20,000 settlement from the bureau in a sexual-harassment claim based on behavior by her co-workers. But none of that comes close to the scrutiny she received in March, when fellow officers rifled through her garbage. The evidence they found led to her indictment on charges of possessing ecstasy, cocaine and methamphetamine.
Hoesly, a 13-year police officer who occasionally was an undercover decoy in police prostitution stings, became the subject of an investigation early this year, when she told police she'd been assaulted by her ex-boyfriend, Joshua David Rodriguez. Rodriguez has a history of drug arrests and convictions, and when officers booked him on assault charges, they found meth in his pocket.
Subsequently police began investigating Hoesly, hearing rumors from police informants that she had used drugs. On March 13 at 2:07 am, narcotics officers Jay Bates and Michael Krantz took her garbage. The order to do so came from Assistant Chief Andrew Kirkland, who dated Hoesly in the early '90s.
Searching through her trash back at Central Precinct, they found traces of cocaine and methamphetamine, as well as drug paraphernalia. They also found a bloody tampon. They sent a piece of the tampon to the state crime lab, where forensics experts tested it for drugs, DNA and, for reasons that remain unclear, semen. The results of those tests have not been released.
The police didn't seek a search warrant to take Hoesly's trash because, as the Multnomah County District Attorney's office conceded, officers didn't at the time have sufficient evidence to convince a judge to issue a warrant. But once they had drug residue from Hoesly's trash, officers were able to persuade Judge Dorothy Baker to issue a search warrant for Hoesly's house. Inside, they found more paraphernalia and a diary that described apparent drug use. An indictment was issued in June.
Hoesly, who is currently on medical leave and at the time of her arrest was in the process of medically retiring, pleaded not guilty and hired criminal-defense lawyer Stephen Houze. Like a Labrador smelling leftover turkey, Houze promptly zeroed in on the grabbing of her garbage. He argued that under Oregon's Constitution, privacy rights extend to someone's trash--at least until it's picked up by trash haulers. The used tampon "goes to the heart of just what an outrageous violation of privacy rights this police search was," Houze said. "If the police will do this to a police officer, who won't they do it to?"
Not only that, he said, but if garbage is up for grabs, "There will be identity thieves lining up out there on every garbage day, knowing they can [take trash] with impunity."
The Hoesly case is not unprecedented. In 1997, police poked in the trash of David Peters, a star prosecutor for Multnomah County, and found cocaine residue, which was used to obtain a search warrant. Unlike Hoesly, he was not indicted; instead, he was fined and allowed to enter court diversion to maintain a clean record.
In a hearing on Dec. 10, Judge Jean Kerr Maurer agreed with Houze, issuing a ruling that said the cops' taking of trash was illegal. Senior Deputy District Attorney Mark McDonnell immediately said his office would challenge the ruling. --NB
Big Brother's in Your Trash Can
The government is essentially going through your trash every day, says Evan Hendricks, publisher of Privacy Times, a Washington, D.C., newsletter. "They just don't have to get their hands dirty.
In the past 16 months, thanks to measures contained in the Patriot Act, the Homeland Security Act and the creation of the Total Information Awareness office, our government has turned into a bad Oliver Stone movie--you know, where a cabal of conservative spooks takes over and suddenly Big Brother is in charge.
No longer do the Feds need to meet the evidentiary standard of "probable cause" to initiate an investigation or start amassing information on you. Nor do they need to show any evidence of a link to terrorism. All they need to do, in short, is say they find you suspicious. They don't need to tell a judge why.
"This administration really represents a combination of Reaganism and McCarthyism--though they're not chasing Communists, they're chasing people that they call 'terrorists,'" says Hendricks, who grew up in Portland. "They're expanding their power and intimidating people to sort of go along or be afraid of being accused of being soft on terrorism."
The October 2001 enactment of the USA Patriot Act opened the door to domestic and Internet surveillance, as well as warrantless, covert "sneak and peek" searches. Then, on Nov. 19, 2002, Congress approved the Homeland Security Act, which Sen. Pat Leahy (D-Vt.) called the "most severe weakening of the Freedom of Information Act in its 36-year history."
The HSA also created the Total Information Awareness office, whose logo, taken from the back of the dollar bill, is of a pyramid with an eye on top, looking down at the globe. Headed by Iran-Contra co-conspirator Admiral John Poindexter, the agency will "mine" commercial databases, including magazine subscriptions and book purchases, to spy on American citizens. It plans to use this information to profile likely terrorist supporters; it also wants to deploy video camera and facial-recognition surveillance systems.
