Well, today the supreme court is hearing an issue that will determine, to me, whether they have stepped over the line and are already abandoning basic rights.

The police in Oregon got a search warrant to examine a suspect's house whom they thought was growing marijuana. They took a thermal imager which detects heat signatures to the suspect's house.

Along the way they pointed the device at the next-door neighbor's house and detected a lot of heat coming from sections of that house. They didn't have a search warrant for that house and so the issue is whether this was an unreasonable search.

What's at stake here is all our privacy. The defense's argument is that the heat is outside the house. Upholding the conviction means that the police can use just about anything to survey us so long as it gives off some radiation outside our residence. My take is that a reasonable expectation of privacy means that if someone could hear you while they were walking down the sidewalk, that's allowed, but if they required an ultra-sensitive microphone, that shouldn't be allowed.

We shall see...

Bill of Rights my ***
 

It is a big one alright. This hits "home" for me since I have a big mouth, when it comes to my anti-prohibition views, and tend to start alot of garden plants this time of year. So even though I don't use any drugs beyond alcohol and caffeine, don't mix with criminals, or anything else which would normally get a search warrant, I could easily end up with a shattered door frame or even some greater tragedy defending my home and family against invasion by folks who say they are the police.

Re: Bill of Rights my ***
 

Remember, as Gordon Liddy says, when dealing with jackbooted thugs use a rifle and aim for the head.

(they'll get you anyway, but at least you'll get an honor guard in Valhalla)

If they get away with IR scanning (which they probably will), what's next will be even worse.

Griff, you mean you start tomatoes and such indoors to plant them outdoors in April or so? That's pretty cool, does it work out well? What do you plant?

I'm a little north of most folks on this list so my plants usually don't get out until May. I save seeds from an open-pollenated (non-hybrid)tomato (Brandywine) and three different op hot peppers. I've had good success with most except one little purple Peruvian that requires an incredibly long season. If you take your time and harden them off gradually (put them out a little longer each day) without direct sun, harsh wind, or a cold snap its not too difficult. Now you've gone and got me in a mood, think I'll open a jar of those pickled hot peppers we put up last fall. SMOKIN!

"Remember, as Gordon Liddy says, when dealing with jackbooted thugs use a rifle and aim for the head." I hate to argue with the G-Man when it comes to weapons but I'm old school when it comes to home defense. At close quarters, which a home invasion would be, your shotgun is your best friend. If I had time to identify targets as real cops, I think I'd take my defense to the courtroom and sue the flora-phobes.

What kind of lighting do you use? I would imagine peppers are used to a really hot, highly-lit environment.

I usually start them under a florescent with broad spectrum grow tubes. For heat, I depend on them soaking up enough sunlight through a south facing window. I use those plastic flats with the clear cover on at night to moderate the temp swings, until the plants are too big to cover. Next winter, when my house is more finished, the mass of my fireplace should keep my overnight temps from dipping too much. I guess many gardeners use heat mats under their flats which would probably give the peppers an early boost, that might be just the thing for those Peruvians.

I'm thinking about skipping the flo light altogether and just using the natural light from the picture window over the kitchen table (since I am a cheap SOB at heart). Hey, that may also reduce the storm trooper population in my kitchen! Good questions, thinkin of goin in the ganja business? ;) Don't answer that...

History for the IR heat signature case
 

Basic concepts of radiation are forgetten when they are more interested in rights than in legal consistency. Previously, if you broadcast using conventional electronic transmissions, then anyone, including legal authorities, were well within their rights to intercept those transmissions. However if you made some extraordinary attempt to protect those transmissions, then your rights were protected.

For example, portable phone conversations are open to all to listen. If you transmit a conversation inside your house, everyone in the neighborhood is permitted to listen. However if you take extra precautions to protect that conversation - ie insulated wires or private encryption - then interception of that transmission is a legal violation; legal authorities are required a search warrant.

If you grow mariguana in your attic and someone transmits x-rays to detect it, then your rights are violated. But if you transmit infared from heat lamps in your attic, then anyone is open to receive and detect those IR transmissions.

Today, all these fundamental principals are lost in a society that is more interested in emotional privacy than is what does and does not constitute "actions that protect privacy".

If you leave your living room curtains open, then anyone has a right to photograph you. However if you cut off those transmissions (ie. curtains), then there is no public transmission to receive - your privacy is protected by legal concepts. If that reporter transmits waves into your house to detect you, then the reporter has violated your privacy. However if he takes pictures using infared film (because you installed inferior curtains), then the reporter is well within his rights.

