Would you argue there’s no difference between the police searching a safety deposit box (which is a bad example, since it’s actually quite private) versus constantly going through and indexing the contents of your home, trying to find illegal objects?
Don't see any difference. In both cases your private property forcibly accessed without any reason to suspect you, but rather out of preventive reasons.
OK, make the comparison more direct, then. Say you have a filing cabinet with all of your important and \ or embarrassing documents in it. Are you OK with houseguests giving the handle a little wiggle when they come over to check if its locked? What about the neighborhood kids?
How right or wrong it is to collect information about people and what they do is not entirely determined by how much personal information there is to get.
Just like how right or wrong it is to break into someones house is not entirely determined by what they take, or how much personal information you have in your house.
But yes, if you don't have anything valuable in your house, maybe you don't need to be concerned about people breaking in, but that doesn't make it more right.
Not quite the same. If someone installs a hidden microphone in my house, or a multi keyed lock (where they have a working copy) I really expect the Police to ask me before they come in my house to remove the offending equipment or change my lock for me.
If they come in the house uninvited then all they achieve is make me lose trust in them. I'll just start wondering how long until they abuse this and do it whenever it suits them, not me, if they're not doing it already.
I believe the police have the right to open the safe, but you aren't required to open it for them. If the police came into your house and said "show us every hidden object" so we can decide if it is illegal. You wouldn't be required to comply.
Yes, I didn't need an analogy. I wanted to know why, in a secure house which presumably had cameras and sign in sheets, why couldn't they review the video tapes to see if someone had actually taken the keys or not. (to extend your analogy)
It's not "conceptually identical" at all. With some legal due process, the police force can violently breach the front door of your house if you refuse to let them in, and similarly open locked safes. Though this process may be expensive for them, it is not impossible. Cheap, widely available systems to provide provably impenetrable security against government intrusion is a relatively new phenomenon.
Your analogy misses some key details. It is much less absurd if I am storing valuable items and documents for everyone in the neighborhood while publicly proclaiming my house is more secure than a bank vault. Meanwhile I can't even be fucked to lock the door when I'm away.
I'd say you checking the front door to find it unlocked, then taking a few pictures for proof is perfectly moral. In this case, I think most people would agree it is a step too far to expect you to come to me first, rather than immediately announcing to the entire neighborhood that I'm being incredibly lazy and reckless with their valuables (on top of outright lying to all of them).
This sounds more like the analogy breaking down than illustrating a meaningful difference in scenarios. The police already /can/ break a lock from just about any manufacturer. They just break the door down and enter regardless of the phenomenal quality of the lock itself.
A thought provoking analogy, but I don't think it's applicable because my house isn't performing an essential service for other people.
A better analogy might be a friend stopping to double check that my front door is locked before he walks away leaving his child in my care.
If we use an analogy at all, it must account for the fact that millions of bad actors are constantly wandering by and checking the security of my proverbial house. Like, if my house was on an extremely busy street and a someone came to me and said "hey, the lock on your front door doesn't work", I would not have them arrested, nor would it be practical for me to arrest every passerby that checked the lock for whatever reason.
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