Search warrants have existed forever, and allowed police to compel production of certain evidence. This includes breaking into residences or offices. I don't see how towing a car is any different. Unless you think search warrants themselves are "completely unacceptable", I don't see how towing teslas should be singled out.
Towing cars at all without a very crucial reason should be illegal in general.
Taking someone’s transportation that they assume they have access to, without their knowledge, and without them being able to find out until the very second they need that transportation is dangerous. Emergencies happen.
If you’re taking someone’s car you better have a damn good reason. And “you accidentally parked in the wrong parking spot doesn’t clear that hurdle. That’s what tickets are for. “Really wanting to see the recordings from your car camera” doesn’t clear that hurdle either.
Regarding #2 is that not an OPTION that may or may not get turned on?
Regarding #1 you are correct that DRIVING is a privilege however property ownership is a RIGHT and I'm assuming we aren't talking about a vehicle in motion when we are talking about the police unable to contact an owner.
Imagine trying to go to work and you don’t have your car. Are you going to say “well I guess driving is a privilege and not a right so its fine that the police repossess my vehicle at random times” or are you going to be livid like a normal person?
I think the difference is historically the average person wasn't doing a lot of surveillance where as an office place did.
Many people do not want their cameras in the doors, property, cars, etc being used by the police for cases that do not directly impact them.... they do not want to be involved, same as many "witnesses" will simply say they didn't see or know anything and be uncooperative.
As cameras start becoming more and more built into every day items many people suddenly can find themselves thrust into situations they want nothing to do with, so sure search warrants have existed forever but the chance of it impacting the average non-involved party were pretty slim, that chance is growing and people dislike it.
There is a huge gap between a search warrant (in which you are generally the suspect of the investigation) and "this guy's car might have evidence, let's tow it". The proper analogue to a search warrant here is the police getting a warrant to get the data off Tesla's servers, not towing the car away.
>There is a huge gap between a search warrant (in which you are generally the suspect of the investigation) and "this guy's car might have evidence, let's tow it".
The cops had a warrant. Moreover, search warrants are granted if there's probable cause. Whether someone is a suspect is irrelevant.
>The proper analogue to a search warrant here is the police getting a warrant to get the data off Tesla's servers, not towing the car away.
Is it even on tesla's servers? According to the article it's stored on a USB drive in the car.
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".
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.
