imported post
HankT wrote
HFID, as proposed and as explained previously, would not require a physical search. It is based on a system that would propagate the information automatically, making it available to a reader/receiver. No search--No 4th amendment violation.
It would work, if set up properly.
You and LTN do not "own" the serial number of a gun. Same as you do not own the VIN on the dashboard of your car. If someone wants to look at your VIN, they can pretty much do so at will. Same with your license plate.
Were you dropped on your head as a child, or did you just eat too much wall candy?
Reading Az v Hicks you see the following:
a truly cursory inspection - one that involves merely looking at what is already exposed to view, without disturbing it - is not a "search" for Fourth Amendment purposes,
In order to "look" at RFID, one must energize it, thus disturbing the tag. Moreover, this quote:
It matters not that the search uncovered nothing of any great personal value to respondent - serial numbers rather than (what might conceivably have been hidden behind or under the equipment) letters or photographs. A search is a search, even if it happens to disclose nothing but the bottom of a turntable.
shows that the court doesn't view something which requires activity to be seen by law enforcement to be in "plain view". It also shows that the court sees a serial number is considered personal if it is not plainly visible.
Going further, there are implications for your proposed system that extend beyond the search of someone in public. Do officers have the right to construct and use a high-powered antenna to scan all RFID tags within a domecile? See also
Kyllo v. United States:
Held:Where, as here, the Government uses a device that is not in general public use, to explore details of a private home that would previously have been unknowable without physical intrusion, the surveillance is a
Fourth Amendment “search,” and is presumptively unreasonable without a warrant.
In the same way an infrared scanner allows officers to view details about the inside of a private home, an RFID scanner provides the means to view the serial number of a firearm that would previously have been unknowable without physical intrusion.
It is thus I continue to question your intelligence, and urge you to vacate any claim to the legality of your proposed plan. Beyond that, even if it were legal, you have failed to uphold the sanity of such a device, when it provides means for criminals to find guns, as well as a means by which to frame another using remotely collected information.
