When the government hides spy cameras on your land, fight back in court

This article turns into a rant after the first few paragraphs, leaving me confused about the actual facts behind the story. Is it legal for the government to setup surveillance cameras on someone's land, to monitor their land? From the article, it sounds like this is exactly what was done.

The government&#x27;s justification for this is the open fields doctrine, which comes from a supreme court ruling that says that fourth amendment protections don&#x27;t apply to &#x27;open fields&#x27;:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Open-fields_doctrine" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Open-fields_doctrine</a>

Warrantless spying should be illegal full stop. Let alone installing equipment on someone&#x27;s land or cutting down their trees. I hope the government agency responsible for this is soundly reprimanded in court.

God bless the Institute for Justice, they really do what it says on the tin, including actually winning cases. And that can have such huge leverage on national policy. They have a gift for choosing good cases and promoting them effectively. By bang per buck they&#x27;re my favorite 501(c)(3).

We have allowed power to become heavily centralized across many aspects of law and culture, and representation (e.g. number of house representatives per capita). Reversing that trend is probably a good idea, if only to help keep the peace between geographies with different values and needs currently fighting to win in an all-or-nothing federal system.

I’m interested in what the future of 24&#x2F;7 drone surveillance looks like in the U.S.<p>Many countries are using this technology, which lets them rewind, and then fast-forward (and rewind, and so on) to catch and understand criminal networks, but eventually it will be used by divorced couples to find out where the other person was.

I searched the records and don&#x27;t find a case with Terry Rainwaters listed, and the only mentions of Hunter Hollingsworth are for felony theft, with a guilty plea, but I can&#x27;t say that it&#x27;s the same person.<p>Was this case actually filed or is this just like an exercise?

An unfortunately common practice that isn&#x27;t new. There are voluminous examples and an easily found one below.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cnet.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;court-oks-warrantless-use-of-hidden-surveillance-cameras&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cnet.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;court-oks-warrantless-use-of-hidde...</a>

Forbes had a better write up back in April when this story made the rounds: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.forbes.com&#x2F;sites&#x2F;instituteforjustice&#x2F;2020&#x2F;04&#x2F;14&#x2F;is-your-land-really-yours-if-the-government-can-watch-you-whenever-it-wants&#x2F;amp&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.forbes.com&#x2F;sites&#x2F;instituteforjustice&#x2F;2020&#x2F;04&#x2F;14&#x2F;...</a><p>Also, Terry got a PPP loan for $20k for his one person soybean farm. Seems legit.