The reason is simple: The Fourth Amendment does not protect individuals in public places because they can have no reasonable expectation of privacy. The court simply found that, similarly, driveways offer no privacy because they’re open to delivery people and wandering neighborhood children. However, this decision wasn’t cut and dried for the judges that serve on the 9th Circuit Court. At least one conservative judge dissented, saying that people who can afford large gates and fences do have a certain privacy barrier, leaving the rest of the country’s citizens to face a double standard.

We aren’t wearing our tinfoil hats here -- at least, not last we checked. While it’s disturbing to know that police in certain parts of the country can track your whereabouts on a whim, it’s more worrying to know that law enforcement can do so without any oversight from any other branch of government. The separation of powers in this country is what keeps our officials and our officers honest -- or at least more honest than their counterparts under other governments. It’s what protects us from abuses of power. Any time one branch, in this case the executive, is given free rein without having to answer to the other two, it’s a recipe for trouble. In other words: Who's keeping an eye on those who keep their eyes on us?