As
tech
advances,
the
law
mutates.
In
some
cases
(Riley, Carpenter)
we
get
more
protections.
In
other
cases,
we
get
fewer
protections.
This
case
dates
back
to
2022.
Christopher
Poller
was
a
suspect
Waterbury,
Connecticut
police
officers
were
seeking
to
arrest.
While
surveilling
his
residence,
officers
approached
his
parked
car.
Poller
wasn’t
in
it
at
the
time,
but
it
was
parked
on
the
public
street.
Other
officers
approached
Poller’s
home
to
arrest
him.
No
officer
had
a
warrant
to
search
Poller’s
car,
but
since
it
was
parked
on
the
street,
they
didn’t
need
one
to
look
through
the
windows
to
see
if
they
could
spot
any
contraband.
The
problem
here,
though,
was
that
the
car’s
windows
were
tinted,
making
it
extremely
difficult
to
see
anything
in
“plain
view”
that
could
be
used
to
support
a
deeper
search
or
additional
criminal
charges.
Well,
one
officer
knew
a
neat
little
trick
to
get
around
window
tint
—
his
iPhone’s
camera.
The
enhancements
meant
to
create
better,
clearer
photos
also
allowed
the
officer
to,
effectively,
bypass
the
tint
and
see
the
car’s
contents.
Here’s
what
that
looked
like
in
action,
as
pictured in
the
lower
court’s
decision:
With
the
camera
engaged,
the
officer
was
able
to
see
what
looked
like
two
guns
inside
the
car.
Poller
challenged
this
“search,”
claiming
it
violated
his
rights.
The
trial
court
decided
it
wasn’t.
The
first
factor
was
the
car
being
parked
on
a
public
street.
The
more
interesting
rejection
was
tied
to
a 2001
Supreme
Court
case,
where
the
nation’s
top
court
ruled against law
enforcement
officers
using
thermal
imaging
tech
to
effectively
“search”
a
home
for
a
suspect
without
actually
having
to
obtain
a
warrant
to
enter
it.
In
that
case,
the
Supreme
Court
reasoned
that
everyday
people
didn’t
have
access
to
powerful
thermal
imaging
tech,
therefore
this
search
violated
the
Fourth
Amendment.
The
trial
court
went
the
other
way
here,
reasoning
that
because
any
iPhone
owner
could
do
the
same
thing
to
see
through
tinted
windows,
there’s
nothing
unreasonable
happening
when
cops
do
it.
So,
even
if
it
wasn’t
literally
“plain
view,”
it
was
close
enough
to
plain
view
to
be
acceptable
under
the
Fourth
Amendment.
Poller
appealed,
but
this
challenge
doesn’t
fare
well
at
the
next
judicial
level.
The
Second
Circuit
Appeals
Court
has
sided
with
the
lower
court, ruling [PDF]
that enhanced plain
view
is
no
different
than
pre-iPhone
plain
view.
Previous
jurisprudence
cited
by
the
court
compares
the
use
of
a
cell
phone
to
the
use
of
a
flashlight
to
see
into
a
vehicle
when
there’s
no
daylight
to
assist
in
the
plain
viewing.
Poller
argued
the
window
tint
itself
created
an
“expectation
of
privacy”
in
his
parked
vehicle.
But,
as
the
court
points
out,
if
the
window
tint
complied
with
state
law,
some
observation
of
the
interior
of
the
car
would
have
been
possible
even without the
use
of
a
cell
phone.
More
importantly,
a subjective expectation
of
privacy
is
not
the
same
thing
as
an objective expectation
of
privacy.
The
ubiquity
of
the
tech
and
the
subjective
nature
of
Poller’s
privacy
expectations
doom
this
evidentiary
challenge.
The
record
in
this
case
alone
demonstrates
a
number
of
ways
in
which
an
officer
or
private
citizen
could
see
through
the
car’s
tinted
windows
from
the
public
vantage
point
of
the
street:
by
cupping
his
hands
around
his
eyes
to
block
out
external
light
and
leaning
close
to
the
window,
using
an
iPhone
camera
application,
or
utilizing
any
number
of
widely
available
digital
cameras.
Given
that
the
tinted
windows
continued
to
make
the
interior
of
Poller’s
vehicle
susceptible
to
view
by
those
standing
outside
of
the
car
in
a
myriad
of
ways,
Poller
“knowingly
expose[d]
[the
interior
of
the
car]
to
the
public”
in
a
manner
that
“is
not
[]
subject
[to]
Fourth
Amendment
protection.”
Citing
2001’s Kyllo doesn’t
help
either.
First, Kyllo dealt
with
a
technology-enhanced
search
of
a house,
which
has
been
given
far
more
privacy
protections
than
cars
parked
on
public
streets.
Second,
the
tech
in Kyllo effectively
gave
officers
“superhuman
powers:”
the
ability
to
“see”
the
interior
of
a
house
(or
at
least
the
house’s
warmest
residents/objects)
without
actually
entering
it.
Just
because
a
cop
used
a
phone
rather
than
cupping
his
hands
around
his
eyes
to
look
inside
Poller’s
car
doesn’t
turn
this
into
a
constitutionally
unreasonable
search.
[T]he
iPhone
camera
here
only
aided
the
officers
in
viewing
what
they
undisputably
could
see
with
their
naked
eyes.
We
therefore
cannot
say
that
the
use
of
an
iPhone
camera
here
compared
to
the
use
of
cameras
and
illumination
devices
generally,
which
the
Supreme
Court
has
consistently
sanctioned,
differs
by
an
order
of
constitutional
magnitude.
This
conclusion
is
unsurprising.
While
it’s
one
thing
to
caution
against
cops
warrantlessly
accessing
months
of
location
data
(Carpenter),
it’s
quite
another
to
insist
officers
not
be
allowed
to
do
what
any
pedestrian
passing
a
car could do,
even
if
most
of
them
never would.
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