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Not every incident where an officer ascertains information is considered a
"search." An officer who views something which is publicly viewable (for
instance, by looking through the window of a house from the street) is not
conducting a "search" of the house. In
Katz v. United States,
386 U.S. 954 (1967),
the Supreme Court ruled that there is no search unless an individual has an "expectation
of privacy" and the expectation is "reasonable"—that
is, it is one that society is prepared to recognize. So, for example, there is
generally no search when officers look through garbage because there is no
expectation that garbage is private (see
California v. Greenwood,
486 U.S. 35 (1988)).
Similarly, there is no search where officers monitor what phone numbers an
individual dials (Smith vs Maryland 442 U.S. 735 (1979); although
Congress
has placed statutory restrictions on such monitoring). This doctrine sometimes
leads to somewhat unexpected results; in
Florida v. Riley,
488 U.S. 445 (1989),
the Supreme Court ruled that there was no expectation of privacy (and thus no
search) where officers hovered in a helicopter 400 feet above a suspect's
house and conducted surveillance.
The Supreme Court has also ruled that there can be no expectation of
privacy in illegal activity. Therefore, investigations that reveal only
illegal activity (such as some use of drug sniffing dogs) are not searches.
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