Defendant and three others were stopped for speeding in a residential area known for its recent burglaries. In the back seat was a big screen TV. “The Court finds that Deputy Braden’s initial questions about the television did not extend the duration of the traffic stop.” The drug dog was used on the car in three minutes. United States v. Robinson, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 185389 (E.D. Tenn. December 26, 2012).*

Defendant was pacing back and forth around the dumpster behind a closed business in a high crime area. The officer approached, and asked him what he was doing, asking whether he was armed. He said he was and he pulled out the gun. With it came a baggie of drugs. The finding of the drugs was not unlawful because defendant’s producing the gun was by consent and reasonable suspicion wasn’t required. Carter v. State, 2013 Ga. App. LEXIS 30 (January 31, 2013).*

If the officer knows the defendant is a felon, then the incriminating nature of a gun in his possession is “immediately apparent” for plain view. United States v. Walker, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 185388 (E.D. Tenn. December 27, 2012).

Defendant was arrested for FIPF. Officers with an arrest warrant went to a house in the early morning hours and saw two men in chairs in the yard, apparently asleep. In defendant’s lap was a gun. Officers took the gun and handcuffed him. The gun’s serial number and defendant’s identity would have been run in any event, and that was inevitable discovery, even if the gun was illegally seized. United States v. Mohammed, 2013 U.S. App. LEXIS 2208, 2013 FED App. 0104N (6th Cir. January 30, 2013).*

Questions to a stopped motorist about the purpose of their trip all occurred within four minutes and did not unreasonably extend the stop. United States v. Santellana, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 12762 (W.D. La. January 4, 2013).*

Slate.com: New Report Warns That Drones Could Be Used for Stalking, Voyeurism by Ryan Gallagher:

The sight of a drone in flight is likely to become a regular occurrence in the United States within the next few years. But the rise of unmanned technology could lead to new crimes like “drone stalking” and “drone trespassing,” lawmakers are being told.

A Congressional Research Service report published Wednesday, Integration of Drones Into Domestic Airspace: Selected Legal Issues, sets out the many contentious areas around unmanned aircraft. It cautions that in the future, as drones become more easily available to private citizens, we may see the technology used to commit various offences. This could mean neighbors using drones to infiltrate one another’s gardens as a means of harassment, or a voyeur using one strapped with a camera and microphone to photograph women and listen in on people’s conversations.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/02/01/drones_could_be_used_for_stalking_voyeurism_says_congressional_research.html
No sh**, Sherlock.

Allegations of a gun in a backpack at school permit a search of the backpack, even if the backpack was removed from the possession of the student. “[T]he scope of a permissible school-safety search is determined by what is reasonable under the perceived circumstances, which, in turn, depends on the nature of the safety threat. [T.L.O.] at 392 n 5.’ For example, a ‘reasonable suspicion that the person searched is carrying a rifle’ would ‘not ordinarily be sufficient to justify a strip search of the person or a search of the person’s wallet.’ Id.” In re A. J. C., 2013 Ore. App. LEXIS 122 (January 30, 2013):

Here, Smith was confronted with an immediate threat both to a named student and to the general safety of the school. As noted, Glader told Smith that, in addition to V, youth might have threatened other, unidentified students. Smith did not know the type or size of the gun that youth reportedly had brought to school or the manner in which youth possessed it. That is, Smith did not know whether youth was carrying the gun on his person, had the gun in his backpack, or had concealed it somewhere else inside the school. Thus, Smith was faced with the choice of returning the unopened backpack to youth, his mother, or the family friend, searching elsewhere in the school, or searching youth's person. Smith chose to search the backpack, and, in light of the other options, that choice was reasonable; it was the most likely to reveal a gun and dissipate the safety threat without further intrusions or delay. For those reasons, in light of the nature of the safety threat, Smith's decision to search youth's backpack was reasonable.

See DARPA's 1.8 gigapixel drone camera is a high-res Fourth Amendment lawsuit waiting to happen by Joshua Kopstein. A lawsuit may happen, but will it win?

Can an analogy be drawn between Kyllo’s thermal imaging technology and a 1.8 gigapixel camera? (1,800 megapixel; an iPhone 5 has an 8 megapixel camera.) Tough question. A camera like that only shows the curtilage, and that's visible from any low-flying airplane. Kyllo showed something inside the house.

In the three fly-over cases in SCOTUS, Ciraolo and Riley involved “naked eye” observations at 1,000' from an airplane and 400' from a helicopter. Neither bothered the Court. Dow Chemical, on the other hand, involved “a standard floor-mounted, precision aerial mapping camera, to take photographs of the facility from altitudes of 12,000, 3,000, and 1,200 feet.”

Has technology overridden the reasonable expectation of privacy with a 1.8 gp camera, or does it fall within Dow Chemical's “precision aerial mapping camera” yet even beyond exotic thermal imaging of the home? But, remember, it's the curtilage being shown, not the interior of the house. How long has satellite imaging been around? How long has Google Maps shown our backyard to the world? See Kyllo, at 33-34:

The present case involves officers on a public street engaged in more than naked-eye surveillance of a home. We have previously reserved judgment as to how much technological enhancement of ordinary perception from such a vantage point, if any, is too much. While we upheld enhanced aerial photography of an industrial complex in Dow Chemical, we noted that we found "it important that this is not an area immediately adjacent to a private home, where privacy expectations are most heightened," 476 U. S., at 237, n. 4 (emphasis in original).

It would be foolish to contend that the degree of privacy secured to citizens by the Fourth Amendment has been entirely unaffected by the advance of technology. For example, as the cases discussed above make clear, the technology enabling human flight has exposed to public view (and hence, we have said, to official observation) uncovered portions of the house and its curtilage that once were private. See Ciraolo, supra, at 215. The question we confront today is what limits there are upon this power of technology to shrink the realm of guaranteed privacy.

Kyllo was 12 years ago. Since activities inside of a house aren't shown, I don't think it's unconstitutional under the three cases already decided.

Student Press Law Center: School cellphone searches test boundaries of students’ Fourth Amendment rights by Frank LoMonte:

It happened last week at an upstate New York high school, where a 14-year-old boy and his girlfriend are now under criminal investigation after a school principal discovered “inappropriate” photos of the girl while searching the boy’s cellphone.

Is this legal? Are there limits to how deeply a school can intrude into a student’s electronic notes, messages and photos?

Despite what many school and law-enforcement officials may insist, the Fourth Amendment very much exists on school grounds. The Supreme Court reaffirmed as recently as 2009 that it’s possible for a school search to go too far, if a search is highly intrusive and is unsupported by reasonable grounds for suspicion.