Does Cheap Tech Undermine Legal Privacy Protections?

bfwebster writes "Orin Kerr, a George Washington University law professor who focuses on legal issues regarding information technology (I own a copy of his book Computer Crime Law) raises an interesting issue about a 2001 Supreme Court decision (Kyllo v. United States) that prohibited police from using a thermal imaging device on a private home without a warrant. (The police were trying to detect excess heat coming from the roof of a garage, as an indication of lamps being used to grow marijuana inside.) The Court made its decision back in 2001 because thermal imaging devices were 'not in general use' and therefore represented a technology that required a warrant. However, Kerr points out that anyone can now buy such thermal imaging devices for $50 to $150 from Amazon, and that they're advertised as a means of detecting thermal leakage from your home. In light of that, Kerr asks, is the Supreme Court's ruling still sound?"

Comments

"Thermal imaging devices" are not $50-150.

[jeffb (2.718)]

The linked item is not an imager, it's a glorified thermometer. I wish you could get a thermal imager for cheap -- last I checked, they still started in the $3-4K range.

This is completely different

[Anonymous Coward]

The imager police where using was just that - an imager. This is just a cheap infrared thermometer. It's like comparing a motion sensor to a video camera, or your finger to your eyes.

I literally laughed out loud when this post insinuated that a $150 thermometer was equivalent to a $5000+ vanadium oxide microbolometer.

Dumb.

Re:This is completely different

[capt.Hij]

The point is should the cost matter? Someday that vanadium oxide microbolometer may be easier to obtain and be in more general use. Should the availability of the tech matter or should the courts actually use some sort of sound judgement about how intrusive authorities can be? The availability of the technology is not relevant to whether or not the government is stepping on your rights. The technology to break into your house has always been cheap and available yet for some reason surveillance is treated differently.

Re:Warrantless Police "Observation" ?

[Tobor the Eighth Man]

Mod parent up! All these other posts are acting like having to get a warrant means police can't do it.

Warrants are routinely obtained for all sorts of things on relatively little evidence. If the police want to spy on someone with thermal cameras, let 'em convince a judge that it's reasonable to think you may be doing something illegal. That's what the warrant process is there for--trying to circumvent it defeats the purpose.

A Bright Line is needed

[TomRC]

There needs to be a "bright line" on this - that line should be "Any use of sensing devices beyond that of an unaugmented human, constitutes an illegal search."

That would include remote thermal measuring devices, setting up cameras to watch a house, use of sound amplification, etc.

For that matter, I would prefer that a warrant be required even to post an officer to watch continuously - i.e. the bright line should be "no more than the equivalent of casual, unaugmented observation". So a police officer could drive by a location, but setting up surveillance would require a warrant. But I don't expect we're likely to see that sort of roll-back of surveillance powers.