T
The420Guy
Guest
FLORENCE, Ore. - Early one morning in 1992, officers in an anti-drug task
force pointed a high-tech thermal-imagining device at several houses in this
quiet coastal town of 5,000 people. Inside, Danny Lee Kyllo and his
neighbors were asleep, unaware that the government was electronically
scanning their homes by measuring heat emissions.
Outside, the officers could tell if the residents were sleeping, hugging,
having sex or using the bathroom.
They also discovered marijuana growing in Kyllo's garage, got a search
warrant, raided his home and arrested him.
In a case to be argued today, the U.S. Supreme Court is being asked to use
the Kyllo case to determine parameters for law-enforcement officials who use
high-tech devices and technology to get personal information.
The justices are examining whether the Fourth Amendment's promise that
people are safe in "their persons, houses, papers and effects" from illegal
searches is violated when police use new technologies to pierce traditional
walls of confidentiality and secrecy.
"The significance of this case and how it will impact people on a daily
basis cannot be understated," said University of Georgia law professor
Eugene Wilkes. "For the first time, the Supreme Court is going to tell us
how far government can go in snooping into our private residences and
personal lives."
Even the U.S. Justice Department, in its briefs filed at the Supreme Court,
agrees that "technological developments hold a serious potential to encroach
on privacy."
In the Kyllo case, law-enforcement officers used a device that looks like a
video camera to scan for heat radiating from the exterior of his home. It
converts the infrared signals emitted by people, ovens, hot water or lamps
into a visible image on a screen. The technology was developed to assist
soldiers in the Persian Gulf War.
Kyllo said government agents violated his constitutional rights when they
used the thermal-imaging device to "look" inside his home to see what he was
doing.
"When I tell people what happened, they are shocked that our own government
would spy on its own citizens in this way," said Kyllo, who is now 36.
Kenneth Lerner, a Portland lawyer who represents Kyllo, said law
enforcement's use of such devices "strips the citizenry of the most basic
rights of personal privacy by electronically gathering invisible
information" about what is going on inside the home.
"Since we don't permit police to break into people's homes, should we permit
them to use technology to accomplish the same thing?" Lerner said.
"If the government is free to use technology to look inside our homes, there
really won't be anything left of the right to privacy," said Dave Fidanque,
executive director of the Oregon chapter of the American Civil Liberties
Union.
Even though a majority of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San
Francisco held the use of the heat-imaging device in the Kyllo case was
proper, a dissenting judge warned that the United States is quickly becoming
"a world of Orwellian surveillance."
Prosecutors say the use of thermal-imaging devices is not illegal because it
doesn't "literally or figuratively penetrate the home. Instead, it measures
and analyzes heat escaping from a building."
The Justice Department says it is no different than spotting smoke coming
from a house.
"In many ways, it is a question that is both scientific and metaphysical,"
said professor David Schuman of the University of Oregon School of Law.
"Does this (scanner) take someone from outside (a home) and put them in or
take information from inside and take it out?"
State and federal law-enforcement officers have used the technology in tens
of thousands of drug and gun investigations.
Federal judges have, with near unanimity, agreed with the Justice Department
that thermal imaging is not actually a "search." However, three state
supreme courts - in Montana, Pennsylvania and Washington - have banned the
technique in their jurisdictions, ruling that it is a "search" and that it
is too intrusive.
In past rulings, the U.S. Supreme Court has allowed police to proceed
without a warrant when they put a radio beacon in a car to track its
location, send a helicopter over private property to see inside a
greenhouse, or use a flashlight to illuminate a darkened car. However, the
court has required police to get a warrant before placing a microphone
inside a house or on the outside of a telephone booth.
Legal experts say that if the Supreme Court decides that the use of such
devices is a "search," the justices are almost certain to rule that the
search is unreasonable - a factor in deciding if a police action is illegal.
"Technology is developing at the speed of light and the law has not been
keeping up," said Drake University law professor Thomas Baker. "I think that
the Supreme Court feels this is a growing concern among the people of this
country that, because of technology, we are losing too much of our personal
space."
Baker and other legal scholars say law enforcement is going to use all tools
available to obtain information about potential suspects or possible
criminal activity.
"That's why we have courts to protect our rights and to tell government it
has gone too far," said Baker.
The problem, according to analysts, is that there are no legal standards on
how and when high-tech gadgets can be used by authorities to gather
information.
Yesterday, the American Bar Association, which represents 400,000 lawyers,
judges and law professors, issued a report saying Congress and the president
need to develop and enforce standards involving new technologies in order to
protect basic civil liberties.
Kyllo, who served a month in jail for marijuana possession, said
government's access to "considerably more sophisticated and intrusive"
equipment has grown extensively in the nine years since his case began.
"The technology they are using today is simply scary," he said. "The
government doesn't need to know the personal issues of my life. I know what
I done was wrong. But I know what they're doing is wrong."
