By Eric Boehm  /   May 2, 2016  /   at WatchDogWashington

After being told by a judge that it can’t keep snooping through residents’ trash, the city of Seattle is still determined to stop residents from throwing food in the garbage.

King County Superior Judge Beth Andrus ruled last week that the city cannot simply dig through residents’ trash without first getting a warrant to do so. The city had told trash collectors to search trash bins as a way to enforce Seattle’s ban on throwing away compostable trash.

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Andrus said the city was allowed to ban residents from throwing food waste in the trash, but ordering trash collectors to search through the garbage for violations was a violation of privacy rights by authorizing warrantless searches of private property.

“We relied on Washington’s right to privacy, which ensures that ‘no person shall be disturbed in his private affairs,’” explains Ethan Blevins, an attorney with the Pacific Legal Foundation, which brought the lawsuit against the city. “The judge agreed that the garbage can contains private information about our lives that deserve protection from prying eyes. If Seattle wants to rifle through your trash, it’ll now need a warrant.”

Now, the Seattle Times reports city officials are “recalibrating” the ban and weighing whether to appeal the decision – in other words, they are deciding whether they should spend more public money to continue a legal battle over what people throw in the garbage.  In the meantime, city officials say the trash-snooping will stop.

The city-wide ban on throwing food in the garbage was passed in 2014. The rules took effect on Jan. 1, 2015…. read more here