Rummaging in front of the neighbors -- why don't they care?

[IgnorantBliss]

Then again, the U.S. is not the entire world, which means that different places may still have different laws.

Amen

[awrevell]

That U.S. Supreme Court ruling was the issue of contention in one Law and Order program.  In order to get around the protection of garbage at the curb from "illegal search and seizure", the detectives on the show waited until the refuse was deposited in the back of the garbage truck before looking through it and collecting evidence which implicated the previous owner of the trash.  The defense contended that until the garbage had been deposited into the main hold of the garbage truck where it mixed with the trash from other houses it was still subject to protection from illegal search and seizure, thereby rendering the evidence inadmissable.   The judge ruled in favor of the defense.  While this was only a television show, the writers for this show often base the court rulings on actual rulings in cases that have gone to trial.  

[spaceface]

Let's get one thing straight. What you see in movies and TV stories is not real. They are intended for entertainment and not for education, unless it says otherwise on the tin. Even "based on a true story" does NOT mean that the story is, in fact, true, just that the writers got the idea from something that really happened.