W.D.Mo.: At least some limited privacy interests in a car

While this person lost his suppression motion, at least the court recognized there is some privacy interest in an automobile. United States v. Long, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 75588 n.2 (W.D. Mo. May 15, 2014):

The stop of an individual in an automobile raises many of the same concerns as a search of an individual’s home. Automobile travel is a basic, pervasive, and often necessary mode of transportation to and from one’s home, workplace, and leisure activities. Many people spend more hours each day traveling in cars than walking on the streets. Undoubtedly, many find a greater sense of security and privacy in traveling in an automobile than they do in exposing themselves by pedestrian or other modes of travel. Were the individual subject to unfettered governmental intrusion every time he entered an automobile, the security guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment would be seriously circumscribed.

[P]eople are not shorn of all Fourth Amendment protection when they step from their homes onto the public sidewalks. Nor are they shorn of those interests when they step from the sidewalks into their automobiles.

Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648, 662-63, 99 S.Ct. 1391, 1400-01 (1979).