"The Pentagon basically wants to knock down the walls to all private-sector records and plug into them," says Hendricks. "And trash is like a microcosm of what you get: the bills people pay, what they buy at the store, the packages they throw out. The government is proposing more systematic surveillance of databases that have the same information."
How do they define who is a likely terrorist supporter? Sorry, but that's a secret. Attorney General John Ashcroft has given federal agencies free rein to reject information requests, with the assurance that his Department of Justice would defend the agencies no matter what.
Civil-liberties advocates point to the inherent danger in granting the government such sweeping power. Declassified documents have shown myriad abuses by law-enforcement agencies involved in domestic spying in the '60s, '70s and '80s, including in Portland. In 1997, a Washington, D.C., police official used video surveillance of people coming and going from a gay bar to try to blackmail married men. And studies of camera systems in Britain found that they were used to target minorities for increased police attention, while women caught on camera were often targeted for voyeuristic reasons, with male camera operators panning over them for purposes of ogling.
Small wonder that even conservatives such as Rep. Dick Armey, Sen. Charles Grassley and New York Times columnist William Safire are going ballistic. Attorney General Ashcroft is "out of control," and the federal government has "no credibility" on protecting individuals' privacy, said Armey, who has even volunteered to do consulting work for the ACLU on privacy issues upon his retirement.
"You Are a Suspect" was the title of Safire's Nov. 14 column on the Total Information Awareness program, which he called a "supersnoop's dream" and a "sweeping theft of privacy rights." --NB
Re:text from site (Score:5, Funny)
Error connecting to site
The Proxomitron couldn't connect to...
www.wweek.com/flatfiles/News3485.lasso
The site may be busy or the web server may be down.
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.
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?GIGO... (Score:5, Funny)
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:Seems to me there is a difference... (Score:4, Funny)
JOhn
Re:Seems to me there is a difference... (Score:3, Informative)
Most garbage, and the garbage in question in the article, is left "curbside". Curbside generally includes the sidewalk and everything between it and the street. Although the property is "owned" by an individual who is responsible for its upkeep, it is considered a public right-of-way in all other respects. It's yours, but by purchasing the land you have granted an "easement" to the public utilities and local government to use it. Normal uses include sidewalk maintenance, laying electrical, cable, or telephone lines, and maintaining sewers (although sewers are usually under the street, with a demarcation point within your easement to your individual home). If garbage is not collected from within that easement, usually the garbage collection company requires that you sign a document granting them an easement to enter your property to obtain your refuse.
In this case the police simply arranged for the regular garbage collectors to pick up the trash as usual, but deliver it to them specially rather than take it to the dump. No question about police entering private property without a warrant -- the garbage had already been picked up and held aside by the workers who are supposed to do it.
As far as civil rights goes, yeah, it's probably an invasion of privacy for someone to go through your trash. I'd lump it right in there with a credit card company knowing every purchase you make using a card, though.
link to the story that hasn't be slashdotted...yet (Score:3, Informative)
Has to be done (Score:3, Funny)
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!
Into the fire! (Score:3)
Re:Buy a cat (Score:3, 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.
this has been already laid out (Score:5, Informative)
As far as the city getting annoyed at the journalists, they can be annoyed, but I doubt there is much they can do about it, for much the same reason that the police can rummage though trash.
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!!
Re:this has been already laid out (Score:3, Interesting)
I disagree. People should be able to discard all evidence of wrong doing so that they can maintain their freedom!
Okay, bad time for a joke like that. I half agree. Ever hear of a 'search warrant'? Due process? If the city has a search warrant to go through my garbage, that's fine. The ability to do it willy nilly is wrong. Fortunately, WW proved to the right people why it's wrong. It's nosey.
There are matters of privacy here. What if they found a pair of panties a little too small for the politician's wife? Funny? Yes. Our business? No.
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.
Reasoning... (Score:3, Interesting)
We did this already?I (Score:5, Informative)
The police or anyone can take trash at curbside, as it is considered abandoned. CA v. Greenwood [cornell.edu]
It gets stickier in the "curtilage" area of the property left open to trash collectors to come in for the garbage. See Greenwood. IIRC curb versus curtilage was the distinction in this Oregon case between the two trash takings?
Warrant is otherwise required unless a 4th A. exception applies such as exigency or evanescent evidence. (If these interest you, do a search or try nolo.com.
States or local authorities can set the 4th Amendment bar higher if they like, that is they can require greater restraint. I don't know of any that have done so offhand -- perhaps yours.
