[chacha102]

This makes me _not_ want to get a Tesla, just to avoid the inconvenience of getting my car towed because of what it _might_ have inside of it. And the opposite, doing what Ring is doing and simply streaming it to the police directly, might be easier but I still believe a major privacy concern.

Sure, it could be helpful. But at what cost?

[gruez]

>This makes me _not_ want to get a Tesla, just to avoid the inconvenience of getting my car towed because of what it _might_ have inside of it.

From the article:

>Therriault said he and other officers now frequently seek video from bystander Teslas, and usually get the owners’ consent to download it without having to serve a warrant. Still, he said, tows are sometimes necessary, if police can’t locate a Tesla owner and need the video “to pursue all leads.”

They're not towing cars at first opportunity.

[bigstrat2003]

The fact that they're doing it at all is completely unacceptable.

[dylan604]

Very much this. Towing by the police should only be something done when the car is in violation of something. I did not see anything about the expense of retrieving the car. You took the person's car so there is definite expense of getting there. Did you force the person to miss a flight, a meeting, a date? WTF do these people think they are so above and beyond rational thought is ridiculous.

[gruez]

>Very much this. Towing by the police should only be something done when the car is in violation of something.

If the police has a search warrant for your home and you're not there, they can break in, even if you're not "in violation of something". I don't see how this is any different.

[dylan604]

I don't have to make arrangements to go get my home when it is searched. Also, if you're searching my house, more than likely, I'm directly involved in something. They don't break into my house to get my Ring footage, which is much more equivalent in your attempt equating these disparate concepts. You've now made an innocent civilian incur ridiculous fees to get their car out of impound when there was no reason to impound it to begin with.

You could just as easily boot the car and wait for the owner to return. It's not like this was a long term parking spot. There are just so many options other than tow this innocent car.

[lucb1e]

> I don't have to make arrangements to go get my home when it is searched

Yeah but you no longer have a front door or window when you get there (the person spoke of them breaking in if you're not home), so you have to make other types of arrangements

[gruez]

>I don't have to make arrangements to go get my home when it is searched

They could however, break your door (if you're not there to let them in), and AFAIK they're not responsible for getting it fixed.

>Also, if you're searching my house, more than likely, I'm directly involved in something.

That's irrelevant. The standard for a search warrant is "probable cause" regardless.

>They don't break into my house to get my Ring footage, which is much more equivalent in your attempt equating these disparate concepts.

...because the ring footage isn't in your house, it's in the cloud. Moreover, if you have an on-premise system and you're on vacation or something, it's plausible that they get a search warrant and break in, especially if they think time is of the essence (eg. your system has limited retention and the footage is going to be wiped).

>You could just as easily boot the car and wait for the owner to return.

If you read the article the police claims that it's only used if they can't locate the owner. It's unclear what that exactly means, but it's not like they're towing every tesla near the crime scene.

[kjkjadksj]

Well its quite different as they don’t put your home on a trailer and haul it away across town without telling you.

[gruez]

Search warrants have existed forever, and allowed police to compel production of certain evidence. This includes breaking into residences or offices. I don't see how towing a car is any different. Unless you think search warrants themselves are "completely unacceptable", I don't see how towing teslas should be singled out.

[cabbageicefruit]

Towing cars at all without a very crucial reason should be illegal in general.

Taking someone’s transportation that they assume they have access to, without their knowledge, and without them being able to find out until the very second they need that transportation is dangerous. Emergencies happen.

If you’re taking someone’s car you better have a damn good reason. And “you accidentally parked in the wrong parking spot doesn’t clear that hurdle. That’s what tickets are for. “Really wanting to see the recordings from your car camera” doesn’t clear that hurdle either.

[Aloisius]

> And “you accidentally parked in the wrong parking spot doesn’t clear that hurdle. That’s what tickets are for.

Private lot owners can’t issue legally-enforceable tickets. Their only real option is to tow.

[monkeywork]

I think the difference is historically the average person wasn't doing a lot of surveillance where as an office place did.

Many people do not want their cameras in the doors, property, cars, etc being used by the police for cases that do not directly impact them.... they do not want to be involved, same as many "witnesses" will simply say they didn't see or know anything and be uncooperative.

As cameras start becoming more and more built into every day items many people suddenly can find themselves thrust into situations they want nothing to do with, so sure search warrants have existed forever but the chance of it impacting the average non-involved party were pretty slim, that chance is growing and people dislike it.

[bigstrat2003]

There is a huge gap between a search warrant (in which you are generally the suspect of the investigation) and "this guy's car might have evidence, let's tow it". The proper analogue to a search warrant here is the police getting a warrant to get the data off Tesla's servers, not towing the car away.

[gruez]

>There is a huge gap between a search warrant (in which you are generally the suspect of the investigation) and "this guy's car might have evidence, let's tow it".

The cops had a warrant. Moreover, search warrants are granted if there's probable cause. Whether someone is a suspect is irrelevant.

>The proper analogue to a search warrant here is the police getting a warrant to get the data off Tesla's servers, not towing the car away.

Is it even on tesla's servers? According to the article it's stored on a USB drive in the car.

[kjkjadksj]

Because you have to then recover the car which is hard to do when your car was effectively stolen

[snozolli]

I don't see how towing a car is any different

Before modern FISA courts, we generally had faith that a search warrant was warranted, based upon other investigation. From what the article said, this sounds more like a "fishing expedition".

[gruez]

They did investigate. A guy was stabbed nearby, and the car was suspected to be recording. On a more practical level, the car was recording a public area (ie. the road) anyways, so it's not like that much privacy was lost by granting access to the video.

[snozolli]

and the car was suspected to be recording

That's the fishing expedition part. Again, from what the article said, there was no particular reason to believe it was in Sentry mode.

I don't know why you're bringing up privacy.

[renewiltord]

Yeah, but if you punish me for being a witness, I'll try real damned hard to look the other way.

[johnisgood]

Yeah, so many people just seem to be unable to put themselves in the situation. It is astonishing.

[umeshunni]

Sadly the politics of the Bay Area has led to a crime wave and most people feel differently.

[conception]

So they say in the interview. Irregardless, if I own a car and it is legal for the police to take it so they can hold onto it until they have a warrant of I give in? No thanks.

[gruez]

>Irregardless, if I own a car and it is legal for the police to take it so they can hold onto it until they have a warrant of I give in?

The article says they got the warrant before towing it.

[tamimio]

My car isn’t a Tesla, and the dashcam has a “parking mode” that records everything while parked. So, do that, don’t get a Tesla, and never get towed to access the camera.

[gruez]

If the police sees the dashcam and suspects that there's footage on there, they can apply for a search warrant and seize that footage as well. It's unclear why they needed to tow the tesla in the first place. The article says that the footage is on a USB drive, so presumably they could just pull it out and make a copy. If they're towing it because they couldn't locate the owner and want to open the car non-destructively, then your suggestion of not driving a dashcam and using a tesla probably isn't going to save you either.

[teslacams]

Search warrant for what ? Is footage of something illegal illegal too ?

[teslacams]

.. or do they have a right to see everything else that could be recorded on that cam just like that ?