Supreme Court Rules on Police Using Infrared

June 11 -- Federal agents could not see inside Danny Lee Kyllo's home. Nor did they have a search warrant to enter the premises.

But they did have an infrared camera that used thermal imaging technology, enabling them to identify suspected heat lamps growing 100 marijuana plants.

They used the images to get a warrant, leading to Kyllo's arrest and conviction.

The technology, originally designed for the military, displays objects by distinguishing differences in temperature of surrounding objects, so that a person, warmer than the surrounding air, appears a different color than the air.

The Supreme Court today, in Kyllo vs. U.S., ruled that authorities scanning a home with an infrared camera without a warrant constituted an unreasonable search barred by the Fourth Amendment.

It did so, the court said, because the device is not in general use by the public, so Kyllo had an expectation of privacy, and because the imaging provided by the camera revealed details about Kyllo's home "that would previously have been unknowable without physical intrusion."

Privacy in the Home

The 5-4 opinion, written by Justice Antonin Scalia, restated the court's previous findings that a visual search of a home, without entry, is not a search and not restricted by the Fourth Amendment.

But in adapting a principle first enunciated in the landmark Supreme Court case Katz vs. United States, a case involving remote eavesdropping of someone inside a phone booth, it found a warrant is required when the person has a "subjective expectation of privacy." That expectation existed for Kyllo because he was in his own home, an idea with deep roots in common law, the ruling found.

"To withdraw protection of this minimum expectation would be to permit police technology to erode the privacy guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment," it said.

Kyllo's attorney, Kenneth Lerner, made a similar argument in court papers: "Technology that exploits invisible, sub-sensory phenomena ultimately fails to respect the traditional boundaries of society, and therefore leaves the population defenseless against such surveillance."