MONITORING POWER USE NOT INVASION OF PRIVACY: COURT

OTTAWA -- Criminals running marijuana grow-ops in their homes should
have no expectation of privacy, according to a Supreme Court ruling
issued Wednesday morning.

The case, involving Calgary resident Daniel Gomboc, split the highest
court three ways as justices argued over privacy rights.

Police attached a digital recording ammeter, or DRA, to Gomboc's home
in 2007. The DRA provided police with a pattern of electricity use
consistent with a grow-op.

Combined with other observations police made of Gomboc's home, they
obtained a search warrant and found hundreds of marijuana plants.

Gomboc was convicted of two drug-related offences, but he appealed
them, citing the use of the DRA without first obtaining a warrant
constituted an illegal search of his home.

The Alberta appeal court ruled the use of the electricity-monitoring
device was a search. The Supreme Court disagreed and reinstated
Gomboc's convictions.

Four of the Supreme Court judges, led by Justice Marie Deschamps,
ruled disclosure of electricity usage through the DRA didn't violate
Gomboc's privacy rights because it didn't provide police with
personal information about his lifestyle. They also cited the
regulation in the contract between Gomboc and his electrical
provider, Enmax, which allows the utility to provide usage
information to police unless a customer specifically demands the
utility keep that information confidential.

Three of the judges sided with an opinion written by Justice Rosalie
Abella, which said privacy was a concern but the convictions should stand.

"In my view, given the fact that the information emanated from his
home, the most protected of privacy spheres, he may well have
succeeded but for the existence of the regulation, which makes any
expectation of privacy objectively unreasonable," Abella wrote.

Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin and Justice Morris Fish issued a
dissenting opinion that would have set aside Gomboc's convictions.
Fish and McLachlin called the use of DRAs without warrants "an
incremental but ominous step toward the erosion of the right to privacy."

The pair also question whether it is legitimate to expect electricity
customers to know their usage could be shared with police without
making a specific request for confidentiality.