With a court order can authorities turn on the microphone and just listen to everything? Seems easy to do but I haven't heard about it yet. I guess phones can do the same. Presumably the Russians and Chinese do this already. :)
Note that this removes the warrant requirement in general, even if you personally don't own an Alexa/etc. The test is if the public expects audio in the home might be recorded and sent to a 3rd party. If the answer is "yes", then the police can use their own hardware to do the recording.
[1] http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/533/27.html
[2] Ibid.
I don't think it ever went anywhere precedent setting however because the defendant eventually gave permission to Amazon to turn it over.
Still pretty muddy waters. I would trust Amazon a little more than I would trust the smart tv makers, but that's just my bias.
Note that re: Kyllo v United States, trust in any specific manufacturer is irrelevant. The SCOTUS ruled that use of a technology - not a product - requires a warrant when it is "is not in general public use".
The Kyllo case involved two federal agents that used their own thermal imaging camera to search a house for the presence of people and grow lights.
In the end, this is their platform of which we are sharecroppers.
Honest question, are you an attorney or can one comment? I am not, but I don't read this opinion the same way.
The case referenced concerns using thermal imaging from outside a home to look inside it, which I guess makes sense then that if thermal imaging was super common maybe they would argue that its not a big deal to point one at a house by a cop, but thermal imaging is not common so it was ruled an unconstitutional search.
But you seem to have taken that as the police being able to enter a residence and install a transmitting microphone just because most people have transmitting microphones inside the house. There's a huge difference in a search that requires entering a home and one that does not.
SCOTUS actually seems pretty explicitly concerned in the text about technology eroding the expectation of privacy by the progressing deeper into a private residence without having to enter it, so that again implies this case was about technology being used to search a home without entering it.
This isn't to say courts will rule one way to the other, or that the courts won't change their mind, but a well reasoned opinion form a different court is powerful.
I think the public expectation part was specifically whether thermal imaging was too invasive and not an observation that the general public would make from the street.