COURT OKAYS HEAT-SEEKING CAMERAS TO SPOT POT

Infra-Red Technology Helps Find Marijuana Growing Operations

Police were given back a valuable tool in the fight against marijuana
growing operations by a judgment released Friday by the Supreme Court
of Canada.

The court ruled it is not a breach of privacy for police to use
infra-red technology when flying over or driving by a residence they
suspect contains a marijuana growing operation.

RCMP stopped using the heat-detecting technology more than a year ago
when the Ontario Court of Appeal ruled inadmissable the infra-red
evidence that was used to obtain a search warrant for a home believed
to contain a growing operation.

But on Friday, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the use of such
technology does not constitute a search and scarcely affects the
"dignity, integrity and autonomy" of the person whose house is being
targeted by the thermal imaging device.

"We're very happy with [the decision]," said Paul Nadeau, head of the
RCMP's Marijuana Enforcement Team.

"Any time we can put another tool in the tool box, obviously it's good
news for us."

Nadeau stressed that the technology -- also called Forward Looking
Infra-Red or FLIR cameras -- is only one of many tools police use to
gather the information required to obtain a search warrant. The
thermal images are used in conjunction with tips from informants, BC
Hydro records, and evidence visible from outside the home indicating
there may be a marijuana growing operation inside.

"It's not the be-all and end-all of evidence," he said. "There's going
to be different factors that are going to lead us to [a suspected
growing operation]."

The cameras show any unusual heat emanating from a building, but do
not reveal the source of the heat. They also cannot penetrate walls
and therefore do not show warm bodies moving about inside a house.

Despite the limited information the cameras provide, their use by
police in the United States is allowed only with a judge's warrant.

But Canadian Supreme Court Justice Ian Binnie wrote in the 7-0
decision that information gathered by infra-red cameras does not tend
to reveal "intimate details" of a person's lifestyle. It shows only
that "some of the activities in the house generate heat," he wrote.

"I do not regard the use of current FLIR technology as the functional
equivalent of placing the police inside the home," Binnie wrote.

Police do not use the infra-red cameras to seek out grow operations,
but use them only when they have reason to believe a house may contain
a hydroponic growing operation.

"We don't just go up in the air and just randomly fly around and look
for where the heat may be coming from," Nadeau said. "That's not a
normal practice."

British Columbia RCMP have no shortage of suspected marijuana growing
operations to investigate and Nadeau said police are too busy to be
constantly looking for more.

"Frankly, when you look at the amount of grow-ops that are out there,
it's just like drinking water out of a firehose," he said. "We don't
feel the need to go out there and randomly fly over areas looking for
the grow-ops that we don't know about because, honestly, we have so
many reported to us in the first place, we just don't have the time
for it."

Murray Mollard, executive director of the B.C. Civil Liberties
Association, said Friday he is not incensed by the court's decision,
but is not terribly comfortable with it either.

He is pleased that the infra-red information is not enough to get a
search warrant, but worries it could lead to increased police
attention being paid to people with indoor saunas or other
heat-generating devices.

"Use of that kind of technology . . . it's going to subject people to
increased and heightened and considerably intrusive scrutiny," Mollard
said.

But RCMP Staff Sgt. Brian MacDonald, a FLIR operator, said using an
infra-red camera is far less intrusive than looking through a window
from the sidewalk.

"I can't point a FLIR at a house and say there's a grow-op in there,"
MacDonald said. "There could be a number of reasons a wall is warm.

"It's just a tool to assist. It's not a magic wand."

The cameras cost about $20,000 a piece and are also used by search and
rescue, border patrol, and fire departments.

Police Freer To Scrutinize Homes Of Canadians

Now

From Friday's ruling rejecting the 2003 decision:

"Living as he does in a land of melting snow and spotty home
insulation, I do not believe that the respondent had a serious privacy
interest in the heat patterns on the exposed external walls of his
home."

Then

From original 2003 ruling overturning conviction of an Ontario man and
his sentence of 18 months in jail for being caught with 120 marijuana
plants:

"The nature of the intrusion is subtle but almost Orwellian in its
theoretical capacity."