Cite as: 526 U. S. 603 (1999)
Opinion of Stevens, J.
be regarded as a "reasonable" invasion of either property or privacy.
II
The absence of judicial opinions expressly holding that police violate the Fourth Amendment if they bring media representatives into private homes provides scant support for the conclusion that in 1992 a competent officer could reasonably believe that it would be lawful to do so. Prior to our decision in United States v. Lanier, 520 U. S. 259 (1997), no judicial opinion specifically held that it was unconstitutional for a state judge to use his official power to extort sexual favors from a potential litigant. Yet, we unanimously concluded that the defendant had fair warning that he was violating his victim's constitutional rights. Id., at 271 ("The easiest cases don't even arise" (citations and internal quotation marks omitted)).
Nor am I persuaded that the absence of rulings on the precise Fourth Amendment issue presented in this case can plausibly be explained by the assumption that the police practice was common. I assume that the practice of allowing media personnel to "ride along" with police officers was common, but that does not mean that the officers routinely allowed the media to enter homes without the consent of the owners. As the Florida Supreme Court noted in Florida Publishing Co. v. Fletcher, 340 So. 2d 914, 918 (1976), there has long been a widespread practice for firefighters to allow photographers to enter disaster areas to take pictures, for example, of the interior of buildings severely damaged by fire. But its conclusion that such media personnel were not trespassers rested on a doctrine of implied consent 2—a the-2 The Florida Supreme Court held: "The trial court properly determined from the record before it that there was no genuine issue of material fact insofar as the entry into respondent's home by petitioner's employees became lawful and non-actionable pursu-
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