POLICE AERIAL CAMERA SHOT DOWN

Police cannot use aerial cameras to detect heat rays coming from a private
home without a prior warrant from a judge, the Court of Appeal ruled yesterday.

As a result of the decision, a Windsor-area man was acquitted by the court
of marijuana growing and firearms charges.

The court found that because the use of the heat-seeking aerial camera
breached his rights, the subsequent search warrant was not lawful and
therefore evidence found inside the home was not admissible. Without that
evidence, the Crown had no case.

Benchmark

"It's a very important decision," said lawyer Frank Miller. "They're
drawing the line on police high-tech surveillance."

The court found use of forward looking infra-red (FLIR) aerial cameras to
detect heat coming from a private home constitutes a search and requires
prior judicial authorization.

The technology is used primarily to locate marijuana-growing operations,
said Miller.

"Some perfectly innocent internal activities in the home can create the
external emanations detected and measured by the FLIR and many of them,
such as taking a bath or using lights at unusual hours, are intensely
personal," said the court.

"It seems ... therefore that, before the state is permitted to use
technology that has the capacity for generating information which permits
public inferences to be drawn about private activities carried out in a
home, it should be required to obtain judicial authorization to ensure that
the intrusion is warranted."