USE OF PHONE WARRANTS NOT REASONABLE, JUDGE RULES

PRINCE RUPERT -- Police across the country may have to change how they
monitor suspects after a judge ruled a section of the Criminal Code
allowing investigators to track phone numbers is unconstitutional.

Justice Douglas Halfyard ruled the section of the code that lets
police apply for a warrant to record all the phone numbers made to and
from a suspect's home phone is too great an infringement on a person's
protection against unreasonable search and seizure.

Section 492.2 (1) of the code allows a police officer to obtain the
warrant based on a reasonable suspicion of an offence.

"In terms of the effect it has, it is the difference between zero and
a 12-storey building," said Darrell O'Byrne, the defence lawyer who
challenged the provision.

The ruling is significant because the so-called dial-number recorder
is the first step police use to monitor a suspect's phone.

Based on the information they get from the phone number records,
investigators are then able to apply for a wiretap, a far more
intrusive form of monitoring, O'Byrne said.

In his ruling, Halfyard said people have a reasonable expectation that
the people they talk to on their home phones qualify as private
information.

He rejected the Crown's argument that because a dial-number recorder
is less intrusive than most other searches, a lesser standard is needed.

The judge tossed out a case against three Prince Rupert men and one
Vancouver man charged with trafficking heroin and cocaine.

He based his decision on the unconstitutionality of the dial-number
recorder law as well as evidence the RCMP were overzealous in their
investigation.