You must take sufficient actions to protect your privacy - or else you don't have that privacy. Nothing new here. These are old and well established principals.

Hey, yeah, they did say that in this case, if he had purchased lights that have cooling systems, he would have an expectation of privacy. That makes no sense at all with modern technologies. Every wireless caller has an expectation of privacy. Probably only 5% know whether their phone contains any encryption or whatnot. Nobody expects their body temperature to be broadcast 100 yards.

Next thing you know, in this country, you'll have to subpoena the data they had on you on the number of times you whack off, to prove to a court you're not frustrated or whatever.

Griff, a guy I know is in the ganja business, as I just noted in another thread... that's why I asked, he was talking about different types of lights.

That's why this case stood out to me, because his place probably does give off a decent amount of radiation.




[Edited by Dagnabit on 03-06-2001 at 12:01 AM]

"Griff, a guy I know is in the ganja business, as I just noted in another thread... that's why I asked, he was talking about different types of lights.
That's why this case stood out to me, because his place probably does give off a decent amount of radiation."

heh heh heh The good news is that as an owner-builder I took certain precautions when I built my house. I put a radiant barrier of reflectix insulation under my foam. That product has two layers of foil separated by a plastic bubble layer (like the packing stuff). If anything my house would look unnaturally cool. The man would also have to set up quite some distance from my house since it sits on a 50 acre parcel. Of course my behavior in putting this expensive product around my whole house would probably be used justify a no-knock warrant, which would get me killed. We need to legalize so Buford T. Justice doesn't have to make these rationalizations.

Built your own house on 50 acres? Damn, guy, you're my new personal hero! I've always wanted a situation like that, where there are no neighbors to deal with and you can take a pee off your back porch if you want.

front porch brother front porch...

Check out my drug free household at http://home.epix.net/~griffins/

Re: porch
 

Doesn't matter. There's a sub-section of my borough where it's front AND back. Luckily, we were able to isloate them and establish a 50-acre "No-walk zone"

We call it "Renton". AlphaGeek can testify.

~Mike

Wow, that's some great work. You mean to say you hand-chiseled out those grooves in the main beams? Damn. And the off-sized windows on the side there, very tasteful indeed.

It's way better than the McMansions around here, where they put a huge giant picture window right above the entrance, where everyone can see you going up the stairs because there's no way to curtain that off.

Good work sir, my hat is officially off.

Re: Court to hear IR heat signature case
 

All analog phone conversations and most portable phone conversations have no privacy. No intelligent person should ever have expectantions for privacy unless the product specifically claims such protection. Some portable phones are encrypted or use frequency hopping; therefore inform you of this privacy feature. In Cell Phones, only digital, such as Qualcomm's CDMA, provides privacy.

"Every wireless caller has an expectation of privacy" is simply not based upon common sense. Tune your TV to the Channel 82 regions to listen to cell phone conversations. Where is that privacy?

Your expectations of privacy are only when you make the extra effort to obtain that privacy. Landlines have that expectation of privacy. Portable phones do not, if not expressly stated. For that matter, AT&T analog cell phone have an option where the user can listen in on every other call being handled by that cell. Read the book "Takedown".

I expect anyone who transmits their body temperature to be observable at 100 yards just like you transmit the color of your clothes to TV cameras every day. We were measuring same thermals in Texas back in early 1980s. This is not rocket science. It is a simple, conventional electromagnetic receiver; similar in concept to a radio receiever. You transmit electromagnetic waves - be it light, heat, radio, gamma, etc - then you have no expectations of privacy - unless you take sufficient measures to protect your privacy.

That's the point. Every <i>intelligent</i> person has no expectation of privacy on wireless calls of any kind. Every <i>unintelligent</i> person thinks they're somehow protected. Probably by that same government that will break their privacy at will.

What if an unintelligent person finds out that wireless calls are at risk, and puts aluminum foil around their windows to protect the wireless transmissions from getting out. Does <i>that</i> person have an expectation of privacy?

Many thanks Dag. Thats my work from chain saw to paint brush. We've still got a long way to go. I did all the joinery by hand, though I roughed some out with a power drill. Just exploring innapropriate technology.

http://www.shelterinstitute.com/

Pat and Patsy Hennin, a truly remarkable couple run a business teaching folks to build there own homes. Their classes are a great deal of fun and really effective. She is a architect/engineer and he is a builder who trained as a lawyer but decided not to be evil. The students run from hippies to retired folks to college kids to young couples. Its intensive and interesting with some pleasant evenings of beer drinking interspersed.

