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Comment by joesmo | Hacker News Reader

Can someone explain to me how this is legal seeing as to how the Supreme Court ruled this unconstitutional without a warrant in Kyllo v. United States (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyllo_v._United_States)? Or is this just another case of the rule of law being neglected by authorities again as if it didn't exist?

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The holding in Kyllo is based on the search being of a home, where the Fourth Amendment protections are strongest (“At the very core” of the Fourth Amendment “stands the right of a man to retreat into his own home and there be free from unreasonable governmental intrusion.” Silverman v. United States, 365 U. S. 505, 511 (1961). ) and the holding is narrow: Where, as here, the Government uses a device that is not in general public use, to explore details of the home that would previously have been unknowable without physical intrusion, the surveillance is a “search” and is presumptively unreasonable without a warrant.

I'd expect NYC to say "These vans are strictly for anti-terrorism purposes and if we see a bomb then you're welcome to cite the exclusionary rule from the safety of a non-blown-up courthouse", though that viewpoint will not command a whole lot of support on HN. I think it's probably a loser at the current Supreme Court on a drug case and would get a 9-0 with Scalia writing a florid distinguishing opinion from Kyllo if a terrorism case somehow made it all the way to the Supreme Court. (Amateur analysis here; IANAL.)

It'd be ironic if a bomb were designed to be set off by a scan.

I don't know if this is possible, but I suspect it may be.

You may have stumbled onto a very dangerous idea... not one that could be used for good.

Why would this be any more dangerous than any number of other triggers?

Probably because the trigger would be sensitive to such low amounts of radiation that many sources could set it off.

I would imagine the sort of people to use such a trigger wouldn't care.

Instead of a bomb how about a warning that these vans exist? You could have a bunch of nerds leaving arduinos in Ubers around NYC. Have the arduinos measuring radiation and phoning home with any locations that are above average. At the very least it would be an interesting map to look at

You're a much more constructive person than I! It would be interesting. Hook it up to a 360 panoramic camera to capture the source as well.

>stands the right of a man to retreat into his own home and there be free from unreasonable governmental intrusion

Sort of a funny concept in the day and age that you get no-knock raids where cops shoot your pets with fully automatic assault rifles based off anonymous telephone calls.

Nah, clearly the definition of "unreasonable" has been altered quite a bit over the last few decades. No knock raids generally have a legal warrant, given by a judge and everything, allowing them to do so.

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