Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 416

529US2

Unit: $U44

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Cite as: 529 U. S. 334 (2000)

341

Breyer, J., dissenting

(1967) (Harlan, J., concurring)). Privacy itself implies the
exclusion of uninvited strangers, not just strangers who
work for the Government. Hence, an individual cannot rea-
sonably expect privacy in respect to objects or activities that
he “knowingly exposes to the public.”

Id., at 351.

Indeed, the Court has said that it is not objectively reason-
able to expect privacy if “[a]ny member of the public . . .
could have” used his senses to detect “everything that th[e]
ofﬁcers observed.” California v. Ciraolo, 476 U. S. 207,
213–214 (1986). Thus, it has held that the fact that stran-
gers may look down at fenced-in property from an aircraft
or sift through garbage bags on a public street can justify a
similar police intrusion. See ibid.; Florida v. Riley, 488
U. S. 445, 451 (1989) (plurality opinion); California v. Green-
wood, 486 U. S. 35, 40–41 (1988); cf. Texas v. Brown, 460 U. S.
730, 740 (1983) (police not precluded from “ ‘ben[ding] down’ ”
to see since “[t]he general public could peer into the interior
of [the car] from any number of angles”). The comparative
likelihood that strangers will give bags in an overhead com-
partment a hard squeeze would seem far greater. See
Riley, supra, at 453 (O’Connor, J., concurring in judgment)
(reasonableness of privacy expectation depends on whether
intrusion is a “sufﬁciently routine part of modern life”).
Consider, too, the accepted police practice of using dogs to
sniff for drugs hidden inside luggage. See, e. g., United
States v. Place, 462 U. S. 696, 699 (1983). Surely it is less
likely that nongovernmental strangers will sniff at another’s
bags (or, more to the point, permit their dogs to do so) than
it is that such actors will touch or squeeze another person’s
belongings in the process of making room for their own.

Of course, the agent’s purpose here—searching for
drugs—differs dramatically from the intention of a driver or
fellow passenger who squeezes a bag in the process of mak-
ing more room for another parcel. But in determining
whether an expectation of privacy is reasonable, it is the
effect, not the purpose, that matters. See ante, at 338, n. 2