What's next if IR imaging upheld
 

I'm not going to argue with tw point by point.

But here's the kind of thing that's next if routine, unwarranted surveillance in other-than-visible parts of the EM spectrum are upheld:

http://www.millivision.com/partners.html

The courts have held that if the cops can see in your window from the street, what they see is admissable without a warrant. But if they have to use binoculars or a telescope to do so, it's not admissable. Use of IR imaging is no different than use of a telescope in that respect, IMO.

Re: What's next if IR imaging upheld
 

Russotto has gone right to the heart of the contraversy. What constitutes extraordinary equipment? IOW a human cannot receive radio signals. But a human can monitor his neighbor's portable phone using external equipment - radio receiver. The receiver, even with single sideband or designed to receive phase modulated or wideband signals, is not extraordinary. However, currently, a receiver capable of decrypting Qualcomm's CDMA digital phone transmissions is considered extraordinary.

Any device capable of receiving (and especially measuring) IR transmissions is not considered extraordinary. However what about a laser light that receives vibrations off of glass?

As usual, we elect congressman who were more concerned with a birthmark on Clinton's penis than on developing consistent privacy laws. Not only are they neglegent on copyright law, waste time attacking the IRS after Congress created the mess, and empower harassment telemarketeers. Now Congress must again force the courts to make law - to decide what is normal reception and what is extraordinary violations of privacy.

Ever wonder how much personal wealth Jesse Helms has collected as a lifetime 'public servant'? Or Dan 'scumbag' Burton of IN? Or Robert 'porkbarrel' Byrd of WV? Did you read of Lawless from Montgomery County attacking Penn State because students organized a Sex Faire - to disseminate information on sex- gasp!!! Where are these lifetime government employees when it comes to addressing the serious questions of law? We have the incumbant lawmakers we deserve - forcing the courts to make laws.

Re: Re: What's next if IR imaging upheld
 

That guy just sounds a tad bit uptight...perhaps he's just mad because HE didn't think of it or couldn't make it. Turd...

You're probably right. Lawless has a history of attacking the state university system and there are rumors that it's because he didn't get something he wanted out of West Chester.

Lawless is utterly, utterly clueless. Apparently he's the laughingstock of the rest of the assembly.

He wanted to run against the Republican clique for county commissioner last election. The reason: well he's tired of working in Harrisburg, he wants to be closer to home. It would have been a nice bloodbath, but somebody talked him out of it.

Which only meant that he ran unopposed for his assembly seat for the 3rd time in a row.

Re: Re: What's next if IR imaging upheld
 

This isn't about portable phones, or any other item which deliberately broadcasts RF. This is about snooping on the inside of people's houses based on incidental EM emissions. For these purposes, even visible light devices such as binoculars and telescopes are not allowed; your neighbor looking through your window from his with a telescope can be charged as peeping tom, and if the cops do it from their unmarked van, the evidence is inadmissable. Using IR devices to do the same thing is a step beyond the use of binoculars and telescopes. And beyond that is millimeter-wave technology like that described in the link above. If the courts accept the IR evidence, it's no step at all to allowing the cops to routinely use millimeter wave devices to see what's going on in anyone's house at any time.

Re: What's next if IR imaging upheld
 

If using binoculars and telescopes was a crime, then there are 100,000 criminals on Manhatten Island. I never read where use of binoculars to look into another's home was a crime. If true, then Channel 6's Sky Watch helicopter or the LAPD helicopter would be illegal. They respect a person's privacy but are not legally banned from looking inside those windows.

RF vs visible light vs infared - they are all electromagnetic wave transmissions - all same concepts in the eyes of the law. For that matter that IR detection unit we were using 15 years ago in TX was simpler than a radio receiver. What monitors your TV remote? An expensive, exotic device or a simple diode attached to a single chip detector? IR receivers are common, everyday devices. IR radiation is easily monitored and is not exotic, high tech equipment. IR receivers are even routine in 35 mm cameras. Would you ban all infared film sales because it might violate people's privacy?

If your house transmits incidental radiation, then that radiation is for all to monitor. If incidental radiation was so important to your privacy, then 'you' are responsible to protect your privacy. We do it every day. Its called plywood, siding, insulation, sheetrock and paint.

