Court curbs use of surveillance
devices
By Ian Clift
Summer Reporter
In a five to four decision June 11, the Supreme
Court ruled that the devices used to determine the structure and shape
of objects in a person's home constitute as unconstitutional search.
The decision was made after federal agents used
a thermal imaging device to scan the home of Danny Kyllo of Florence,
Ore., to search for heat produced from high-intensity lamps commonly
used for indoor marijuana growth. The investigation lead to the arrest
and conviction of Kyllo on a federal drug charge.
Kyllo protested the decision and took the case
all the way to the Supreme Court.
Capt. Mike Francis, of the West Lafayette Police
department, said that thermal devices, such as the one used in the Kyllo
case, have been traditionally used by the Navy and by fire departments.
"Somehow it got into law enforcement hands," he said.
The Supreme Court Held: "Where, as here, the Government
uses a device that is not in general public use, to explore details
of a private home that would previously have been unknowable without
physical intrusion, the surveillance is a Fourth Amendment 'search'
and is presumptively unreasonable without a warrant."
Francis said that West Lafayette does not have
any such devices in their command and even if they did, they would not
use them in those cases. "Since that's what the courts told us to do,
we're not going to argue with (the decision)," he said.
The Indiana Association of Chiefs of Police and
the Indiana Sheriff's Department have made it specifically clear what
this decision means, said Francis.
Other devices that could be used to conduct surveillance
are already available such as radar guns that transmit radio waves though
concrete walls, scanners known as BodySearchs that can see through clothing,
and ion sniffers that can detect trace chemicals through the skin.
Researchers at Purdue are also working on devices
that could be used in a similar fashion.
Garth Patterson, a co-creator of the start-up company,
Griffin Analytical Tech, says that the portable mass spectrometer that
his company is working on has the theoretical long term potential to
be used in drug and chemical detection.
"All the steroid tests in the Olympics were done
in mass spectrometers," said Patterson. "That's not something were going
to target, at least not for a while."
A mass spectrometer uses spectroscopy to detect
physical molecules in a sample.
The company's current work is with air and water
quality, but the defense department has shown interest in using their
device as a chemical warfare agent detector.
"I am not a fan of invasion of privacy," Patternson
said, "but (the spectrometer) is certainly of interest in medicine.
Emergency Medical technicians need to know what drug metabolites are
needed (and) what's in the body so that there aren't any side effects."
The Supreme Courts ruling does not curb the use
of devices such as these, but does curb their use in instances where
a warrant is not obtained.
Francis said that the court's have ruled you must
have probable cause before using these devices. "You must build probable
cause," he said, "and that's the way it should be."
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