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 JIR rated 4 months ago - From the page:
"Portland's top brass said it was OK to swipe your garbage--so we grabbed theirs.
It's past midnight. Over the whump of the wipers and the screech of the fan belt, we lurch through the side streets of Southeast Portland in a battered white van, double-checking our t...
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4 Reviews
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 I-Did-It-4-Allah rated 4 months ago- rambles on and on and on and on and on
jees
- JMauser rated 4 months ago
- Ah, Portland....how I love and miss thee.
- JIR rated 4 months ago
- From the page:
"Portland's top brass said it was OK to swipe your garbage--so we grabbed theirs.
It's past midnight. Over the whump of the wipers and the screech of the fan belt, we lurch through the side streets of Southeast Portland in a battered white van, double-checking our toolkit: flashlight, binoculars, duct tape, scissors, watch caps, rawhide gloves, vinyl gloves, latex gloves, trash bags, 30-gallon can, tarpaulins, Sharpie, notebook--notebook?
Well, yes. Technically, this is a journalistic exercise--at least, that's what we keep telling ourselves. We're upholding our sacred trust as representatives of the Fourth Estate. Comforting the afflicted, afflicting the comfortable. Pushing the reportorial envelope--by liberating the trash of Portland's top brass.
We didn't dream up this idea on our own. We got our inspiration from the Portland police.
Back in March, the police swiped the trash of fellow officer Gina Hoesly. They didn't ask permission. They didn't ask for a search warrant. They just grabbed it. Their sordid haul, which included a bloody tampon, became the basis for drug charges against her (see 'Gross Violation,' below).
The news left a lot of Portlanders--including us--scratching our heads. Aren't there rules about this sort of thing? Aren't citizens protected from unreasonable search and seizure by the Fourth Amendment?
The Multnomah County District Attorney's Office doesn't think so. Prosecutor Mark McDonnell says that once you set your garbage out on the curb, it becomes public property.
'She placed her garbage can out in the open, open to public view, in the public right of way," McDonnell told Judge Jean Kerr Maurer earlier this month. 'There were no signs on the garbage, "Do not open. Do not trespass." There was every indication...she had relinquished her privacy, possessory interest.'
Police Chief Mark Kroeker echoed this reasoning. 'Most judges have the opinion that [once] trash is put out...it's trash, and abandoned in terms of privacy,' he told WW.
In fact, it turns out that police officers throughout Oregon have been rummaging through people's trash for more than three decades. Portland drug cops conduct 'garbage pulls' once or twice per month, says narcotics Sgt. Eric Schober.
On Dec. 10, Maurer rubbished this practice. Scrutinizing garbage, she declared, is an invasion of privacy: The police must obtain a search warrant before they swipe someone's trash."
- NoodleCouncil rated 4 months ago
- I guess the saying "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" rings true. Good job.
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