This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Saturday, May 25, 2024. I'm Caleb Brown.

It's called the Open Fields Doctrine. And if you haven't heard of it, you're not alone.

That doctrine allows government agents to engage in all manner of mischief on private property

without a warrant.

In their new article in Regulation magazine, authors Joshuandham and David Warren detail how the

Open Fields Doctrine leaves some 96% of US territory without the protection of the

Fourth Amendment. It was many years ago when I learned of this sort of troubling fact.

And the for instance is, hey, let's say I own a big chunk of land

and I've got fences around it.

And I've got no trespassing signs posted on every post going all the way around

it, that somehow police and other authorities can wander around on that land without any Fourth Amendment violation

apparently and I thought to myself, that's terrible. And then I didn't think about it for a while.

And then I see this article pop up in a regulation magazine which details an attempt to get at this question about how much land

are we talking about here and so Josh if you don't mind detail for me how you learned about what is known as the

open fields policy. Yeah so I learned about this a few years ago and my colleague got a docket alert about a federal

district court decision involving a man named Hunter Hollingsworth.

Hunter Hollingsworth owns a farm in Benton County, Tennessee. The farm is gated. It's got no trespassing signs on it. And he uses it for various purposes, you know, camping, farming, hunting, hunting, fishing, you know, quiet walks by himself,

the things that you would use your own private land for out in the rural area.

And in 2017, State Game Warden's with the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency came

on to his property repeatedly without his consent or a warrant and often without notice wearing full camouflage outfits.

They would fan the property, they would sift around in his ponds with nets, They would you know record him from behind bushes with

cameras and ensure they could continue surveilling him after they left the property

...