Re:We did this already?I (Score:3, Interesting)
The modern Court does not always rule against the 4th A. (as in the Kyllo thermal imaging case [go.com] -- see this proposal [nasa.gov] to use satellite surveillance!) but it has given it a pretty hard time.
Note even without Greenwood, a workaround would not be difficult. Most trash collection and landfills are handled by the gov't; they could require you to sign off any property rights as a condition of collection or disposal. You also need to draw a line somewhere that abandonment has occurred even without the consent of the owner -- for example, in most places that car of yours if left parked more than a certain amount of time (48 hours in Boston) could be ticketed, towed and impounded as abandoned (no, this doesn't mean you've lost ownership, but they can search it for inventory pursuant to impoundment to guard against claims of theft. They would then notify you, and if you don't claim it your ownership right would lapse.) Do you expect your ownership right in the garbage in the dump to persist forever? That could have some unexpected consequences, like if it becomes a Superfund site.
Oh yeah, they could always try to get a warrant, too... But showing probable cause is a drag.
Your disagreement is not with me but the SC! And perhaps with your state, for not imposing greater privacy standards which would at least restrict state actors.
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:Involuntary BLOOD SAMPLE (Score:5, Interesting)
Liberal nonsense. Obviously, if this lady cop actually wanted to retain her constituational rights, she should have known better than to put her used tampons in the trash. Instead, she should be stockpiling her tampons like all good freedom-loving American women do.
Seriously, though, this is just another example of an alarming trend in American law: The destruction of rights via the control chokepoints.
For example, if a cop pulls you over on the road, you cannot refuse a breathalizer exam without automatically losing your license. As such, you effectively don't have the right *not* to give up evidence (since the punishment for not giving up said evidence is just like the punishment for the crime of drunk driving, it becomes a moot point). This is technically constituational even though it's blatently a jackbooted tactic.
In this case, they're using your garbage against you. Since we all generate refuse which we need to get rid of, this is another effective way to end-run around our rights. You obviously can get astounding amounts of info from the average person's garbage -- no warrent needed.
We (and I mean "We" as in "We the People") put up with this even though we see it's fascist bullshit. We think it's important to make the police's job easier (even when we're just encouraging random searches that can't earn a warrant), or that we're fighting terrorists. Or maybe we're just too lazy and distracted to care, what with all the bread and circuses.
And it sucks.
Re:Involuntary BLOOD SAMPLE (Score:3, Informative)
Now, none of this applies to private land. You may drive with out a lisence, in no regard of a speed limit, and cars that are not normally street legal or liscenced on private land, such as a test track. However, if you want to drive on the public roads, there are things that are required for that privledge and they can be revoked.
You have no constitutional protection to be able to drive a card.
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.
Re:Involuntary BLOOD SAMPLE (Score:3)
Er, ever have to deal with a flushed tampon? Few things on earth will clog a toilet better.
The way it ought to be is that those things which that average person expects to be private (and garbage is *obviously* one of those) ought to be private -- that is, a warrent should be needed to obtain them. The only reason this isn't the case is that we Americans are either (a) too complacent to make them so or (b) deluded that giving up our natural rights is the only road to safety.
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:Involuntary BLOOD SAMPLE (Score:3, Interesting)
You're saying it's legal for police to take a blood sample from a bandaid in my garbage, just because it's set out on the street,
Well, does that make any sense? They can't listen to my "private" conversations but they can take tissue samples any time they want??
That's Gotta Hurt (Score:3, Funny)
"Chinese takeout boxes and junk-food wrappers testify to a busy lifestyle with little time to cook. A Post-it note even lays bare someone's arithmetic skills (the addition is solid, but the long division needs work)."
Ouch.
This is legal! (Score:4, Informative)
Police have the legal right to search trash without a warrant.
Here is an exerpt from the ruling:
1. The Fourth Amendment does not prohibit the warrantless search and seizure of garbage left for collection outside the curtilage of a home. Pp. 39-44.
(a) Since respondents voluntarily left their trash for collection in an area particularly suited for public inspection, their claimed expectation of privacy in the inculpatory items they discarded was not objectively reasonable. 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. Moreover, respondents placed their refuse at the curb for the express purpose of conveying it to a third party, the trash collector, who might himself have sorted through it or permitted others, such as the police, to do so. The police cannot reasonably be expected to avert their eyes from evidence of criminal activity that could have been observed by any member of the public. Pp. 39-43.
