The U.S. Supreme Court decided this week to hear arguments this January on the issue of whether thermal imaging devices used to measure the amount of heat emanating from a house is a legal search requiring a search warrant. Thermal imaging devices are frequently used by law enforcement to detect indoor marijuana grow operations.
The Court will use an Oregon case in which federal agents and the Oregon National Guard, used a thermal imaging device on the home of Danny Kyllo. The equipment detected an unusual amount of heat emanating from the garage roof and a wall of the house. The agents then obtained a search warrant and found Kyllo’s marijuana plants.
Kyllo moved to suppress the evidence obtained from the search of his residence, arguing that the thermal imaging device was an unconstitutional search. The federal district 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled the use of the thermal imaging device did not constitute a search because “intimate details” had not been revealed.
“The question for the American people is: Do we want federal agents –of whatever ilk — using technical gizmos without a search warrant to snoop into the most private and intimate aspects of citizens’ daily lives in the privacy of their own homes?” asked Jeff Orchard, Esq., NORML Foundation Litigation Director. “If this is allowed to stand the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure will have been further narrowed, in the name of the war on drugs.”
For more information, please contact Jeff Orchard, Esq., NORML Foundation Litigation Director at (202) 483-8751.
