Dumpster diving ( was RE: [rescue] The onyx godness (first pictures))

[Michael A. Turner]

>    Possibly drifting OT, but worth mentioning in case 
> anyone's thinking of
> Dumpster Diving in Portland: cops searched through someone's 
> trash and used
> "evidence" found there in a prosecution. When the tables were 
> turned, and
> reporters for the Willamette Week went through the garbage of 
> several public
> officials (including the chief of police), there were threats 
> of lawsuits and
> such. So people are getting touchier about just when stuff turns from
> "property" into "trash" even though there's already a U.S. 
> Supreme Court
> decision ruling that trash is trash (see California v. Greenwood.,
> http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=
486&invol=35).
   Anyway, just in case someone needs justification for what they're doing
when the flashlights come on as they're waist deep in some strip mall trash
skid...
-wde
--
Will Enestvedt
UNIX System Administrator
Johnson & Wales University -- Providence, RI

	Of note on this is something I learned in my dumpster diving days.
Stuff placed in a dumpster is different that stuff placed in a can on the
side of the road. Dumpsters are actaully privatly owned by the respective
dumping commanies. They get payed by the amount they bring in, and are
expected to make weight quotas to the land fill. This means that stuff
dumped into a dumpster is not abbandoned as it is in the supreme court cases
determination. It does carry a value to the receiving company. 
	It simply has become the property of another company than the one
that it was at. You kinda can think of it as the dumping company has a
building at a location (The dumpster) that items that have been seconded to
their company (The trash) can be moved to for temporary storage (tossed
until tipping day). I do not think this concept has been tested in court and
it seems to be different than the precedent set in the supreme court case.
IAMNAL and YMMV so caveat emptor on that info.


Michael A. Turner
Systems Engineer WHRO
michael.turner at whro.org
http://www.whro.org