The original point is that electromagnetic monitoring laws, orginally applicable to longwave radio, also applies to all other electromagnetic wave transmissions. For privacy from telescopes, cover the windows. For privacy from IR recievers, install walls. If you don't want your neighbors to see your nuclear reactor, then install gamma ray shields. No problem. You have no expectation of privacy unless you create that privacy.

Re: Re: What's next if IR imaging upheld
 

Window coverings don't block IR. Paint doesn't block millimeter wave radar. Does every home have to be made into a Faraday cage, with heat pump and a somehow-hidden heat sink, before you'll consider that people might just have an expectation of privacy in their homes?

When is it enough?
 

Russoto (sorry for any misspellings) raises a hell of an interesting point. When should you be allowed to expect privacy due to simple human decency. You can find a way to find anything out from someone if you want to under these assumptions; simply find an angle they haven't covered. Hell, even our trash is public domain, as old-school dumpster diving crackers and carders could attest. At some point, the law should cover our privacy just because human beings need and deserve it. You should not have to go to extreme measures (custom wiring, extra insulation, etc) just to keep these jack-booted, gestapo thugs (or, for that matter, your jack-booted, gestapo neighbors) out of your damn business. How long before we're keeping a statue of our equivalent of Stalin in the middle of the Mall @ D.C.?

Everyone knew someone would bring up communism, I figured I'd be the first. Glad that's out fo my system


communism iraq I bomb weapon Love death terrorist Echeleon iran assassinate And president white house Carnivore

Steve

Alpha, that is one gorgeous rant! My brother and I got into a thing where we sent e-mails back and forth listing only "good" things designed to trip the system. life liberty fraternity justice property rights truth forgiveness Arkansas oops Texas equality blonde bombshell Cayman Islands

Still stickin' it to the NSA, eh Steve?

Ahh, so many wrongs to right upon becoming King of America, so little time to issue proclamations for them all...

(senses the Scales of Topic beginning to shift)
~Mike

[Edited by Chewbaccus on 03-12-2001 at 05:24 PM]

Re: When is it enough?
 

The above question was previously answered correctly. However if did not understand the original concept, then first reread those posts. For example, Russotto talks about millimeter microwave transmissions which are already defined in that previous post - which must ignore my previous post to be relevant.

If you still don't understand, current concepts in privacy laws make illegal that millimeter microwave or X-rays. If you transmit standard electromagnetic waves (light from your clothes, body heat, portable phone conversations, etc), then those transmission are open for everyone to receive. However if another transmits X-rays to violate your privacy, then that was illegal. Where is this sudden worry about privacy coming from? First understand the orignal post before jumping to this emotional fear.

Again the concepts are misrepresented. You don't need exotic insulation to protect IR transmission. Only the paranoid say otherwise. You don't even need plywood. Tar paper is sufficient for IR privacy. Privacy from binoculars - is called curtains. Get back into reality people. Those jack-booted thugs are in the minds of the mentally unstable. Existing privacy laws have been quite consistent - although may require courts to upgrade what Congress has failed to define.

You have no expectation of privacy unless you create that privacy. We overbuild to protect privacy everywhere. However if a man creates so much heat that even those trival, inexpensive IR detector receive it; and if he does not even insulate the attic, then everyone should know that he has a jungle for an attic. It takes no genius to see which house has no frost or snow every morning on the roof.

Furthermore, the original premise on which this worry is created is rediculous. The real issue is the theme of the movie Traffik. The real issue is not privacy. We have privacy concepts that are sufficient in our laws - it is just being misrepresented here with mythical microwave people detectors that don't transmit microwaves. The problem of a heated attic is the nonsense WE have with drugs - as exemplified by the movie Traffik.

It is not an issue of privacy. It is an issue of a rediculous War on Drugs. If you ever thought, after VietNam, that such as war would succeed, then you have a serious problem with reality. Traffik is what Federal Agents in the Drug wars were telling us in the 1980s. It takes a few decades for our brains to hear what our ears have heard from those who do the work. Still today, many don't understand the reality in Traffik.

Winnin' the war
 

Our county jail up here recently had a crack down to try to reduce their drug problem. Along with all the usual stuff, some guy was actually brewing beer in his cell. Give away all our civil liberties and all you'll have is a population that needs to self-medicate. This one is not winnable.

Re: Re: When is it enough?
 

Tom, the millimeter wave technology is passive. No transmission necessary. Just a detector. Just like IR.

Re: When is it enough?
 

