Kyllo v. United States

Kyllo v. United States, 533 U.S. 27 (2001), was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States in which the court ruled that the use of thermal imaging devices to monitor heat radiation in or around a person's home, even if conducted from a public vantage point, is unconstitutional without a search warrant . In its majority opinion, the court held that thermal imaging constitutes a "search " under the Fourth Amendment , as the police were using devices to "explore details of the home that would previously have been unknowable without physical intrusion." The ruling has been noted for refining the reasonable expectation of privacy doctrine in light of new surveillance technologies, and when those are used in areas that are accessible to the public.

The ruling has been praised by legal scholars since the Court refused to be the arbiter to determine "what is and is not intimate" and thus worthy of protection. Instead, the Court opted to focus on "the invasiveness of the technology itself" and its ability to enable all kinds of government surveillance in the home.

Contents

• 1 Background

• 2 Opinion of the Court

  • 2.1 Dissenting opinion

• 3 Impact and subsequent developments

  • 3.1 Drone surveillance

  • 3.2 Police dog searches

• 4 References

• 5 External links

Background

(https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kyllo_v._United_States&action=edit&section=1 "Edit section: Background")

In 1991, federal agents with the United States Department of the Interior received a tip that Danny Lee Kyllo was growing marijuana in his home in Florence , Oregon . The agents used an FLIR thermal imaging device outside Kyllo's home, which revealed an unusual amount of heat radiating from the roof and side walls compared with the rest of the house, leading the agents to suspect he was using high-intensity halide lamps that are common in cannabis cultivation. The scan was conducted from a parked car across the street, without a search warrant . The thermograms gathered from the scan were used by police later to obtain a warrant for a subsequent search of the house, and during that search federal agents found more than 100 marijuana plants. Kyllo was charged with one count of manufacturing marijuana.

At a preliminary hearing , the court denied Kyllo's motion to suppress the evidence obtained from the thermal imaging search, ruling that the device could not "penetrate walls or windows to reveal conversations or human activities" and that the device "recorded only heat being emitted from the home". Kyllo entered a conditional guilty plea before appealing to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on the grounds that observations with a thermal-imaging device constituted a search under the Fourth Amendment . The Ninth Circuit ultimately upheld admission of the evidence and allowed the criminal trial to continue. Kyllo then petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court for a writ of _certiorari _, which was granted in 2000.

Opinion of the Court

(https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kyllo_v._United_States&action=edit&section=2 "Edit section: Opinion of the Court")

At the Supreme Court, federal prosecutors defended the use of thermal imaging technology on two grounds: first, that thermal imaging was not an invasion of privacy, because the devices could not reveal any intimate details of the home; and second, that heat radiation can be detected in several ways from a public vantage point without the aid of technology, such as observing snow melting or smoke rising.

In a majority opinion written by Justice Antonin Scalia , the Supreme Court ruled that the thermal imaging of Kyllo's home constituted a search within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment . By a 5–4 margin, the court held that a search warrant must be obtained before the government, including the police and federal agents, may use a thermal imaging device to monitor the heat and radiation of one's home. Scalia also noted the surveillance powers that could be abused by the police with technologies that are "not in general public use." As the police did not have a warrant when they used the device outside of Kyllo's home, the search was unconstitutional.

Scalia wrote: "Where, as here, the Government uses a device that is not in general public use, to explore details of the home that would previously have been unknowable without physical intrusion, the surveillance is a ‘search’ and is presumptively unreasonable without a warrant." The majority opinion argued that a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy in his or her home, and therefore, the government cannot conduct unreasonable searches, even with technology that does not enter the home.

The Kyllo decision, relying on _Katz v. United States _ (1967), confirmed the expectation of privacy in one's home, and limited the means by which the government can explore the home without a warrant. Scalia referred to the bright line drawn at the entrance of a home, where the Fourth Amendment is said to recognize a heightened expectation of privacy. Furthermore, Scalia discussed how future technologies could invade one's right of privacy. Scalia argued that the Framers of the Constitution would agree that such technology would be intrusive enough to warrant a search, if they knew it existed, and as such, that technology (including thermal imaging) calls for the same warrant requirements as physical intrusion.

Scalia structured the opinion to protect against more sophisticated surveillance technology that might arise in the future. This was intended to protect the home from all types of warrantless surveillance and is an interpretation of what Scalia called "the long view" of the Fourth Amendment.

Dissenting opinion

(https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kyllo_v._United_States&action=edit&section=3 "Edit section: Dissenting opinion")

An example of a thermogram gathered from a thermal imaging device

In a dissenting opinion authored by Justice John Paul Stevens , the minority argued that the use of thermal imaging does not constitute a Fourth Amendment "search" because any person could detect the heat emissions. Stevens argued that this could be done simply by feeling that some areas in or around the house are warmer than others, or by observing that snow was melting more quickly on certain sections of the house. Since the public could gather this information on its own, it was therefore not unconstitutional for the government to do the same. The dissenting opinion asserted that the use of the thermal imaging device was merely "off-the-wall" surveillance because it did not detect any "intimate" details within Kyllo's home.

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