Court to hear IR heat signature case

[Dagnabit]

Well, today the supreme court is hearing an issue that will determine, to me, whether they have stepped over the line and are already abandoning basic rights.

The police in Oregon got a search warrant to examine a suspect's house whom they thought was growing marijuana. They took a thermal imager which detects heat signatures to the suspect's house.

Along the way they pointed the device at the next-door neighbor's house and detected a lot of heat coming from sections of that house. They didn't have a search warrant for that house and so the issue is whether this was an unreasonable search.

What's at stake here is all our privacy. The defense's argument is that the heat is outside the house. Upholding the conviction means that the police can use just about anything to survey us so long as it gives off some radiation outside our residence. My take is that a reasonable expectation of privacy means that if someone could hear you while they were walking down the sidewalk, that's allowed, but if they required an ultra-sensitive microphone, that shouldn't be allowed.

We shall see...