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Jaikumar Vijayan | May 15, 2014

A federal appeals court this week ruled that a woman's Fourth Amendment rights may have been violated when San Francisco police arrested her after an automated license plate reader mistakenly identified her car as stolen.

A federal appeals court this week ruled that a woman's Fourth Amendment rights may have been violated when San Francisco police arrested her after an automated license plate reader mistakenly identified her car as stolen. The decision provides fodder to privacy advocates calling for restrictions on the use of the technology.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth District Tuesday reversed a district court ruling saying the police made the arrest in good faith. A three-judge panel at the appellate court held that a reasonable jury could indeed find that the woman's Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure had been violated. The case was remanded back to the district court.

The case involves Denise Green, 47, who was stopped, handcuffed and detained briefly by multiple police officers with drawn guns, on a March night in 2009.

The incident was triggered when Green's car passed a police cruiser whose ALPR mistakenly determined that the vehicle was stolen. According to the appellate court's description of the incident, the photograph taken by the ALPR was blurry and illegible because of darkness.

The police officer operating the license plate reader radioed in a description of Green's vehicle and provided the incorrect license plate number from the ALPR read to dispatch. He did not confirm the tag number visually.

Dispatch quickly identified the plate as belonging to a stolen vehicle prompting a sequence of events that ended with Green being stopped by multiple police cars, handcuffed at gunpoint and detained while officers searched her car and person before letting her go.

Green filed a lawsuit against San Francisco Police Department, the city, county and the police officer in charge of the incident contending Fourth Amendment violations as well as unreasonable use of force and other charges. She asked the court for a summary judgment on her claims.

The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California rejected Green's motion and agreed with the SFPD's assertion that they had acted under reasonable suspicion.

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License reader lawsuit can be heard, appeals court rules

A federal magistrate in San Jose has rejected a bid by prosecutors to search an unidentified target's Google e-mail account, criticizing the "seize first, search second" request as overbroad and unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment.

U.S. Magistrate Paul Grewal could have simply denied the request in a stark order without preamble or explanation.

Instead, Grewal waxed poetic, beginning his seven-page ruling Friday by painting a portrait of how each day he "joins the teeming masses of the Bay Area on Highway 101 or 280," marked by "lengthy queues" at exits in Mountain View, Sunnyvale and Cupertino. "The Technorati are, in short, everywhere" in Silicon Valley, from the "humble downtown San Jose taqueria" to the "overpriced Palo Alto cafe," he said.

Grewal said he was hammering home a point, that "too few understand, or even suspect, the essential role played by many of these workers and their employers in facilitating most government access to private citizens' data."

The magistrate said he had reviewed an application by the government to search the Gmail account of a person suspected of stealing government funds.

The judge noted that "no defendant yet exists, as no case has yet been filed. There are no hearings, no witnesses, no briefs and no debate. Instead, a magistrate judge is left to predict what would or would not be reasonable in executing the warrant without any hard, ripe facts. This is hardly a recipe for success."

Although Grewal said he did find probable cause to believe that the Gmail account in question in fact contained evidence of theft, "what of all the data associated with the account which supplies no such evidence whatsoever?"

Grewal blasted the request as overreaching under the Fourth Amendment, which bans unreasonable searches. He said federal officials failed to provide any date restriction, other than to say the alleged crimes began in 2010.

"Nor has the government made any kind of commitment to return or destroy evidence that is not relevant to its investigation," Grewal wrote.

"This unrestricted right to retain and use every bit Google coughs up undermines the entire effort the application otherwise makes to limit the obvious impact under the plain view doctrine of providing such unfettered government access," he wrote.

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Magistrate waxes poetic while rejecting Gmail search request

The Fourth Amendment
Gov 2.

By: Michael Sovers

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The Fourth Amendment - Video

By Guest Contributor on May 09th, 2014

Editor,

Criminalizing homelessness raises constitutional concerns. For example, some courts uphold that begging is protected under the First Amendment as freedom of speech. When police search the belongings of a homeless person without a search warrant, they could be violating the Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures.

Jailing and imposing penalties on homeless people for sleeping in public or loitering when they have nowhere else to go, could be a violation of the Eighth Amendment right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment.

For sure criminalizing homelessness does nothing to deter homelessness. It only makes it infinitely more difficult for the homeless person to get on their feet and for those trying to help them.

If someone has broken the law they deserve to be punished, but criminalizing homelessness exacerbates the problem. I believe we in Laguna are capable of something better than this.

Utah has reduced its number of chronically homeless by 74 percent. They are out to end homelessness in their state by 2015.

They found that it cost less to give away apartments with wrap around services to the homeless than it did to criminalize them. They calculated the cost of ER visits, police calls, ticketing and jailing cost more than an apartment with a caseworker. This is all documented on line for anyone wanting verification.

With all the creative minds in Laguna surely we can at least match what was done in Utah.

Jessica deStefano, Laguna Beach

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It Costs Less to Care

Is Big Brother Listening? Applying the Fourth Amendment in an Electronic Age
Maryland State National History Day 2014 Noah Pritt, Spencer Paire, Emily McGovern and Priya Stepp.

By: NHD Videos

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Is Big Brother Listening? Applying the Fourth Amendment in an Electronic Age - Video