So what inside your house is transmitting millimeter radar waves so that outsiders can monitor your privacy?

Are you saying that your privacy is violated if a microwave oven leaks microwaves? What in the house creates these higher frequency (millimeter) electromagnetic waves?

The War On Americans
 

I'm sensing a pervasive theme here, and one I can agree with. The war on drugs is going the way of prohibition in the 1920s. We simply couldn't stop alcohol then, despite our best intentions, and we created a criminal market that led to murders, increase in jail population, and a general feeling of well-being. That same thing is happening now; the American drug laws are creating crime rather than stopping it. Drugs are illegal, which means there is a very lucrative market for those who are willing to dip into them (I know a low-level guy, operating out of a trenchcoat, who pulls in $1k a week, easy). With such a black market, comes fierce competition (ie rival drug dealers killing each other), and an intense effort by addicts to get the money they need for the drugs, but whatever means necessary. I advocate personal responsibility when it comes to such matters. Drug laws should be repealed so that safe, gvmt.-regulated (make a note of this, this'll probably be the only time I advocate government regulation in public) drugs are available on the free market. I think that the average Joe (assuming the average Joe to be over 21 years old and of relatively good health) is responsible enough to decide himself whether he wants to use a drug, or any type of drug. People fear that responsibility, because if someone acts irresponsibly, they can do damage. So people have a habit of looking for a Big Brother to watch over them closely, take away that responsibility, and make things easy. Such is the case with drug laws.

What we must advocate is responsibility and education. With these two things, there would be no need for such laws. Give people the chance to do something, the ability to screw up, and the knowledge that there will be consequences if they screw up, and you'll end up with better people.

Which brings me to another rant on that lack of consequences in american society, but I must rest for the eve (if I rant more than twice a day, my blood pressure goes up so high that I squirt blood from my nose).

I'll leave you with that, and prepare my next tirade

Steve

"Drug laws should be repealed so that safe, gvmt.-regulated (make a note of this, this'll probably be the only time I advocate government regulation in public) drugs are available on the free market." Go back to Cuba, pinko. <sarcasm>

tw seems comfortable with arguing for some consistancy in privacy laws as they are already interpreted. I am comfortable with the idea of taking prudent steps to ensure my neighbor or some other private person only knows what I wish him to know. However, since law enforcement have virtually unlimited resources, due to assett forfiture, I expect them to be held on a tighter leash. A peeping Tom neighbor is one thing, he could do much harm, but he cannot legally kick in my door, seize my assetts, and throw me in prison (temporarily since I am virtue personified). I'm not comfortable with allowing any observation of light outside the visible spectrum, without a search warrant.

Re: Re: When is it enough?
 

People. Inanimate objects. Read the site whose I posted.

Griff says, <i>"I am comfortable with the idea of taking prudent steps to ensure my neighbor or some other private person only knows what I wish him to know."</i>

Yup. Yup yup yup.

Not only does it take into account futher invasions of privacy that we can't anticipate, like Russotto's example. There are certain to be new ways to violate privacy, such as concentrating our data and running bots over it.

Let's see, under the tw system this would be permissible: cameras are mounted on poles outside our houses. They have face recognition so they record and timestamp our coming and going. Cameras at public places like malls also have face recognition and record our presence. Once we buy something on a card, our identity is linked up with the mall system forever, matching the identity to the face. Our writings on the net are watched and any writings that can't be identified are run over authoring-recognition systems to determine identitites. It's all possible now...

If we want to have a civil society, my theory is, the authorities must be held to not only the same level but a higher level of civility. People must be trusted and not controlled.

Cuba??
 

Where do you get communism from that? What I'm advocating is that, instead of getting drugs that have been through the hands of at least 5 or 6 other guys, each of which having probably cut it with another unknown substance and mixed it with other drugs in order to increase his profits, you get a drug made by a private drug company, but regulated by the government to make sure you GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR!!! If it weren't for government regulation, what keeps a company from selling something as aspirin that's 99% filler and 1% some stronger narcotic. It'd be more profitable that way, but would you want to buy it? You know you're safe with aspirin, but when it's this unknown drug mixture, you don't know if it could be ineffective or, even better, kill you.

Maybe you oughta keep your militance in check until you develop a little better foresight

Steve

I was kidding.

Griff
 

All apologies, my sarcasm filter wasn't working right, and that one slipped from "Sarcastic Joke" all the way to "Short-sighted Flame". I take back all personal attacks.

