Are Game Wardens Watching You? – Part 1: The Case of the Hidden Trail Camera


What would you do if wardens planted a trail camera on your property to spy on you? Hunter Hollingsworth sued and won—and now game-law enforcement may never be the same





https://www.fieldandstream.com/conservation/tennessee-hunters-sue-game-wardens-trail-cameras/

If I saw a game camera on my property that I nor anyone given access to had put up, I would be pissed. I would have taken it down too. And if I was being harassed like that, I would have been hot under the collar and would probably have taken similar actions...but, then again, I am not a habitual poacher.
The last paragraph of the article..."So, is Hunter Hollingsworth a hero? Were fish and wildlife officers harassing him over a personal vendetta? Of course, it’s not that simple. After days of poring over court records and time spent talking to him face to face, we learned that Hunter Hollingsworth has a long history of poaching, including during that very duck season when he found the camera. Wardens were watching him for a reason."
I would be pissed if they harrassed me like that, but then again, Game Wardens don't have reason to harrass me. I've been checked a few times over my lifetime, never have had an infraction. If someone has multiple poaching infractions, they aren't inadvertently breaking game laws. They are doing it on purpose and will probably continue to do so. Too bad he prevailed in this case.

Guy sounds like a real POS, but that doesn't mean the wardens get to break the law.

Did they? He lost in criminal court, but won in a civil lawsuit. If you get pulled over, and the police smell marijuana, then they have probable cause to search your vehicle. Did they have probably cause to search his property and post a camera?

^^^THIS^^^

Typical article written by someone with little knowledge of case law.

The Supreme Court has upheld the use of technology as a substitute for ordinary police surveillance because it would be legal for the police to enter a private field to collect evidence, they concluded it must also be legal to install cameras there.

It's in the Open Fields Doctrine set by the SCOTUS.

Maybe next time he should walk up to it, smile and blast it with a shotgun.

If I found some "trash" on my property it would get disposed of and when the man showed up I would play dumb. No idea what you're talking about.

I’d put about 50 $&@# pics on it. The guy was obviously a dirtbag so likely doesn’t even know how to find them with technology.

Why didn’t they just get a warrant for the camera?

We find them on a place I hunt in Laredo all the time. I think it's the Feds though.

Case law states they didn't need one.

I would say it is an invasion of privacy.
edit:
I wonder if that would fall under the 1st amendment. https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-1/invasions-of-privacy

CBP can pretty much put cameras anywhere they want to within 25 (I think that's correct) miles of the border.

It’s all right here to read. I’ve never been 100% on board with it but it is the law based on a SCOTUS decision.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-fields_doctrine

It's not nearly that black and white, and none of the cases mentioned technology.

Actually, it is that black and white from a criminal legal perspective. The original post was related to a civil court rather than a criminal court. Here is the current standard for all criminal courts.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy...ras-on-private-property-without-warrant/

You misunderstand key legal distinctions.

Installing cameras on unfenced or public land is very different from fenced and/or private land. You need probable cause, at a minimum, to surveil an individual. In most cases, leos also need a warrant.

This to a T. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

Don't do dumb sh!t and dumb sh!t won't happen.

Actually no. I conducted both electronic and physical surveillance for many years and sent countless criminals to both state and federal prison with the evidence I acquired. I posted links to some of the more common cases that are now established case law on the subject but I guess you didn't read them. Here is one specifically related to the installation of cameras on private property.

"A federal judge has ruled that police officers in Wisconsin did not violate the Fourth Amendment when they secretly installed cameras on private property without judicial approval.

The officers installed the cameras in an open field where they suspected the defendants, Manuel Mendoza and Marco Magana, were growing marijuana. The police eventually obtained a search warrant, but not until after some potentially incriminating images were captured by the cameras. The defendants have asked the judge to suppress all images collected prior to the issuance of the search warrant.

But in a Monday decision first reported by CNET, Judge William Griesbach rejected the request. Instead, he approved the ruling of a magistrate judge that the Fourth Amendment only protected the home and land directly outside of it (known as "curtilage"), not open fields far from any residence.

The Fourth Amendment protects "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures." The court ruled that under applicable Supreme Court precedents, "open fields, as distinguished from curtilage, are not 'effects' within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment."

The property in question was heavily wooded, with a locked gate and "no trespassing" signs to notify strangers that they were unwelcome. But the judges found that this did not establish the "reasonable expectation of privacy" required for Fourth Amendment protection. In their view, such a rule would mean that (in the words of a key 1984 Supreme Court precedent) "police officers would have to guess before every search whether landowners had erected fences sufficiently high, posted a sufficient number of warning signs, or located contraband in an area sufficiently secluded to establish a right of privacy."

Are you suggesting you conducted searches of private property without a warrant or probable cause, and those efforts served as a basis for convictions?

I read your article. This is Texas. We're in the 5th Circuit, not the 7th. We have strong protections for private property. While a game warden may enter private lands, your position is that he may REMAIN on fenced, private property in the form of a camera. This, without probable cause, reasonable suspicion, or a warrant.

I'd love to see a case that suggests that's the state of the law in Texas.

If the game wardens are watching me, I am sure they are bored out of their gourd.

I'd love to see case law or legislation that that prevents Texas from being subject to the Open Fields Doctrine. Good luck proving that BTW. Mississippi, Montana, New York, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington are the only states in the U.S. that do not honor the Open Fields Doctrine. If you can’t read and understand this, it’s because you have no training or experience about arrest, search and seizure law.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-fields_doctrine

I disagree, you do surveillance on an individual to build probable cause.

So if a property owner finds a camera on their property that they did not put there can they destroy or remove it?