Rubbish!

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RUBBISH!
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.

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We didn't dream up this idea on our own. We got our inspiration from the Portland police.

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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.

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Keep Reading HERE....

NOTE: It took me several trys to read this article/story... Looks like its been /. ed

I don't get it :confused:, I read the thing twice already and still don't get the point. Maybe that is how you feel phish.

I beleave that even in america it is legal to look through peaple's trash as long as its on the street. Once it is on the road and ready to be taken by the garbage trucks it becomes public property. Dumpster diveing has become very usefull in investigations where peaple have tried throwing away the evidence.

The reason I posted that is because...

When the police take someones trash its ok.

When the reporters took some high officials' trash... it was "illegal" and they were looking into legal action.

There are differences between the way they handled it though...

The police didn't make public everything that was in their suspects' trash. They did take some very unusual items which eventually leaked out to the public through the court system.

The reporters just decided that they would take everything and list it for everyone to see.

That is just wrong. There is a difference between doing it to keep police officers obiding by the law and just rummaging through someones trash because you want to prove a point.

In my opinion... I think the reporters were wrong for reporting everything to the public. If they want to go through trash and find a scandal or something... thats fine... but for crying out loud!! Who want to hear about half eaten protien bars and their habitual reading materials?!