They had probable cause: the last reported location of a missing teenage girl was their house.
'Probable cause' is slightly higher that 'reasonable suspicion' but much lower than 'beyond all reasonable doubt'.
Essentially, it boils down to: Would a 'reasonable man' (another technical term) suspect that something is the case? If yes, one has reasonable suspicion.
It's there so on average, most people will agree that the police did the right thing.
If most people have no knowledge of the implementation details of technology, they'll happily allow said searches to continue.
On the whole, many laws are like this. They are made so we can all live together and nothing more.
In this particular case, why can't the local PD/Sherrif/agency see the damn pattern, record the note, and proceed with meaningful caution? That's what would annoy me the most.
I'm disturbed by how anti-police HN is. Like even searching for a missing person is now some great abuse of power.
Because police, be it in the US or anywhere else, has time and again proven that they are not to be trusted and any power the legislation grants them can and will be exploited or illegaly expanded.
Add to this that police (and most legislators, as well as most judges) don't have a fucking clue how computers work on a technical level, or at least not enough to be viewed as "reasonable".
Second I think some of the police hate is just availability bias. If you read nothing but articles on the Internet about police somewhere doing something bad, of course you will think they are all terrible. Like people that watch the news and think air travel is more dangerous than driving.
No, we think they're all terrible when we hear about one officer doing something bad, and an entire precinct closing ranks around him/her to cover it up. (Which accompanies the vast majority of instances of police misconduct.)
"Stop and frisk" and "asset forfeiture" means anything to you?
And it's not just the US where police commonly fabricates evidence, in particular when it comes to drug or gun "offenses".
And I agree that those are unconstitutional. But again it has nothing to do with this case.
What you're doing is the exact same kind of justification. As far as cops not "having a fucking clue" I'm willing to bet you have an equal deficiency of clue about solving and preventing crimes or any number of technical systems used in law enforcement, or the legal and documentation requirements in law enforcement.
You're just the 'too cool' anti-cop 'hacker' fighting for a 'cause' that really doesn't exist to fit some idealized boogeyman-version of law enforcement reality.
When cops screw up, let's hold them accountable, but let's not automatically assume that cops are evil. You don't support racial stereotyping do you? This is no different. I have been robbed twice in my life at gunpoint by black people (I drove a taxi for a time during college.) Yet, I don't look at all black people with suspicion. Yet we are willing to apply a hatred and disdain towards cops based on perception of their 'badness.'
As far as legislators and cops, how about you educate them? Or become one? Since you're an expert, put your name on the ballot and run for office. Or go work as a legislative aid. Start a website called a Legislator's guide to tech or something. Go testify at Congressiinal hearings. Police and legislators represent us, we the people and they are us, we the people. You sitting in your basement drinking fair trade coffee isn't helping. You actually doing something -- that's how you create positive change. Hating the police is the wrong fight.
They did not, so they could not.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exigent_circumstance
"An exigent circumstance, in the criminal procedure law of the United States, allows law enforcement, under certain circumstances, to enter a structure without a search warrant or, if they have a "knock and announce" warrant, without knocking and waiting for refusal."
Further, does the law, as written, allow detainment of individuals while those reasons are decided?
Until someone can describe the legal link between the fact it's a missing child and the conclusion these are exigent circumstances from a legal perspective, I can only interpret the pointing out that it's a missing child as a plea to emotion at best and a thought terminating cliche at worst.