Needing a warrant for long term video surveillance of one's home--I can get on board with that. Despite the defendant's bad reputation, the larger implications here have the EFF defending the common man as per usual.
Concepts like "rights" and "freedom" are easy when it is people you like doing things that you like. It is so easy, that it isn't even necessary to bother with the formalization of those concepts in these easy cases. The entire point of "rights" and "freedom" is that they must be upheld for the people you hate, doing things that you hate.
When judging the level of freedom in a society, you don't look at how the normal citizen is treated; you look instead at how the underclass, criminals, and other disliked groups. If their rights are overlooked and ignored, any claims at being a "free society" is just marketing/PR.
If there is every a doubt in your mind, consider that at some point, your actions, race, or lifestyle might make you the target of similar hate. It is very bad for any majority group to be able to take the rights away from any minority group.
You don't have a constitutional right to be free from being photographed in public spaces.
If someone wants to follow a police car from a safe distance for weeks and videotape it to capture the civil rights infractions done by its officers; this is now an unconstitutional activity?
The proper way to place a check on this power is for people to decide this is not a good way to spend its money rather than absurd judicial gymnastics.
