Placing a police video camera on a telephone pole across from defendant’s property invaded no privacy interest

Placing a police video camera on a telephone pole across from defendant’s property invaded no privacy interest because the police could have stood there and recorded the comings and goings, too. United States v. Aguilera, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 10103 (E.D. Wis. February 11, 2008):

The police could have stood on the street outside defendant’s house and observed the comings and goings from his driveway; substitution of a camera for in-person surveillance does not offend the Fourth Amendment; and the camera did not record activities within defendant’s home or its curtilage obscured from public view. 3 See, e.g., United States v. Jackson, 213 F.3d 1269, 1281 (10th Cir.), vacated and remanded on other grounds, 531 U.S. 1033, 121 S. Ct. 621, 148 L. Ed. 2d 531 (2000) (holding that the defendant’s Fourth Amendment rights were not implicated by installation of video cameras on telephone poles, which were incapable of viewing inside houses and were capable of observing only what any passerby would easily have been able to observe); see also Allender v. Huesman, No. IP01-1718, 2003 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 27585, 2003 WL 23142184, at *6 (S.D. Ind. Apr. 14, 2003) (holding that video surveillance of a driveway did not amount to a search). Therefore, for these reasons and those stated by the magistrate judge, the motion must be denied.

Defendant was arrested, not summoned, by Virginia authorities. The violation of Virginia law was irrelevant, and a search incident was permitted. United States v. Gordon, 264 Fed. Appx. 274 (4th Cir. 2008)* (unpublished).