They might should consider wearing hunter orange while trespassing on a man's property. Wouldn't want them to get accidentally shot.
Posted on 03/16/2024 6:13:21 AM PDT by Twotone
The Institute for Justice says its data show that a century-old Supreme Court doctrine created a huge exception to the Fourth Amendment.
Police can traipse onto the vast majority of private property in the country without a warrant thanks to a century-old Supreme Court decision, according to a new study by the Institute for Justice, a libertarian-leaning public-interest law firm.
In a study published in the spring 2024 issue of Regulation, a publication of the Cato Institute, Institute for Justice attorney Josh Windham and research analyst David Warren estimate that at least 96 percent of all private land in the country is excluded from Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement under the "open-fields doctrine," which allows police to forego warrants when they searched fields, woods, vacant lots, and other property not near a dwelling.
That adds up to nearly 1.2 billion acres open to government trespass, and the Institute for Justice says that's a conservative estimate. The organization also says the study is the first attempt to quantify how much private property is affected by the Supreme Court's 1924 ruling in Hester v. U.S., which created the doctrine.
"Now we have hard data showing that the Supreme Court's century-old error blew a massive hole in Americans' property and privacy rights," Windham said in a press release. "Now we know what the open fields doctrine really means: Government officials can treat almost all private land in this country like public property."
Windham added that "courts and lawmakers across the country will have to face the consequences of keeping this doctrine on the books."
As Reason's Joe Lancaster has reported, the Institute for Justice is challenging warrantless searches of private property in several states. Last week, it filed a lawsuit on behalf of Tom Manuel, a Louisiana outdoorsman who hunts on a private parcel of undeveloped land that he owns. Despite fences and "No Trespassing" signs, Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries agents came onto his property twice last December without a warrant to check his hunting license.
In December 2021, two Pennsylvania hunting clubs represented by the Institute for Justice sued the Pennsylvania Game Commission for setting up trail cameras on their property without their knowledge or permission. The organization filed a similar lawsuit on behalf of Tennessee residents who had trail cameras installed on their property without a warrant.
In one of the more bizarre cases of the open-fields doctrine run amok, a Connecticut couple filed a lawsuit challenging warrantless surveillance after state wildlife officials put a camera on a bear that was known to frequent the private nature reserve they run, turning the animal into a roving police drone.
This is all possible because the Supreme Court ruled that the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement only extends to the curtilage—the immediate surroundings of a house. "The special protection accorded by the Fourth Amendment to the people in their 'persons, houses, papers and effects,' is not extended to the open fields," Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. wrote in Hester. "The distinction between the latter and the house is as old as the common law."
In 1984 the Supreme Court reaffirmed that decision, ruling in Ray E. Oliver v. U.S. that even the presence of fences and "No Trespassing" signs did not establish a legitimate privacy interest in unoccupied land.
However, the Institute for Justice has argued that Holmes' appeal to the common law is based on a misreading—a misreading that implicates a massive amount of Americans' private property.
Via administrative rules.
They might should consider wearing hunter orange while trespassing on a man's property. Wouldn't want them to get accidentally shot.
Sorry democrats but the law is 90% customary enforcement and 10% DA. Mining judical gild requires precedence and none exists. When the democrats lose power they certainly don’t want this to happen to them.
My state requires that it has to be fenced, have signs posted every ten feet, and gates must be locked before they the state will recognize private property rights. The real scam comes from local city ordinances regarding “setbacks” that are considered as public property and right of way. This can be all the way up to the front door of your home including your front yard and driveways. And many also have ordinances against fencing and posting within this setback.
“In one of the more bizarre cases of the open-fields doctrine run amok, a Connecticut couple filed a lawsuit challenging warrantless surveillance after state wildlife officials put a camera on a bear that was known to frequent the private nature reserve they run, turning the animal into a roving police drone.”
Highlighting a case like this is sensationalism and unhelpful: Unless the bear can be remotely manipulated or steered, it is simply not a drone (except to the extent the Air Force used unpiloted, preprogrammed F101s as target practice for fighter pilots).
I disagree. Why put a camera on the bear? If you want to track its movements, all you need is a rfid tag. No one needs to see what the bear sees.
Upending this would pot a stop to game wardens.
“The real scam comes from local city ordinances regarding “setbacks” that are considered as public property and right of way.”
