> And that search wasn't reasonable, the court said. The city searches vehicles "that are parked legally, without probable cause, or even so much as 'individualized suspicion of wrongdoing' — the touchstone of the reasonableness standard," the court wrote.
This is linchpin of the ruling. If a parked car is not suspected of wrongdoing, it could conceivably be argued that photographing it to establish wrongdoing is exactly the same as chalking it. IANAL
That's the heart of the matter, isn't it? How can chalking be a search when the fact that the car is parked there is in plain sight? If we regard "search" as a synonym of "google", then yes, we can say that the act of chalking allowed the police to acquire knowledge it didn't have before. I don't think the framers meant that though when they wrote the 4th Amendment. A search needs to involve something that's concealed.
> And that search wasn't reasonable, the court said. The city searches vehicles "that are parked legally, without probable cause, or even so much as 'individualized suspicion of wrongdoing' — the touchstone of the reasonableness standard," the court wrote.
This is linchpin of the ruling. If a parked car is not suspected of wrongdoing, it could conceivably be argued that photographing it to establish wrongdoing is exactly the same as chalking it. IANAL