[SentraSE-R]

This thread is all over the map, but I'll throw down my positions, and my reasons for some of them.

License plate recordings and databases. LEOs are enforcing traffic (parking) laws on public roads and property, and incidentally gathering data that's searched for stolen vehicles, wants and warrants. No citizens' rights to privacy are being violated, no inconvenience to law-abiding citizens. Win-win, except for repo agencies and data miners getting involved.

NSA surveillance programs. Bad, very bad.

Gov't dossiers on every citizen. Straw man, doesn't exist.

No expectation of privacy in public places. Well established by case law. With few exceptions (e.g. public phone booths, public restrooms), I can photograph and follow and publicize your activities in public, including what I can see from the street through your windows.

Warrantless tracking by GPS was ruled unconstitutional because the device was placed in the subject's property, violating his privacy rights. Other tracking methods have not yet been ruled unconstitutional, so extending GPS tracking unconstitutionality to all other tracking is an unjustified stretch.

"As Americans, we have every expectation of going where we want, when we want," but that certainly doesn't apply to other peoples' property. You also forgot that in public places, it's anybody's business, not nobody's business.

"And while blatantly violating constitutionally protected rights, thousands of cops lock down a 20-block area..." What constitutional rights were blatantly violated? Do you have any proof that any cop forced his way into a home without consent? That exigency didn't exist?

Third Amendment. Meh. It's the one Amendment in the Bill of Rights that's never had an issue rising to Supreme Court consideration. Much ado about nothing.

United States v. Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U.S. 543 (1976) was a decision of the United States Supreme Court that allowed the United States Border Patrol to set up permanent or fixed checkpoints on public highways leading to or away from the Mexican border, and that these checkpoints are not a violation of the Fourth Amendment. The videos show that ICE agents can ask their questions, and only stop you with consent or probable cause. Some of those videos show the driver almost crossing the probable cause line by refusing to answer questions about other occupants in the vehicle. It wouldn't surprise me a bit if the guy whose window got busted gave the officers probable cause to search his vehicle.

What do I think about it? The current pro-Wall Street activist SCOTUS is a disaster for our individual rights.