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Comment by mmcwilliams | Hacker News Reader

Another thing that's risky about this approach is, depending on your jurisdiction, recording an individual (audio or video in some cases) without their consent is a felony.

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Where is it a felony to have a CCTV?

In California, New York and Rhode Island it's illegal to place a hidden video camera in a place where people have a reasonable expectation of privacy. These would be considered hidden video cameras. Not sure the severity of the charges in those states, but in other jurisdictions recording audio of conversations without all-party consent violates wiretapping laws and is a felony.

There might be a technicality here, though. The camera is 'hidden' in a place with no expectation of privacy -- his porch. It's the thief who places the camera in a place where privacy might be violated.

Great thinking. If you steal someone’s camera, and move it, and film yourself in a private location doing an indecent act, can you turn around and sue the owner of the camera for breaching your privacy? You had no permission to move the camera in the first place.

Yeah and no jury is going to convict someone for this.

Ask the DA to charge the package thief for wiretapping if they move the package to a private area and record a third party :-P

Well that's quite different from putting a CCTV on your front porch... which isn't a felony.

Filming the way these cameras show which include part of the street would probably be considered not-ok in many jurisdictions.

Not inside the US. There is no expectation of privacy when you are in public.

Not here either - I can take a photo of anyone in the street. However, I can’t mount a fixed surveillance camera on my house and do the same (for some reason).

Please provide a citation on this.

This is Swedish law (or at least clear authority guidelines). I can’t find an English link but if you absolutely don’t believe me I could translate (but just want to make sure you didn’t think I was talking about US law before I waste that effort :D )

relevant passage >

"Camera surveillance of a location where the public has access. Permission 8 § Camera surveillance is required for a surveillance camera to be posted so that it can be directed to a place where the public has access."

Swedish: http://rkrattsbaser.gov.se/sfst?bet=2013:460 (poor) translation: https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=sv&tl=en&u=h...

(In separate guidelines it explicitly mentions the case of home cameras covering public area).

Ah, ok, I thought you were somewhere in the US, in which case whoever told you you couldn't have an outdoor camera was lying to you. Thanks for clarifying.

If your intention is for someone to take the CCTV into their private car or residence, that is also very different from putting a CCTV on your porch.

I'm not saying the thieves are in the right here. Just that crimes don't usually cancel each other out.

Considering thieves aren't being prosecuted for theft, I wouldn't worry much about it.

The thieves are the ones bringing the camera into their privacy zone, not the person who made the package. The thief, in committing the theft, explicitly consented to taking an unknown item into their possession.

But the person who built the device did so with the intention of recording people in private spaces. The person committing the theft did not explicitly consent to being recorded in a private space. They are still being recorded unknowingly by a device designed to do that.

What I'm saying is; the thief broke a law but the person making the recordings could have also broken laws as well. Two wrongs don't make a right, and all that. Just seems like a good gag for YouTube but a bad practice to encourage.

Here's how that would go in court...

Thief: Your honor, this man illegally recorded me in my home without my consent.

Judge: You mean the package you stole recorded you for the purpose of identifying you as the thief?

Thief: ...

Judge: Get the hell out of my court room.

Even in two-party consent states, I can't envision any situation in which a person would actually be punished for recording in this way. Remember that laws are meant to be interpreted by a judge or jury in the context of the alleged crime, not applied to every situation where they can possibly fit.

In fairness to the other side, I think the glitter-in-the-eye part is where an issue might arise. I don't agree that the privacy thing would hold up for shit, but courts have ruled against folks setting up booby traps on their property in the past.

100% agree. Any kind of booby trap that does more than make annoying sounds is a liability, even if it's in your own home. It's also important to note that in two-party consent states the camera footage wouldn't be admissible in court for prosecuting the thieves, so as an actual deterrent that part is pretty low unless you're going for social shaming or something.

This device does not place a hidden camera where people have a reasonable expectation of privacy.

Someone STEALS that device and moves it. The device's owner isn't breaking any law.

You are looking for problems where there are none.

I'm skeptical this applies to someone coming onto your property (let alone coming with malicious intent). Do trespassers have a reasonable expectation of privacy?

I was referring to the parts of the video where they brought the device into their car or home. This was obviously designed to continue recording the thieves in those private places. It just seems like a bad idea to me.

Do you have an expectation of privacy from a device you stole? Of which you don’t know the contents of?

Okay, yeah, agreed, I didn't understand that's what you were talking about.

You have no expectation of privacy in your actions on someone else’s porch where you’re visible from the street.

If the camera is visible and not pointed where it can see inside a neighbor's window, you're fine for video. For audio you probably want to restrict it to inside your home.

>where people have a reasonable expectation of privacy

Which pretty clearly doesn't apply to out in the open in the middle of a public street.

They don't have a reasonable expectation of privacy on the porch, where it was placed. The criminal act which they performed caused themselves to be recorded in a place where they might expect privacy, so I don't think they would have a valid complaint against the package owner.

people have no reasonable expectation of privacy when entering another person's private property. Even if they were invited, you can record in your own house without worry.

No reasonable expectation of privacy in a security camera situation.

That's not entirely accurate. It depends on where you are and what the video camera is recording.

I'm also not sure that creating a hoax device with the intention of surreptitiously recording individuals that also damages their property and releases a chemical agent would be considered strictly "a security camera".

Would be an interesting court case.

There can likely be no expectation of privacy trespassing on someone else's property.

but, for the package. Can you have an expectation of privacy when opening an unknown-thing? The device isn't recording until it is opened. I could see logical arguments on both sides. But, since the audio/visual recording doesn't start until they open the thing it might be on the safe-side of wiretap laws?

These are good questions, it's just my go-to line of thinking when I see surreptitious recording devices. Is this legal and is there liability?

Recording audio without two-party consent in my state is illegal and only just recently were there any court cases where recording police officers without their knowledge wasn't prosecuted as wiretapping.

I'm not sure you have an expectation of privacy with stolen goods.

Booby traps causing injury are illegal everywhere.

Calling a smell a "chemical agent" is just inflammatory. Everything is a chemical, sure, but there is no chemical reaction involved here. Would you call perfume a "chemical agent"? It's just something that smells bad.

The only danger would seem to be getting glitter in their eyes.

Someone could be allergic to this stink bomb, I know that it's unlikely, but you still have to consider that when thinking about possible liability issues

My intention isn't to be inflammatory, but booby-trapping an aerosol spray can to release a spray designed to make someone uncomfortable just isn't a smart thing to do. Even if you think you're getting one over on a thief.

If someone designed a trap to spray perfume on an unsuspecting person, I would describe it similarly.

It doesn't seem all that different to cash dye packs, really.

Ah sorry. I was imagining we were talking about the porch camera.

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