It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
(visit the link for the full news article)
Police are free to search through a person's garbage without a warrant, even if it means crossing a residential property line, the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled.
In a 7-O ruling today, the court said a former national swim star had no reasonable expectation of privacy in the contents of the trash set out for collection at the edge of his yard.
Police say combing through garbage is an importance investigative technique that's helped uncover everything from murder weapons to DNA.
"Until the garbage is placed at or within reach of the lot line, the householder retains an element of control over its disposition and cannot be said to have unequivocally abandoned it, particularly if it is placed on a porch or in a garage or within the immediate vicinity of the dwelling,"
Individuals who put out their household waste as 'garbage' expect that it will reach the waste disposal system: nothing more, nothing less," she said.
"No one would reasonably expect the personal information contained in their household waste to be publicly available for random scrutiny by anyone, let alone the state, before it reaches its intended destination."
Originally posted by GAOTU789
I do believe they should have to get a warrant to seize trash and shouldn't be able to just pick it up off the curb if it is still on your property.