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Comment by fortythirteen | Hacker News Reader

There is a long standing constitutional interpretation that your garbage, once put on the street, is not protected by the Fourth Amendment.

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Yeah but it's another interpretation/ruling in a long line (speed stops, dog searches, exigent circumstances) that allow cops to violate your 4th Amendment rights whenever they want. Cops can pull you over for crossing yellow lines while driving without proof. Cops can say their dog signaled it detected contraband without proof. Cops can say they heard someone yelling without proof. It's very rare for things like to sink prosecutions; basically the cops have to have lied, there has to be evidence, and the judge has to agree there was a violation. Practically speaking these rights don't exist, and if they do they really only exist for upper-income people.

The state constitution and precedent based on it may provide additional protections that the federal one does not. (It does in Washington, for instance, as the city of Seattle learned when they tried to inspect people’s garbage and fine them for not recycling or composting.) I’m not familiar with the nature of the situation in Oregon.

FTFA:

> The U.S. Supreme Court has held that the Constitution gives you no privacy rights over your garbage, but individual state constitutions can offer more stringent privacy rights. Warrantless trash searches by police are not legal in Vermont and New Jersey.

Seems like an incredibly blurry, ill-defined concept though. Even if my garbage can is "on the street", it's still a foot away from the street and firmly on my property. How is that any different than breaking into a storage container around back or elsewhere on my property? Is it considered to be "on the street" when it's sitting on the side of my house, waiting for trash day?

States and city laws define exactly where the boundary is and how it is different based different activities. Say you have a fence vs you don't have a fence, or say sidewalks are on your property, but city will maintain them, and you shouldn't block them.

Usually if trash is put on the street by the curb, it is not on your private property and can be taken and inspected. There would have to make an explicit law I think to protect it. But what if the police follow the trash truck to the dump, does it extend there as well?

That's why things should be shredded and some intelligence agencies have their own incinerators and so on.

I don't think the legal principle rests on where the trash lies (public or private property); rather, on the idea of abandonment.

In many US states streets were never formally deeded to the municipality when the lots were platted, and there's a long standing legal principle that the lot owner has a fee-simple interest to the middle of the street. (Washington included, not sure about Oregon) ie, it's not public property, it's private property with an easement dedicated to the public.

Ah you're right. It is more tricky than what I imagined.

Right if I drop my bag on the ground it should immediately be free for all and available for police search. But trash is considered "abandoned".

I didn't know about easement but it makes sense thanks for pointing that out.

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