Turns out, the front of your house is not considered private. A federal court recently ruled that law enforcement officers were within their rights to film the front of a man’s house without his knowledge for two months straight.
The ruling was made in the case U.S. vs. Hay, in which Army veteran Bruce Hay was found guilty of lying about his disability status in order to receive benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). After receiving a tip that Hay was not being truthful about his disability status, VA officers set up a camera across the street from his home and filmed for 15 hours a day for 68 days in a row. They did not have a search warrant.
The video footage was enough to find him guilty on 16 charges, but Hay appealed because the filming had been done without a warrant. However, the U.S. Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Tuesday that because “video cameras proliferate throughout society, regrettably, the reasonable expectation of privacy from filming is diminished.” So since cameras are everywhere now, it seems you can only expect privacy inside your home with the curtains drawn.
