SNOOPING FOR INDOOR POT FARMS?

"How often, or in what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any
individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched
everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire
whenever they wanted to. You had to live -- did live, from habit that
became instinct -- in the assumption that every sound you made was
overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized." -- George
Orwell, Nineteen Eighty Four

In an important decision setting a boundary on when police may use certain
high-tech surveillance equipment, the Supreme Court ruled on June 11 that
police must obtain a search warrant before using an infrared heat-detecting
device to peer into a person's home.

The case involved Danny Kyllo, whose home was scanned by police officers
using a thermal imaging device. Thermal imagers detect infrared heat
radiation, which is not detectable by the naked eye.

After receiving a tip that Mr. Kyllo might be growing marijuana in his
home, and learning that his utility bills were relatively high, two police
officers drove by Kyllo's home, scanning it with a Thermovision 210 device
made by Agema Corporation (recently merged with FLIR Systems). The device
revealed hot spots consistent with the use of high-intensity lights used to
grow plants, including marijuana, indoors. Based on the information from
the thermal scan, the informant's tip, and the utility company, a judge
issued a search warrant for Kyllo's home. The search uncovered an indoor
marijuana garden.

At issue in the case was whether the use of the thermal imager was a
"search" within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. If use of the device
was not a search, then the police can use a thermal imager any time for any
reason. But, if scanning a person's home with such a device is considered a
"search" then it would be unconstitutional for the police to use a thermal
imager without first obtaining a search warrant.

The government argued that police use of a thermal imager was not a search
because such devices detect "only heat radiating from the external surfaces
of the house," and that such heat "waste" is equivalent to garbage placed
on the curb for pickup -- something that the Court previously held could be
examined by the police without a search warrant.

Kyllo argued that a person's home is a private place that has traditionally
received the highest protection against government searches. Use of the
thermal imager to peer through the walls of his home was, he argued,
equivalent to the police invading his home and looking around-something
they could not do without a search warrant.

Five out of the nine Supreme Court justices sided with Mr. Kyllo, holding
that the officers' use of the thermal imager without a search warrant
violated Mr. Kyllo's Fourth Amendment protection to be secure inside his home.

Writing for the majority, Justice Scalia noted that in the postmodern age,
it is possible -- and will become increasingly more so -- for the police to
invade a person's home without physically entering it. "The question we
confront today," explained Scalia, "is what limits there are upon [the]
power of technology to shrink the realm of guaranteed privacy."

Scalia explained that the Court was making an effort at establishing a rule
that would serve to protect Americans' homes from virtual police invasions
made possible by a host of high-tech surveillance devices currently on the
market, and those yet to come. In a footnote, Scalia briefly outlined some
of the new technology that made such a broad rule necessary if the home is
to remain a private sanctuary even while Big Brother arms himself with an
ever-expanding array of advanced surveillance and policing tools:

The ability to "see" through walls and other opaque barriers is a clear,
and scientifically feasible, goal of law enforcement research and
development. The National Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology
Center, a program within the United States Department of Justice, features
on its Internet Website projects that include a "Radar-Based
Through-the-Wall Surveillance System," Handheld Ultrasound Through the Wall
Surveillance," and a "Radar Flashlight" that "will enable law enforcement
officers to detect individuals through interior building walls."

Scalia rejected the government's argument that the thermal imaging was
constitutional because it was limited to detecting hot and cold areas and
thus did not detect private or intimidate activities going on in Mr.
Kyllo's home. Scalia drew a firm line at the door to the home: "In the
home, our cases show, all details are intimate details, because the entire
area is held safe from prying government eyes." Additionally, Scalia
pointed out that a thermal imager could indeed detect intimate details,
such as "what hour each night the lady of the house takes her daily sauna
and bath," and that surveillance devices currently under development will
surely present even greater threats.

With these concerns in mind, Scalia announced that the rule of the case:

We think that 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-at least where (as here) the technology in question is
not in general public use.

While Scalia and the four other justices that joined him should be
applauded for setting a limit on the government's use of privacy-invading
electronica, the rule they created is far from perfect.

At the same time the majority created a bright-line rule that police must
get a search warrant before peeking inside of a person's home with the aid
of "sense-enhancing technology," the majority created a poorly reasoned and
difficult to administer "popularity limitation;" namely that the
warrantless use of such a device is permitted if that device is also "in
general public use."

Such a popularity limit means that Fourth Amendment protections will become
subservient to the marketing prowess of companies that manufacture and sell
surveillance technology. On one day, the police must obtain a warrant
before using their X-ray glasses, and the next day, no warrant is required
because the company inked a deal selling 10,000 X-ray glasses to the
General Motors management. "No warrant needed -- over 10,000 units sold to
consumers!"

As noted by Justice Stevens, who authored the dissenting opinion and was
joined by Justices Rehnquist, O'Connor, and Kennedy, the Thermovision 210
imager used by the police to scan Mr. Kyllo's home is, itself, a relatively
popular device:

The record describes a device that numbers close to a thousand manufactured
units; that has a predecessor numbering in the neighborhood of 4,000 to
5,000 units; that competes with a similar product numbering from 5,000 to
6,000 units; and that is "readily available to the public" for commercial,
personal, or law enforcement purposes, and is just an 800-number away from
being rented from half a dozen national companies" by anyone who wants one.

Besides being an absurd rule, the popularity limit is impossible to apply.
At what point, for example, will a new technology be considered "in general
public use?" How are police officers expected to make that determination,
in order to know whether a search warrant is required?

Despite this major flaw, the majority opinion lays down an important corner
stone on the jurisprudential landscape of high-tech police-citizen
surveillance: where, as here, the Government uses a device that is not in
general public use, to explore the details of the home that would
previously have been unknowable without physical intrusion, the
surveillance is a "search" and is presumptively unreasonable without a warrant.

This does not mean that the police can never use an advanced thermal
imaging device to peek inside someone's home. It simply, but importantly,
means that if the device is not "in general public use" the police must get
a judge to authorize their use of the device by signing a search warrant
supported by probably cause. The practical result, in addition to keeping
us all more protected from the secret gaze of police, is that law
enforcement agents will have a more difficult time detecting indoor
marijuana patches and arresting the naughty gardeners.

The decision in Kyllo is also noteworthy with respect to the breakdown of
the normal conservative-liberal teaming of the justices. It was surprising
to find Justice Stevens siding with the police and Justice Scalia siding
with the marijuana grower. This seems to indicate that traditional
alignments within the court are eroding and that the Court's decisions in
the future, especially in the areas of privacy, technology, and individual
rights, may not be as predictable as they have been in the past.

The full opinion in the case, including the dissenting opinion, can be read
at: www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/00pdf/99-8508.pdf

Richard Glen Boire, JD is the director of the nonprofit Center for
Cognitive Liberty & Ethics (www.alchemind.org) in Davis, California.