Imperialist plutocrat bastard.

Steve

gotta note when I think I'm bein' funny
 

"Imperialist plutocrat bastard." Thats more like it.

Re: When is it enough?
 

That is not passive, requires a transmitter, and will probably have the size and abilities similar to PET and CAT scanners. To detect guns, etc the millimeter waves are transmitted like X-rays are to examine baggage. The original definitions of what constitutes invasion of privacy still holds consistent. Consistency - not irrational science fiction based upon personal fears - is what is required in laws to protect privacy.

Privacy and its underlying principals were correctly defined previously. The only way this consistency can be defeated is to hype science fiction concpets that just don't exist - neither in theory nor in practice. Millimeter imaging under the current laws requires a transmitter and special, receiving equipment intended only to violate standard privacy equipment known as siding, plywood, insulation, sheetrock, and paint. By the concepts of current laws, this millimeter imaging system is similar to wiretapping - requires a court order.

Police Departments cannot even afford a machine to measure the darkness of tinted car windows (something that violates safety of those outside the car and should be banned everywhere for the protection of all other motorists and pedestrians). Now those same police will purchase millimeter wave imaging equipment that will even be too big for a pickup? Get real. Stop with the science fiction based only upon personal fears. The fear is not based upon logical conclusions and legal precedents.

Here is a good place to go for legal commentary on cases like this one.

http://writ.news.findlaw.com/

lifted from a Barton Aronson column on the site "...The limits of this approach are especially acute when Fourth Amendment cases involve unusual technology. Thermal imaging has been around for years, but it's a fair bet that most people have never heard of it, and don't really have an opinion about it. Moreover, the history or availability of technology is not much of a guide to Fourth Amendment opinions. Telescopes have been around forever, and you can buy them in any store, but you still can't use very high-powered ones to peer into house windows without a warrant."

Thermal imagery, as presently used is according to Aronson pretty clumsy, not showing much detail. I assume it gives the sort of information you could extrapolate from a copy of the electric bill. I assume, maybe wrongly, that the police need a warrant to get that info unless its made available for dumpster divers. If this door is opened and thermal imagery improves to the level of the "high-power" telescope, however that would be defined, will its use be curtailed? rumor/inuendo section -some other guy on the message board at the site said the windows were boarded up. reasonable expectation of privacy?

Hooray!
 

Some good news from the SC.

http://news.findlaw.com/news/s/20010...tsearchdc.html

'To withdraw such a minimum expectation of privacy against unreasonable searches would permit ``police technology to erode the privacy'' guaranteed by the Constitution, Scalia said.'

The bad guys on this one were-"Dissenting were Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justices John Paul Stevens, Sandra Day O'Connor and Anthony Kennedy."


"Stevens said the privacy interest was ``trivial'' at best. He said a homeowner who wants to engage in activities that produce extraordinary amounts of heat could conceal that from outsiders simply by making sure the home was well insulated."

Interesting note, Thomas was the swing vote on this one and chose liberty.

Re: Hooray!
 

"Justice Antonin Scalia said ... when the government uses a device not in general public use to explore the details of a private home that would previously have been unknowable without physical intrusion, the surveillance is a search and requires a warrant". So instead I take the diffusion cover off of a motion dector, do the same thing with a device found everywhere - and that does not require a warrant.

The pathetic part is that thermal detection equipment is everywhere. Its the remote control in your TV. Its sold in 35 mm film. You can purchase thermometers in electronic surplus houses that measure a person's body temperature across the room - but are these 'devices found everywhere'? And when does the court decide what is and is not found everywhere? Did they provide a guideline?

They simply throw away any previous general guidelines probably because, as I expected, they did not even understand the previously held concept of what constitutes public transmission. That is too much work for a court that more looks first and sometimes only to political agenda to make their decisions.

Are telescopes in or out of the 'devices found everywhere' category? Do we have to take every device before the Supreme Court every 10 years to have them decide what is and is not 'found everywhere'? What a weak kneed, "throw the ball in someone elses court" decision.

The Supreme Court is suppose to make decisions that lay foundations for all future society conduct and legal interpretations. Instead all they have done is create some rediculous standard called "devices found everywhere". Pathetic. There is no underlying principal on which all future decisions can be made. They have only created chaos so that more lawyers can get rich a the expense of society. Pathetic this court has been. Interesting how the justices lined up on this one though. Scalia's pupply dog Thomas, as usual, expressed little opinion and voted his master's bidding.