(b) Greenwood's alternative argument that his expectation of privacy in his garbage should be deemed reasonable as a matter of federal constitutional law because the warrantless search and seizure of his garbage was impermissible as a matter of California law under Krivda, [486 U.S. 35, 36] which he contends survived the state constitutional amendment, is without merit. The reasonableness of a search for Fourth Amendment purposes does not depend upon privacy concepts embodied in the law of the particular State in which the search occurred; rather, it turns upon the understanding of society as a whole that certain areas deserve the most scrupulous protection from government invasion. There is no such understanding with respect to garbage left for collection at the side of a public street. Pp. 43-44.
2. Also without merit is Greenwood's contention that the California constitutional amendment violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Just as this Court's Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule decisions have not required suppression where the benefits of deterring minor police misconduct were overbalanced by the societal costs of exclusion, California was not foreclosed by the Due Process Clause from concluding that the benefits of excluding relevant evidence of criminal activity do not outweigh the costs when the police conduct at issue does not violate federal law. Pp. 44-45.
182 Cal. App. 3d 729, 227 Cal. Rptr. 539, reversed and remanded.
Simple solution. (Score:3, Funny)
If you live in Portland just start flushing your garbage down the toilet and shitting in your garbage can.
Looking for legality on dumpster diving? (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Re:The Mayor's Criminal Actions (Score:3, Informative)
Only if the current owners were not willing to give it up. And in this specific case, I believe that they'd made their point and were transfering ownership of the papers back to the mayor. Technically one could charge the mayor with petty theft or something, but given the circumstances, it would probably be thrown out. heh.
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?
Hypocritical or just pissed off? (Score:3, Interesting)
The Chief of Police was next on the list, and he was never quoted as saying anything legally threatening.
The DA got the point of the 'prank' and even played along a bit.
The Mayor was the only one that hinted at criminal charges, and that was only a threat.
Nobody is saying you shouldn't be pissed off if somebody dives through your garbage, only that it isn't illegal.
This might just be the catalyst that is needed to change the policy.
StarCraft RPG? [netnexus.com]
So go with a private organization. (Score:3, Interesting)
Really, if you're going to use a government organization to dispose of your waste, don't be surprised when they give it a quick glance before shuffling it off to the heap. If you've got something to hide - or just don't like big brother's latex-gloved hand collecting your used kleenex or more "personal" items - find a private alternative.
I guess this idea is similar to the shredding services used by many companies. But does anyone know if a similar service is available for homes for a reasonable price?
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:I know I'm too late to be moderated or seen, bu (Score:4, Funny)
Hypocracy? WTF is that? A ruling class of syringes?
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
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.
Re:confused... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:They have every right (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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.
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
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:State actor (Score:3, Informative)
In most states you can make a valid citizen's arrest if a public offense is committed in your presence or when you have a reasonable belief that the suspect has committed a felony. In that case you are not a state actor. (The exception: if you're a private security guard and flash a badge at the person that you are arresting, or otherwise fool them into thinking that you are a police officer, you are making the arrest under color of law and are considered under those circumstances to be a state actor.)
But you cannot detain the person yourself (except for a "reasonable time" and in a "reasonable manner"). You certainly cannot detain the person for purposes of extracting a confession. At some point you will have to hand them over to the state and restrictions on state actors begin to apply at that point. If you dug through their garbage and found drugs, the evidence might be declared inadmissable, maybe not, depending on the judge.
A case similar to this "garbage" issue was thrown out in the state of Washington in 1991. In that case, a couple was arrested for growing marijuana in their garage after an employee of the electric company alerted the police to their high electricity consumption. [omwlaw.com] The police inspected the records of their electrical usage and obtained a search warrant. The couple were charged and convicted of possession and manufacture of a controlled substance. A lower court dismissed their appeal, holding that the electric company was not a state actor and therefore there was no violation of their protection from illegal search and seizure by the government. This was overturned by the Washington supreme court, which found that:
1. The electrical company was a municipal corporation with a government granted monopoly, and the employee was acting in his official capacity. Therefore state action was involved and the call invoked the protections against illegal search and seizure.
2. The couple had a protected privacy interest in their electric consumption records. Under Oregon law police officers cannot obtain electric consumption records unless they submit a written request containing specific facts of a suspicion of individualized criminal activity and a reasonable argument that the information will help determine the truth of the suspicion.
3. There is no authority for a nosy utility company employee to snitch on customers to the cops. The disclosure had not been done under authority of law. Like phone service and garbage, electrical consumption is a necessary component of modern life. Even though a customer must disclose their identity and power consumption to the power company, the disclosure is for a limited business purpose.
