Court ruling could have affect on geocaching?

[+Gloom]

From the front page of the Metro/NW section of todays Oregonian...

 

"Court shields trash cans from search"

"Garbage in covered, opaque, private containers has not been abandoned for police to dig through, a judge says."

 

Full text is here.

 

Now if only we could somehow apply this to all those "geocache = abandoned trash" minds.

 

----

Duct tape is like the Force. It has a light side and a dark side, and it holds the universe together.

[+geospotter]

I liked this part --

 

"The steps she took by purchasing a metal container with its lid fitted to its top reasonably suggests that she intended that its contents be seen only by the employees of the garbage company with whom she had contracted to collect her waste," Maurer wrote. "It is not reasonable to conclude on these facts that she abandoned all rights to the property."

 

Sounds good to me!

 

geospotter

[+Web-ling]

I think I'll replace all of my ammo boxes and Rubbermade with trash cans...

 

[+Jennifer&Dean]

So, with a trash can cache, bigger is better? I can see the logs now.... Took McBooster seat, left old coffee maker!

Seriously, this is pretty cool! I recently was told that caching is littering and having something like this out there is gonna help to squash that idea. Maybe.

-Jennifer

 

Nothing is really work unless you would rather be doing something else. (JM Barrie)

[+carleenp]

Well......

 

Cases such as this deal with 4th Amendment law and the question of whether there is a privacy interest in property. If there is, then the police can't search it without a warrant. The case would have no effect on whether caching could be banned in areas or would not be considered litter. Sorry!

 

It wouldn't even stand for an argument that the police couldn't search your cache because a cache has been opened up to public inspection. Now the argument could be more interesting if a police search of a member's only cache were involved, but I'm getting way off topic here.

 

[+Sissy-n-CR]

This sounds like the police where fishing to me. Unverified secondhand information? They were after her.

 

But I agree with the above poster. This has very little or nothing to do with caching. We place container with the expectation and hope that someone will come along to find and open it.

 

Well, unless you put a sign on it that states, "Official game piece of GeoCaching. Only registered GeoCachers are allowed to open this cache and then only for the sole purpose of trading even or trading up and logging the find. All others prohibited from distrubing this game piece."

 

Hey, that would solve our problems with plundering, too!

 

CR

 

[+Gloom]

I knew when I posted this that it would never really be anything that we can use to promote geocaching, especially when it says that this ruling doesn't even effect other police searchs, just this one specific case. But it's fun reading.

 

Gloom

 

----

Duct tape is like the Force. It has a light side and a dark side, and it holds the universe together.

[+Criminal]

The key word being opaque, rules out most tuppermaid containers.

 

True, in reality this has nothing to do with geocaching.

[Rubbertoe]

Darn. I thought this thread had something to do with the concealed carry bill that just passed the Ohio state senate.

 

The Toe Pages

[+phantom4099]

I wonder how long it will be till the judge relizes the supreme court ruled that trash can be searched because the owner should not expect complete privacy. It is open to any one to search or take as they go by, and once its at the dumps it is also exposed to any one that want to see it.

 

Also you should not leave credit card statements and such in your gargbage for the very same reasons that you can not expect privacy.

 

Wyatt W.

 

The probability of someone watching you is directly proportional to the stupidity of your actions.