Supreme Court Rules Thermal Imaging Is a Search
Monday June 11 11:09 AM ET
news.yahoo.com
By James Vicini
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court (news - web
sites) ruled on Monday that thermal imaging to record the amount of
heat emanating from a house, a police practice often used to help detect
illegal drugs, represented a search covered by constitutional privacy
protections.
The court's 5-4 ruling was a setback for the U.S. Justice Department
(news - web sites), which argued the use of a thermal imager by law
enforcement officers to detect the heat emitted from a house was not a
search and was not covered by the privacy protections.
Justice Antonin Scalia (news - web sites) said for the court majority that
when the government uses a device not in general public use to explore
the details of a private home that would previously been unknowable
without physical intrusion, the surveillance is a search and requires a
warrant.
He said use of the device, aimed at a private home from a public street
to detect, constituted a search.
To withdraw such a minimum expectation of privacy against
unreasonable searches would permit ``police technology to erode the
privacy'' guaranteed by the Constitution, Scalia said.
Scalia rejected the Justice Department's argument that the thermal
imaging was constitutionally allowed because it did not detect ``intimate
details.''
The case began with an investigation by William Elliott, an agent of the
U.S. Bureau of Land Management (news - web sites), into a possible
conspiracy to grow marijuana in Oregon.
Suspecting that Danny Kyllo might be involved, the agent examined
Kyllo's utility records and found he used an abnormally high amount of
electricity -- which could suggest the use of intensity lights to grow
marijuana in his house. |
