If police don't need a warrant to do something that probably means that it's legal to do, right?
There was a famous case recently where a judge ruled that searching someone's trash didn't require a warrant as they had discarded it and it was no longer "theirs", so cops were within their rights to search through it. Presumably having been granted permission, some journalists then took it upon themselves to inventory and publish the exact contents of the judge's trash, including prescription medicine packaging and such. If I recall correctly, it didn't end well for the journalists.
There are two different sets of laws, for two different sets of people in the US.
It's not quite fair to compare actions by an officer of the court with that of the general public. By design.
If you say the police can do it because he's a police officer [... and because of that does it mean he has better judgement?], then why have a law about warrants?
Being an officer of the court is important, and attempts to blur that are disingenuous. Cherry-picking one facet of the incident is not a good argument. What-about-isms likewise.
Not without a warrant
Again, with the cherry-picking.
That could actually fly if the officer had a reasonable belief the trash contained relevant evidence, and the trash collector was going to take it away before a warrant could be acquired.
It's fitting that the past decade has produced a neologism, "souveillance", to describe this approach.
Would fall easily in the obstructing of justice category, so, yep. You can't win this fight