SUPREME COURT TRASH DECISION SIMPLY RUBBISH

How would you like someone rooting through your garbage for damaging
information to use against you?

Of course, you wouldn't like it at all. Your garbage reveals more
about you than a naked snapshot. Carelessly stuffed into those cans
is a record of what you do, where you go, what you buy, what you eat
and drink, your health, your relationships, your finances . . . No
one wants this stuff examined by strangers.

Too bad, says the Supreme Court of Canada. When you take your garbage
to the curb, says the court, you abandon any expectation of privacy
with respect to its contents.

It's a bad decision that invites malicious snooping.

The dubious ruling came this week in R. v. Patrick, a case involving
a suspected ecstasy dealer in Calgary. Acting without a warrant,
police in that city collected and searched through garbage bags that
Russell Patrick had left for collection in cans at the back of his
property. Based on what they found in his garbage, police got a
warrant to search Patrick's residence. He then was charged and
eventually convicted on the strength of evidence found in the home.

Patrick argued on appeal that police had no right to search his
garbage, that this was a violation of his constitutional right to
freedom from unreasonable search. Pooh said the trial judge. Pooh
said the Alberta Appeal Court. Pooh said the Supreme Court.

Superficially, the reasoning in support of this regrettable judgment
is not unconvincing. Patrick abandoned his privacy rights over his
garbage when he left it at the curb for collection, the Supreme Court
found: "The bags were unprotected and within easy reach of anyone
walking by in the public alley way, including street people, bottle
pickers, urban foragers, nosey neighbours and mischievous children,
not to mention dogs and assorted wildlife, as well as the garbage
collectors and the police."

For the court to lump police in with raccoons is a bit of a stretch.
Even so, the court concluded there can be no expectation of privacy
over garbage left within easy reach of anyone walking by. Appeal
dismissed. Conviction upheld. Open season on garbage confirmed.

Not that it helps Patrick or any other champion of civil rights, but
at least one justice had reservations. Justice Rosalie Abella, better
known as a champion of minority and women's rights, was fine with
Patrick's conviction, but she did stand up for private garbage, God bless her.

Our homes are the most private of places, she said. The trash that
emerges from within our homes we abandon at the curb for only one
purpose, that being collection and disposal. What we do not abandon,
Abella found, is our right to privacy over personal information that
might be contained in that garbage.

"Individuals do not intend that this information, such as medical or
financial information, will be generally accessible to public
scrutiny, let alone to the state."

That said, Abella nevertheless endorsed Patrick's conviction. Police
were entitled to search his garbage without warrant because they had
a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity, she found. Also,
Patrick's expectation of garbage privacy was diminished, if not
abandoned, when he took it to the curb.

As a minority opinion, Abella's defence of private garbage does not
count for much. What prevails in law will be the majority's more
laissez faire view. The new rule seems to be that garbage dropped at
the curb is left in the public domain. This is a body blow for
privacy rights, if not necessarily for police, who now can look
through our garbage unfettered by a warrant or even by reasonable suspicion.

This ruling would seem to open our garbage cans not just for police,
but for anyone who wants to look and for any reason. A newspaper
columnist, for instance, might find all kinds of juicy things to
write about in garbage left at the curb by Supreme Court justices,
say. Of course, I would never do something so tawdry, but others
almost certainly will. The court invites it.