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Comment by skinfaxi | Hacker News Reader

US v Jones was in the context of placing an actual recording device on an individual vehicle, which seems dramatically distinct from observing every passing vehicle and recording what you saw. Police cars already do this to some extent with ALPR, scanning for plates that have been reported stolen.

https://www.leonardocompany-us.com/lpr/blog/new-technology-h...

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> US v Jones was in the context of placing an actual recording device on an individual vehicle

You are focusing exclusively on Justice Scalia's opinion. Five other Justices provided two separate concurrences in that same case, including Alito's:

  society’s expectation has been that law enforcement agents and others would not—and indeed, in the main, simply could not—secretly monitor and catalogue every single movement of an individual’s car for a very long period.

I appreciate that quote. My take was indeed founded on the majority opinion, which holds out non-physical intrusions as a separate issue that the verdict did not reach.

"It may be that achieving the same result through electronic means, without an accompanying trespass, is an unconstitutional invasion of privacy, but the present case does not require us to answer that question."

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