Information from The Associated Press is included in this report.
by Mark Curriden
The Dallas Morning News
force pointed a high-tech thermal-imagining device at several houses in this
quiet coastal town of 5,000 people. Inside, Danny Lee Kyllo and his
neighbors were asleep, unaware that the government was electronically
scanning their homes by measuring heat emissions.
Outside, the officers could tell if the residents were sleeping, hugging,
having sex or using the bathroom.
They also discovered marijuana growing in Kyllo's garage, got a search
warrant, raided his home and arrested him.
In a case to be argued today, the U.S. Supreme Court is being asked to use
the Kyllo case to determine parameters for law-enforcement officials who use
high-tech devices and technology to get personal information.
The justices are examining whether the Fourth Amendment's promise that
people are safe in "their persons, houses, papers and effects" from illegal
searches is violated when police use new technologies to pierce traditional
walls of confidentiality and secrecy.
"The significance of this case and how it will impact people on a daily
basis cannot be understated," said University of Georgia law professor
Eugene Wilkes. "For the first time, the Supreme Court is going to tell us
how far government can go in snooping into our private residences and
personal lives."
Even the U.S. Justice Department, in its briefs filed at the Supreme Court,
agrees that "technological developments hold a serious potential to encroach
on privacy."
In the Kyllo case, law-enforcement officers used a device that looks like a
video camera to scan for heat radiating from the exterior of his home. It
converts the infrared signals emitted by people, ovens, hot water or lamps
into a visible image on a screen. The technology was developed to assist
soldiers in the Persian Gulf War.
Kyllo said government agents violated his constitutional rights when they
used the thermal-imaging device to "look" inside his home to see what he was
doing.
"When I tell people what happened, they are shocked that our own government
would spy on its own citizens in this way," said Kyllo, who is now 36.
Kenneth Lerner, a Portland lawyer who represents Kyllo, said law
enforcement's use of such devices "strips the citizenry of the most basic
rights of personal privacy by electronically gathering invisible
information" about what is going on inside the home.
"Since we don't permit police to break into people's homes, should we permit
them to use technology to accomplish the same thing?" Lerner said.
"If the government is free to use technology to look inside our homes, there
really won't be anything left of the right to privacy," said Dave Fidanque,
executive director of the Oregon chapter of the American Civil Liberties
Union.
Even though a majority of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San
Francisco held the use of the heat-imaging device in the Kyllo case was
proper, a dissenting judge warned that the United States is quickly becoming
"a world of Orwellian surveillance."
Prosecutors say the use of thermal-imaging devices is not illegal because it
doesn't "literally or figuratively penetrate the home. Instead, it measures
and analyzes heat escaping from a building."
The Justice Department says it is no different than spotting smoke coming
from a house.
"In many ways, it is a question that is both scientific and metaphysical,"
said professor David Schuman of the University of Oregon School of Law.
"Does this (scanner) take someone from outside (a home) and put them in or
take information from inside and take it out?"
State and federal law-enforcement officers have used the technology in tens
of thousands of drug and gun investigations.
Federal judges have, with near unanimity, agreed with the Justice Department
that thermal imaging is not actually a "search." However, three state
supreme courts - in Montana, Pennsylvania and Washington - have banned the
technique in their jurisdictions, ruling that it is a "search" and that it
is too intrusive.
In past rulings, the U.S. Supreme Court has allowed police to proceed
without a warrant when they put a radio beacon in a car to track its
location, send a helicopter over private property to see inside a
greenhouse, or use a flashlight to illuminate a darkened car. However, the
court has required police to get a warrant before placing a microphone
inside a house or on the outside of a telephone booth.
Legal experts say that if the Supreme Court decides that the use of such
devices is a "search," the justices are almost certain to rule that the
search is unreasonable - a factor in deciding if a police action is illegal.
"Technology is developing at the speed of light and the law has not been
keeping up," said Drake University law professor Thomas Baker. "I think that
the Supreme Court feels this is a growing concern among the people of this
country that, because of technology, we are losing too much of our personal
space."
Baker and other legal scholars say law enforcement is going to use all tools
available to obtain information about potential suspects or possible
criminal activity.
"That's why we have courts to protect our rights and to tell government it
has gone too far," said Baker.
The problem, according to analysts, is that there are no legal standards on
how and when high-tech gadgets can be used by authorities to gather
information.
Yesterday, the American Bar Association, which represents 400,000 lawyers,
judges and law professors, issued a report saying Congress and the president
need to develop and enforce standards involving new technologies in order to
protect basic civil liberties.
Kyllo, who served a month in jail for marijuana possession, said
government's access to "considerably more sophisticated and intrusive"
equipment has grown extensively in the nine years since his case began.
"The technology they are using today is simply scary," he said. "The
government doesn't need to know the personal issues of my life. I know what
I done was wrong. But I know what they're doing is wrong."
Information from The Associated Press is included in this report.
by Mark Curriden
The Dallas Morning News