EYE IN SKY MAY GO BLIND

Local cops are taking a hard look at a court decision barring Ontario cops
from scanning private homes with heat-seeking cameras in aircraft -- unless
they have a warrant.

"We'll have to take it to our local Crown and Alberta Justice to see if
this impacts on us," said Calgary police Insp. Kevin Brookwell.

"I am satisfied that the technology discloses more information about what
goes on inside a house than is detectable by normal observation," Justice
Rosalie Abella wrote for the court, adding "perfectly innocent" activities
such as taking a bath can create the kind of emanations picked up by
infra-red aircraft cameras used in drug investigations.

The right to privacy extends to the heat generated by a home, a three-judge
panel of Ontario's Appeal Court ruled Monday.

Brookwell said FLIR was used four times last year to ferret out grow
operations. "We've used it to see if we can, from the air, identify an
address ... putting out more than average heat because, generally speaking,
a grow operation gives off more heat than normal," he said.

Brookwell said FLIR is a police tool, used with other law-enforcement
tactics, to gather enough evidence to get a search warrant.

"But it forms just a small part of the warrant," he said.

The Ontario court acquitted Walter Tessling of Kingsville, Ont., near
Windsor, of charges of possessing firearms and marijuana seized after an
RCMP plane, equipped with a FLIR camera, flew over his home in May 1999,
taking pictures of the thermal energy radiating from the building.