We think that obtaining by sense-enhancing technology any information regarding the interior of the home [1.] that could not otherwise have been obtained without physical “intrusion into a constitutionally protected area,” Silverman, 365 U.S., at 512, constitutes a search _ at least where (as here) the technology in question is not in general public use.
Simplifying the sentence
Let's make this sentence a bit easier to understand. We don't really need the phrase "We think that" here. We can also delete the reference: "Silverman, 365 U.S., at 512,". That phrase at the end, "at least where ... use", just defines some aspects of the sentence. We can delete that too. This leaves us with:
- Obtaining by sense-enhancing technology any information regarding the interior of the home that could not otherwise have been obtained without physical intrusion into a constitutionally protected area constitutes a search.
To make the sentence clear it might help to identify the subject, verb and complement.
- Subject: Obtaining by sense-enhancing technology any information regarding the interior of the home that could not otherwise have been obtained without physical intrusion into a constitutionally protected area
- Verb: constitutes
- Complement: a search.
Simplifying the Subject
We can make the subject a bit easier to understand. sense-enhancing technology is a bit long. Let's call it SET.
Information regarding the interior of the home, just means information about the inside of people's houses. Let's replace that long phrase with the short phrase home information.
The constitutionally protected area means a house. People's houses are protected by the law. They are private and the police need special procedures to go into people's private homes. Physical intrusion means physically going into somewhere. Let's replace "physical intrusion into a constitutionally protected area" with "going into people's houses".
This gives us:
- [Obtaining, by SET, home information - that could not otherwise have been obtained without going into people's houses] - constitutes a search.
The subject of this sentence is a clause. We can break it down like this:
- Verb: Obtaining
- Object: home information
that could not otherwise have been obtained without going into people's houses
- Adjunct: by sense-enhancing-technology
The Object is a long noun phrase. The head of the phrase is the noun information.
There is a relative clause modifying our understanding of the information:
that could not otherwise have been obtained without going into people's houses
The greyed relative clause
This greyed relative clause is difficult to understand. It has a double negative in it. It also has the word otherwise, which introduces a conditional idea.
The double negative is cause by using the words not and without in the same phrase. If we use not without in a sentence, it has the same meaning as only with or only by. Consider the following sentence:
- I can't open it without a key
This has the same meaning as :
- I can only open it with a key.
Similarly the following pairs of sentences mean the same thing:
- I don't drink coffee without milk = I only drink coffee with milk.
- You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs = You can only make an omelet by breaking eggs.
So the greyed relative clause here means:
- that could only otherwise have been obtained by going into people's homes.
The word otherwise means "without X". There is no grammatical rule to tell us what X is in a sentence. We need to understand from the context. In this sentence X means sense-enhancing technology. The word otherwise can go after the auxiliary verb. We need to put the preposition phrase without sense-enhancing technology at the beginning or end of the clause. So the relative clause means:
- that, without sense-enhancing technology, could only have been obtained by going into people's homes
The sentence
The whole sentence therefore means:
- Obtaining, by SET, home information - which without SET could only have been obtained by going into people's homes - constitutes a search.
That bit at the front is a bit clunky. The phrase Obtaining by SET just means Using SET to get. Let's see how that reads:
Using SET to get home information - which without SET could only have been obtained by going into people's homes - constitutes a search.
This should be a bit more straightforward to understand. The OP asks whether these three negations not, otherwise and without cancel each other out. The answer is almost, but not quite. Not not usually cancels itself out in standard English.
So I do not not drink coffee just means I do drink coffee.
However, not without still gives an extra meaning. It still gives the meaning only with.
So I don't drink coffee without milk doesn't just mean that I drink coffee with milk. It means I only drink coffee with milk. The only meaning in the original example is crucial. The authors' point is that when the police use SET to get private information about peoples homes, this is a breach because this information can usually only be obtained by searching people's houses. Now, if there were other ways of getting this information apart from going into people's houses, then using SET in this way would not constitute a search. So the fact that a physical search is the only other method is crucial here. The otherwise is not canceled out either. It is an adjunct and does not change the polarity of the main sentence.
Hope this is helpful!
