In the case of United States v. Jackson, police officers rented a motel room adjacent to Mary Wanna’s room and listened in on her conversations by placing their ears against the shared wall. The key issue at hand is whether this action constitutes a violation of the Fourth Amendment. According to the Supreme Court, it is not uncommon for officers to utilize their inherent ability to listen by pressing their ears against an adjoining wall in a leased motel room.
The court ruled that a suspect who willingly engages in conversation in a motel room, with knowledge of the close proximity and thin walls, cannot argue that their constitutional rights were violated if an adjacent police officer overhears. Thus, Mary Wanna’s Fourth Amendment rights remain unaffected. In another incident, law enforcement officers rented an adjoining motel room to Mary Wanna specifically to monitor her conversations. However, they were unable to eavesdrop due to the excessive thickness of the walls.
The motel hires a cleaning lady to enter a guest’s room, listen while she cleans, and report everything she hears. During her work, she overhears a conversation that contains potentially illegal information. The question is whether this action violates the Fourth Amendment. Justify your answer for 10 points. According to the Hoffa doctrine, individuals do not have a protected privacy right regarding information they willingly disclose to a third party. Even though the cleaning lady was invited into Mary Wanna’s hotel room and paid by law enforcement officers, all the conversations she heard occurred knowingly while she was present.
Therefore, the employment of the cleaning lady did not violate Mary Wanna’s Fourth Amendment rights. 3. Requiring airline passengers to undergo magnetometer screening and have their carry-on luggage x-rayed before boarding a plane is considered a search. Individualized suspicion and a search warrant are not required due to the fact that these screening procedures unveil information about innocent objects that are concealed from public view.
According to the Fourth Amendment, searches carried out as part of a general regulatory scheme in support of an administrative purpose are permissible without individualized suspicion. This applies to preventing terrorist attacks involving planes. As long as the invasion of privacy is outweighed by the government’s need for the search, airport security checkpoints are justified despite their minor inconvenience.
The issue arises regarding when email, voice mail, and text messages are protected under both the Wiretap Act and the Stored Wire and Electronic Communications and Transactional Records Act. It is important to understand the requirements for accessing email during its first 180 days versus after this time period.
To fall under the jurisdiction of the Wiretap Act, an email must be intercepted and its contents accessed during transmission. Once it reaches its intended recipient, it becomes a stored communication.
The Stored Wire and Electronic Communications and Transactional Records Act governs access to stored communications, including email, voicemail, and text messages. These communications have less protection than intercepted ones. The Stored Communications Act forbids electronic communication service providers from willingly revealing stored communications and outlines the procedures that law enforcement officials must follow to obtain disclosure of such communications.
Officials have the ability to retrieve electronic communications within the initial 180 days by acquiring a search warrant. Nevertheless, if it is considered pertinent to an active criminal investigation, disclosure can be mandated through different means after this timeframe. The utilization of a trained narcotics detection dog for sniffing purposes has been ruled by the Supreme Court as not qualifying as a search.
According to the Supreme Court, using a drug detection dog is not considered a search because it involves intentionally exposing the scent from a suspect’s luggage to the general public. The dog is seen as a tool for sensory perception, similar to a flashlight or binoculars.
Mary Wanna has achieved business success and decided to set up an office with a waiting area and secretary. Officers Harris and West visited Mary’s office and asked for a meeting. Mary’s secretary acknowledged the presence of the officers and informed them that they would have to wait briefly. Afterwards, the secretary left for her lunch break.
While sitting in Mary’s waiting room, the officers noticed a blinking light on the secretary’s extension phone. They chose to answer the extension phone and eavesdrop on Mary’s telephone conversation. Did their actions violate the Wiretap Act? Please explain, 10 points. Since the officers answered the telephone to listen to Mary Wanna’s conversation, it is classified as oral communication. Oral communications involve human voice and do not use wires but instead travel through sound waves. This is because the officers did not acquire access to Mary Wanna’s voice as it passed through wires.