Don’t forget “waters of the United States”. Thanks, Barry.
“Don’t forget “waters of the United States”. Thanks, Barry.”
True...
Property rights? What a joke. You just rent it. See what happens if you stop paying the “rent”, aka taxes.
Donkeys and Great Pyrenees guarding live stock seem to be a deterrent to LE from coming onto a property.
The examples they gave involved game wardens. In Texas, game wardens have always had that authority as long as they could show probable cause involving game animals or the taking of them, and they are also licensed peace officers. That’s why you would always see a game warden tagging along when local authorities were looking to bust a drug lab, pot grow, or even a distribution center out in the country. If it could be shown that the people running the illegal operation were also regular hunters, the game warden could also walk right into their house without a warrant to search for illegally taken game, or any other hunting/fishing violations. Of course, the game warden was also looking for any other illegal contraband or operation. If he saw anything else illegal, the local authorities were right there with him.
Americans, in the “land of the free,” are slowly realizing that they have been imprisoned and enslaved by tyranny.
There are 2 doctr8nes that protect home and property, one being g the castle doctrine, and the other I can’t think the name of, but it protects a person outside their home on their own property. So if property doesn’t belong to folks, and feds can traipse all over the property without warrant, then the doctrine concerning the property can not be enforced because the feds can declare whatever they want concerning the property outside the home.
It seems there should be a lawsuit concerning who owns what, and the courts need to decide whether folks are allowed to own property or not. The left have been trying to claim that folks have no right to own‐ but I think it’s pretty clear that if we purchase, and pay, then we own- the ,eft want to claim however that we are just renting, or leasing. However, then the issue of payment comes up, and the state evidently can seize land, (or so they claim) if payments for property taxes are not made-
My question is, if we don’t actually own our land, and the gov does, th3n can we sue them if we are injured on “their property” like others can sue us if they get hurt on our property? also, if someone does try to sue us, then can’t we say “sorry, we are not the owners - you will have to sue the gov, not us.”?
So many questions, so little time.
No, it wouldn’t be considered a drone, but it seems that wherever it roams, it is invading someone’s privacy if it goes onto a person’s property (although that might be covered by “public view” issue i speak of below), and the video is in the hands of the feds then, so it seems that in essence, the feds would be “installing cameras” in a manner of speaking onowing the animal roams certain places, inc,uding onto people’s properties if that were the case, and would be akin to them installing a camera on a person’s property without their consent.
Google got into trouble with their Google vehicles recording people’s private residences- they were ignoring no tresspass8ng signs I guess and driving right onto the properties- I think that went to court, and qHey stopped the process, but, whatever is visible from the road was deemed OK to record as it was “publicly viewable” or some term like that. (Ie, if we go,out in public, we can’t expect that nobody take our photos or record us because we are in public. Though we do stil. Retain some rights. I forget which state it was, but they ruled that a creep with a telephoto lens who saw into people’s homes was not violating their privacy if the curtains were open. It was a sick ruling for sure, but “legally” the issue was that the view was open to public viewing if curtains were open-
There are a few different angles tO the issue.
here is my local battle front. Read it and join in this battle locally. right now it is under the guise of rental property. YOUR personal property is not far behind for a warrantless search.
Orange City’s ordinance permitted the city to search tenants’ homes without their consent, by obtaining an “administrative warrant,” which did not require the city to show any sort of suspicion or particularized probable cause. In Thursday’s ruling, the court held that Orange City’s mandatory inspection law violated Article 1, Section 8 of the Iowa Constitution and could not stand.
Here is organization fighting warrantless invasion of homes. support them.
“It seems there should be a lawsuit concerning who owns what, and the courts need to decide whether folks are allowed to own property or not. The left have been trying to claim that folks have no right to own‐ but I think it’s pretty clear that if we purchase, and pay, then we own- the ,eft want to claim however that we are just renting, or leasing. However, then the issue of payment comes up, and the state evidently can seize land, (or so they claim) if payments for property taxes are not made-”
This is a huge point Bob. In mass joint lawsuits need to happen against local municipalities and counties based on paying taxes on portions of property that they consider public property access and right of way. Let the public foot the bill for those portions in square feet then.
The rest they can spy into with helicopters and drones using multibeam sonar and infrared sensors.
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