It turns out that the unenumerated rights that we have inherent to us as human beings don’t really exist. If you don’t keep your car in a garage and you don’t live in a gated community, the Ninth Circuit has determined that you have no reasonable expectation that the police will stay off your property to put a covert GPS tracking device on your car. Sure, it’s your driveway and they’re trespassing if they walk on it, but since the mailman walks on your driveway to deliver mail, it’s okay for the government to walk on your driveway to spy on your vehicular movements.
Amazingly, if you park in a garage or live behind a wall in a gated community, the court thinks you’ve still got some rights. Is this going to be a selling point for new community developers? “Live here, the Fourth Amendment still applies.”
Good dissent by Kozinski, though. He’s one of my favorites.