Mary Wanna’s privacy was violated when officers Harris and West conducted communication surveillance by using a stethoscope against the common wall of their rented motel room next to Mary Wanna’s. This allowed them to hear everything she said, thus constituting a violation of the Wiretap Act.
Does this violate the Wiretap Act? Explain.
5pts The use of a stethoscope to amplify Mary Wanna’s voice through the wall is not considered a violation of the Wiretap Act as it is classified as a sensory enhancement device.
8. During a drug bust, Mary Wanna and one of her associates were arrested by the Whosville Police Department. They were placed in the backseat of a squad car equipped with concealed microphones and tape recorders. The police took an extended route to the police station.
Upon the patrol car’s arrival at the police station, there was no need for custodial questioning as Mary had already provided all necessary information. The issue at hand is whether or not the Wiretap Act was violated by the Whosville Police Department. It can be argued that it was not, as established in United States v. Turner, where the Supreme Court concluded that individuals in a patrol car do not have reasonable privacy expectations due to electronic devices present. Therefore, the practical realities of the situation should have been apparent.
Now let us consider a scenario where Judy Judas agrees to wear a hidden radio transmitter during her next drug transaction with Mary Wanna. Unbeknownst to Mary, Judy secretly transmits their conversation to the police. The question arises if this action violates the Fourth Amendment. It can be argued that it does not since Mary willingly disclosed information to a third party, thereby eliminating any expectation of privacy. The Supreme Court’s decision in United States v.
The means by which police informants testify about their conversations with the defendant does not affect the constitutional purposes. Whether they recall from memory or secretly record the conversation, it is of no consequence. The Wiretap Act’s consent exception applies to situations like when Judy Judas, a police informant, engages Mary Wanna in an incriminating conversation while wearing a concealed radio transmitter and tape recorder.
Judy Judas gives consent to the police to tap her own telephone line and monitor incoming calls. Judy Judas also allows the police to listen on her extension phone while she calls Mary Wanna. Mary Wanna, who is in prison, threatens Judy Judas’ life for putting her in prison. The call is monitored and recorded as there is a sign over the phone stating that calls made from prison phones are monitored.
11. A pen register device and a trap-and-trace device are recording devices attached to a telephone line that identify the source and destination of all calls made to (pen registers) and from (trap-and-trace devices) a specific telephone. To install and use these devices, the only requirement is an application naming the applicant and the law enforcement agency conducting the investigation. The application must certify under oath that the information obtained will be relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation.
12. The Fourth Amendment does not regulate electronic beeper surveillance.
The regulation of electronic beeper surveillance varies depending on the location of the suspect. If the suspect is in public areas, where their actions can be seen by the public and law enforcement officers, there is no need for a warrant as per the Fourth Amendment. However, if electronic beepers are used to monitor movements inside private spaces like residences, a warrant is required to ensure citizens’ privacy rights under the Fourth Amendment.
A newly available surveillance device called Super-Spy X-Ray Binoculars allows police officers to see through walls up to 100 yards away. If police officers use these binoculars from a public street to observe marijuana plants growing within Mary Wanna’s property, it raises concerns about potential violations of the Fourth Amendment. While binoculars are typically considered sensory enhancement devices, being able to peer through walls does indeed violate the protections provided by the Fourth Amendment.
Using a device that enhances sensory capabilities to see through walls would infringe upon the Fourth Amendment’s safeguard of private homes. Nevertheless, if law enforcement were located on a public street and utilized regular binoculars to surveil the interior of Mary Wanna’s house via an open window, it raises concerns about whether this conduct violates the Fourth Amendment and which principle applies in such scenario. Moreover, if the officer stood on Mary’s property in an open field outside the curtilage and employed binoculars to observe inside her residence, additional factors come into play.
Would this change anything? Explain. 5pts Since officers stood on a public street, using ordinary binoculars to look through an open window in the home of Mary Wanna, it does not violate the Fourth Amendment. The principle “heightened Fourth Amendment protection for the home” applies to this particular situation. The land immediately surrounding the home is considered to be “curtilage. ” This area is not covered by the Fourth Amendment. Therefore it does not change anything concerning the protection given under the Fourth Amendment.
