I don't think the TV station broke the law

From Bristol's code book:

Sec. 10-33. Scavenging prohibited.
(a) It shall be a violation of this article for any person to scavenge recyclable or any solid waste for pecuniary gain. Scavenging shall include collecting, recovering, hauling, storing or disposing of recyclable or any solid waste other than as authorized by this article.
(b) Each occurrence of scavenging in violation of this article shall constitute a separate offense.
(c) The board of public works may establish a swap area at the transfer station where people using the transfer station could leave items that may have some value or reuse for others and/or pickup items for reuse.
(Ord. of 6-12-01)

Sec. 10-45. Salvaging, scavenging.
No salvaging or scavenging shall be allowed at any solid waste disposal area or facility unless authorized by the board of public works.
(Ord. of 6-12-01)

If these are the only city code sections that apply to searching through someone's garbage, I don't see how they apply to a TV station looking for recyclables in an official's trash can.
In the first law concerning scavenging, the ordinance says it is a violation for anyone "to scavenge recyclable or any solid waste for pecuniary gain."
Unless the television station personnel sold the junk mail they pulled out of Frank Nicastro's trash can, I can't see how they made any money off it. Perhaps they found a buyer for Ken Cockayne's empty honey bottle, but I doubt it. And the aerosal can from Mike Rimcoski's house? I suspect it has no market value.
Without "pecuniary gain" -- making money -- there is no violation. Everything else in that section is dependent on the idea that somebody's turning a profit by swiping recyclables or garbage.
The other section applies only to "any solid waste disposal area or facility." I suppose one could argue that the barrels in front of residents' houses are a "solid waste disposal area," particularly since they belong to the city. In addition, there seems to be a distinction between an "area" and a facility, which would presumably mean the transfer station or other obvious public works site.
But I think it really means that they don't want people rifling through stuff that's already been collected somewhere, which makes sense.
In any case, it sure seems that if there's an interest in barring someone from going through trash cans, the law ought to be a whole lot more clear.
As it is, I would argue that unless there's some other law that hasn't been called to my attention, there is no doubt the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom to the press outweighs whatever slim argument you could make that one of those statutes prohibited the station from taking a look at officials' trash to see if they were breaking the laws they are sworn to uphold.

Update: Back in 1988, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that police did not need a warrant to search garbage left on the curb of a California home. The justices said that people could have no reasonable expectation of privacy for items left on the curb for the express purpose of having strangers haul them off. At the time, the justices cited a 1967 decision to bolster the court's ruling. That earlier decision said, "“What a person knowingly exposes to the public, even in his own home or office, is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection.”
What that means is federal law doesn't protect the privacy of garbage.
It's possible, though, that Connecticut's state law or its Constitution offers more protection. I don't know. I also can't say for certain that Bristol itself doesn't have some other law that might be relevant to digging through somebody's trash.

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Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com