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Doppler Radar Used By Police To Determine Home Occupancy
schwit1 sends an article by Orin Kerr about a court case where a judge has had to weigh Fourth Amendment protections against law enforcement's ability to use a Doppler radar device to tell whether people are present within a home. Kerr writes:
If the government has the burden of proving reasonable suspicion, should the court treat the absence of information in the record on this point as not changing its otherwise-reached view that there is reasonable suspicion (as it does), or should that be treated as a potentially serious deficiency in getting to reasonable suspicion that the government has to overcome?
I’m not sure of the answer. We don’t normally encounter this question because we normally understand the uses and limits of investigatory tools. If the officer looked through the window and didn’t see any other people, for example, we could intuitively factor that into the reasonable suspicion inquiry without having to think about burdens of proof. I’m less sure what we’re supposed to do when the government use a suspicion-testing technological device with unknown capabilities."
The judge in the court case wrote, "New technologies bring with them not only new opportunities for law enforcement to catch criminals but also new risks for abuse and new ways to invade constitutional rights (PDF). ... Unlawful searches can give rise not only to civil claims but may require the suppression of evidence in criminal proceedings. We have little doubt that the radar device deployed here will soon generate many questions for this court and others along both of these axes."
Nest-type thermostats, entertainment streaming, alarm systems, and the beat (down) that is voluntary surrender of privacy goes on.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Radar is non ionizing. It could cook people, though, if it has enough power.
Actually, yes it can lead to cancer: http://www.iarc.fr/en/media-ce...
When you get your Armature radio license they hand you a sheet with warnings and exposure levels. Non-ionizing isn't nearly as bad as Ionizing radiation where even very low levels are dangerous. You need much higher energy levels of non-ionizing before it becomes dangerous. The 1 watt you find in most wifi devices is far far bellow what would be considered dangerous. I have a 70 watt 2 meter radio and even that's safe.
A wall penetrating Doppler radar device though? I would be concerned if that were pointed at me for anything more than a split second. It was deffinately not designed to be pointed at sleeping children. You'd really need to know exactly how it works though. The danger with non-ionizing radiation is not strait forward. It's not like you can just say "1hr of exposure to 1000watts is where it becomes dangerous!" It changes depending on the Frequency, duration, power and distance from the antenna. So it's really hard to say. I would think the FCC might be interested in talking to this police station.
Not sure if it is relevant but in the UK there are several things: Property taxes (council tax) you get a 25% discount if there is only one person there. Various forms of welfare. You get more if you live alone and do not declare you are living with somebody (same for some pensions). Homes of multiple occupancy. There have been various slum lords turning small houses into 8+ flats/apartments without licences and safety regulations. As such places in London stuff 30 people into a house designed for 3 at most. Prostitution also. In the UK sex work is completely legal (not in NI though) subject to various restrictions. Street solicitation and one sex worker per residence. Therefore if you have one sex worker working in a house it is completely fine. Add in (or a non prostitute friend who visits I'm serious) a maid or muscle/pimp/security and it suddenly becomes a brothel even though there is only one sex worker there. As such many skirt the law by building self contained apartments inside a single house. So you get 31a 31b 31c 31d which is deemed to be separate residences. Local government gets to charge 4 lots of property taxes etc.
something tells me that the cops using this don't care. In fact, I'll bet they firmly believe "the perps deserve it", and anyone else in the house is guilty by association. If they get fried, then that's just one less bullet they have to waste. And trying to explain the differences between radiation, wattage, etc would probably just make them confused, then angry, then really sarcastic...eventually drawing you into some perceived conflict that they can escalate to a physical fight so they can arrest you. I wish I was being sarcastic, but I've seen this on COPS so many times across the nation I sometimes think there must be some manual somewhere on just how to manipulate people into fighting you marked "LAW ENFORCEMENT EYES ONLY". Only in the past month or so have I seen any attempts from the police at de-escualtion. My friends ask me why I watch that show...so I can learn how not to get maced?
As more topical to your post, would it also be affected by building materials? I don't know what power / frequency such radar would be running at, but YES I'm sure the FCC would. This is almost a guaranteed violation of whatever agreement his department has with the FCC to be able to use this...although the geek in me thinks it's a cool off-label usage like on Total Recall or Commando (Commando claimed to use X rays though lol) but 1) potentially dangerous 2) against an unconvicted civilian(s) 3) crossing the line of an expectation of privacy since we have little easy protection.
It's not something you can "opt out of". If you don't want to run the risk of having someone use your cell to spy on you, we can choose not to carry one with us. If we don't want people looking through the windows we can close the blinds. I suppose some type of Faraday cage or wall coverings would work, but that's just diving straight into paranoid conspiracy land. Trying to explain to any guests, family, etc why suddenly no EM signal works in your place is almost guaranteed to make everyone think you need some therapy LOL. In my ideal USA, even if this technique was 100% safe it should STILL be illegal.
For a legal precedence, this seems to line up with the police using thermal imaging (cancerous radiation too). How legal / common is it for LE to do night raids after thermaling a house to get the positions of targets? That stuff used to be "military grade" but with the massive federal "one cop, one tank" policy this should be filter out by now.