Josh First's Blog

PA landowners now enjoy actual privacy rights

Bravo, kudos, and thanks to the unanimous Pennsylvania Supreme Court, Pennsylvania landowners now enjoy the actual verbatim privacy rights that both the US Constitution (Fourth Amendment) and the PA State Constitution (Article 1, Section 8) say we have.

This right to basic privacy has been a long time in coming, and like all individual rights, it was heavily, aggressively, shamefully resisted by actual Americans in government positions.

For a very long time, the idea of “Open Fields” ruled the way that wildlife enforcement officers accessed private property here in PA. Here in PA, PA Game Commission and PA Fish & Boat Commission officers would just walk right onto and deeply into a private property, regardless of its posted signs, regardless of the landowner’s demand that the officers leave, regardless of whether or not the officers had any probable cause or reasonable suspicion to be on the private property. Like kings, they would simply stride right up to within talking distance of a home, and start poking around.

You might not even hunt, or be a licensed hunter, or fish, and yet, these government agents just decided to watch you…

PGC and PFBC said this was both justified by law (it kind of was allowed by a somewhat related court ruling from the Prohibition Era regarding bootlegging moonshine), and necessary because of the unique challenges facing wildlife managers. Because PA has a strong anti-baiting law and culture among law-abiding hunters, it has been customary for Game Wardens to creep around private properties, looking for bait piles, salt blocks, some wildlife crime, etc. Without a search warrant.

But not all Game Wardens have been looking for illegal bait or signs of poached deer way out in our woods. They have also pretty brazenly walked right around people’s private homes way the hell out in the middle of large private properties, apparently at the request of the PA State Police, who were already limited to search warrants.

They have also surreptitiously hidden spy cameras on these private properties. In places where all Americans presume they can fully enjoy their rights to privacy without being interrupted or disrupted or alarmed by the sudden appearance of a man with a gun. Without “the king” surveilling them, without any reason other than simply wanting to.

That the PGC long adamantly defended this un-American behavior understandably rankled people, to the point where some sued the PGC over what was truly egregious behavior by people who should know better. And yesterday, they won; we all won. A unanimous PA Supreme Court held that our individual right to privacy is greater than the PGC’s desire (not its proven need) to simply walk around and see what Americans are doing within the privacy of their own properties.

Yes, managing wildlife is difficult. Yes, trying to outwit lawbreakers who bait deer and bear is hard. But, Americans’ constitutional rights supersede all other considerations.

And it is the role of government to protect our rights for us, not to officially chip away at them, in the name of government efficiency. People in government know this, and they should conduct themselves accordingly. But as you and I have seen so, so many times throughout our careers, once people get some power, especially the power to rule over others, they really do not want to let go of it. Americans are supposed to have government employees who are immune to this draw, but guess what, we don’t. Human nature has not changed.

As of today, government officials may not simply walk onto your property or mine, without a search warrant or without exigent circumstances, such as chasing an armed bad guy who happens to take refuge on your property, or without actually seeing a bait pile while on an adjoining property.

The result of this freedom is that poachers are going to poach more wildlife, no question about it. But that is the price of individual freedom and limited government. If the role and purpose of government was to be always efficient and always effective, we Americans would have no rights, and our government would be totalitarian. America is not that kind of place.

Better that some bad dude goes free than all of us suffer the indignity and danger of armed government agents just walking around our private properties, watching us…

Thank you to the Institute for Justice, which has done yeoman’s work for all of us Americans who cherish our freedoms. And thank you to the hearty Pennsylvanians who chose to stand and fight back against official injustice, like our predecessors did 250 years ago.