Questions about using thermal imaging

[jkjsooner]

The pictures of the bombing suspect hiding in the boat really demonstrates the power of thermal imaging. Clearly there was sufficient just cause to use it as they did in this instance but it does bring forth some additional questions.

I think we would all agree that we don't want the government to spy on us with thermal imaging. However, what's the legality of this?

I'm going to use the devil's advocate for a moment to make an argument. I believe thermal imaging is a passive device. The target is emitting IR radiation into public areas. Who is to say that the police or someone else doesn't have the right to process signals that you are emitting onto public areas? The police have every right to peer through a window as long as they do it from the public road. (Right?) Legally is there a distinction between what we can detect with our naked eye and what we can detect with a piece of equipment?

I think most would agree that the courts would not see it that way. They would consider the use of thermal imaging in everyday life to be a violation of our privacy and I would agree with that.

But to do so takes a little bit of an active roll on the part of the judicial branch since we're talking about processing signals that are being emitted into public space.


Just random thoughts trying to spur discussion.


Edit: I understand that in an insulated house that you can't spy on someone as if you're looking through a window. But let's say in the future we could (maybe using multiple cameras processing thermal images from different angles and comparing minute differences).

[badger]

Safety versus privacy. I think in this instance, the majority of people would have chosen safety over privacy.

I'd guess people would choose privacy over safety unless a situation as unique as the Boston Marathon bomber eluding police in a neighborhood came up.

[olevetonahill]

Been addressed years ago

In 2001, the United States Supreme Court decided that performing surveillance of private property (ostensibly to detect high emission grow lights used in clandestine cannabis farming) using thermal imaging cameras without a search warrant by law enforcement violates the Fourth Amendment's protection from unreasonable searches and seizures. Kyllo v. United States, 533 U.S. 27, 121 S.Ct. 2038, 150 L.Ed.2d 94 (2001).[4]

In R v. Tessling Canada's Supreme court determined that the use of thermal imagers in surveillance by police was permitted without requiring a search warrant. The Court determined that the general nature of the data gathered by thermal imagers did not reveal personal information of the occupants and therefore was not in violation of Tessling's Section 8 rights afforded under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982).

[jkjsooner]

Thanks for the info.

I do think that if you hold the same standard we use elsewhere, you could argue that this was an activist ruling by the court. I think this just emphasizes how the term "activist court" seems to rarely be used within the legal community.

It seems the government made the same case that I made while playing devil's advocate. Who is to say the government can't detect signals that are being emitted into public spaces?

[Soonerjeepman]

good thing they didn't look at my house Sat night...GF was here and we had some time to make up...been almost 2 weeks~