Re:They have every right (Score:5, Interesting)
Either the garbage, once placed on the curb, is the private property of the owner (in which case the police must get a warrant) or it is not. If it is not the private property of the owner, then it must be legal for a private citizen to paw through. Period. Those are the only two alternatives. The idea that it's okay for police to paw through it without a warrant but not for private citizens is bullshit.
I really don't give a damn if it makes it difficult for policemen to do their job. Thats how it is. We are supposed to be a freedom-loving country. I'll agree that it would be nice if the job of the police could be made easier without restricting citizens civil rights. But it can't. And I won't give up my liberties to make it easier for police to do their jobs. I just won't.
Its un-American. By doing things like this (Patriot act, anyone?) we devalue the price American citizens paid to secure those liberties. They paid with their lives. Don't be so quick to throw that away.
Grumble.
Re:They have every right (Score:5, Interesting)
"There is a kid at my school who has a badge on his backpack (attached with a safety pin) with the words "Superjew" on it. What should I do?"
Doesn't sound like much of a cop to me.
Re:They have every right (Score:3, Funny)
Being a seventh grader, on the other hand, seems far more easy to detect.
Re:They have every right (Score:3, Interesting)
because the police are an investigation bureaucracy devoted to helping people
I am sure that whomevers privacy is being violated could care less which bureaucracy is doing it, and what their intentions are!
Re:They have every right (Score:5, Interesting)
So, your argument is based upon timeframes of achieving due process and getting a warrant? No offense, but I don't think that would stand up in any court of law. In fact, if I recall, precedent has been set by stating anyone who puts their garbage on the sidewalk is relinquishing any ownership.
The councilman have every right to call foul play, because the police are an investigation bureaucracy devoted to helping people (legally),
The problem here is one of giving government authorities more and more access to privacy which some fear may prove to be a problem if governments ever decide they are devoted to self service and not to providing a service to their constituents.
while the reporters are going through garbage in order to report what bills the councilman paid last week (illegally).
And how is this illegal? I agree that it might be irritating, yes, but how is this any different in a legal sense from the police going through garbage? The point of this is that people are trying to illustrate the duplicity of many government policies that are playing off of fear in the current political climate. Total Information Awareness anyone?
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?
Re:They have every right (Score:4, Informative)
The issue here was the length at which the Police Investigation by Portland PD went to find the police officer guilty.
Let me try to remeber this all.
Female Officer dated Male Officer in the early 90s. Female Officer has done some cheesecake shots for biker websites, recent boyfriend has had some questionable narcotics dealings. Guy heading internal investigation is Male Officer from the early 90s. Female Officer is on her way out of PPD on medical. Internal Investigation find nothing, so PPD and DA decide to dumpster dive. They take tampons in for drug testing, find traces of coke and pot, bust Female Officer.
Judge goes apeshit when he finds out they drug tested blood from a tampon, DA whines, WWeek dives in dumpsters of DA, Mayor, Police Chief. DA is amused, Chief is pissed and Mayor about has a stroke.
http://www.fightidentitytheft.com/shred_supreme
California vs Greenwood
No. 86-684
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
486 U.S. 35
January 11, 1988
May 16, 1988
"The Fourth Amendment does not prohibit the warrantless search and seizure of garbage left for collection outside the curtilage of a home."
"Since respondents voluntarily left their trash for collection in an area particularly suited for public inspection, their claimed expectation of privacy in the inculpatory items they discarded was not objectively reasonable. 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. Moreover, respondents placed their refuse at the curb for the express purpose of conveying it to a third party, the trash collector, who might himself have sorted through it or permitted others, such as the police, to do so. The police cannot reasonably be expected to avert their eyes from evidence of criminal activity that could have been observed by any member of the public."
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.
It takes minutes or hours to get a warrant (Score:3, Informative)
You, sir, either work in the worst organized and underfunded police department in North America, or are an outright liar.
With a suspicion of significant drug dealing, violence, or other such crimes, an officer can normally get a warrant with a radio or phone call. At least that is the case in the Orlando and Toronto areas.
I knew several officers in Florida, and they always found it amusing when people responded with "get a warrant". They'd just call in for the warrant from the car, another officer would bring it out, and the investigation would proceed. Only in the case of drug dealers/users that might "flush" the evidence were warrant delays an issue.
Re:Sonuvabitch! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I got into a fight with a garbage guy once (Score:5, Funny)
If anyone has tradeshow setup experience you'll be nodding your heads right about now
Re:I don't get it (Score:3, Funny)
When there are no ordinary citizens with camcorders around.
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.