> So all they'd need to do is compel the driver to chalk his own car?
The typical method along those lines is paying at a machine, getting a receipt, and posting the receipt visibly inside the windshield or the street side window, but, yes. This was about physical trespass for information without sufficient cause, not a right not to have parking time tracked.
Is looking in a window not itself a 'search'? Like, a police officer dragging a street by looking in every window for pot or guns would presumably be indiscriminately searching without probably cause, why would it be different with tickets in windows legally?
My experience though is this particular style of parking pass is usually on private property where the people checking are not part of a branch of police though, and thus I think are not bound against unreasonable search in the same way?
No, by the plain view doctrine information gathered at least by normal human senses without a physical trespass is not a search.
> Like, a police officer dragging a street by looking in every window for pot or guns would presumably be indiscriminately searching without probably cause
No, they wouldn't, just like a police officer indiscriminately looking through your car window for violations of cellphone use while driving laws without any particular cause isn't.
I know for searches you need to have a reasonable expectation of privacy for the search to be illegal.
For example, I saw an article a few years ago where a cop was literally walking a drug dog around a house. The dog detected drugs so they busted the door down. The courts threw the case out, there was no reason for a drug dog to be searching around his house.
I’d expect if you had a drugs or a dead body in plain view of a window then your expectation of privacy is gone.
You could just require a permit to park, and permits are issued by a ticket machine, and are valid for 2 hours (or whatever). Cars without prominently displayed tickets are fined, and cars with expired tickets also.
Without the physical intrusion, I don't think this ruling would apply at all.
In a sense, yes. The argument would be that they're not really compelling you, because you don't need to park there. The city is allowed to make all kinds of crazy rules about who may park where and when on public roads.
In another sense, no, because what the chalk does is establish that this car has not moved since the last time the officer went by. If you chalk the tire yourself, the officer cannot know when you did so.
The typical method along those lines is paying at a machine, getting a receipt, and posting the receipt visibly inside the windshield or the street side window, but, yes. This was about physical trespass for information without sufficient cause, not a right not to have parking time tracked.