[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.