Pubdate: Wed, 21 Feb 2001
Source: News-Sentinel (IN)
Copyright: 2001 The News-Sentinel
Contact:  600 West Main Street, Fort Wayne, IN 46802
Website: http://www.fortwayne.com/
Author: Leo Morris, for the editorial board

TESTING THE FINE LINE

We must make sure we more zealously guard our rights as technological 
advances make it more difficult to protect them. That's the issue in 
Kyllo vs. U.S., a case before the Supreme Court, in which the defense 
is attempting to hold the line against improper search and seizure in 
the face of the government's increasing ability to cross the line.

Narcotics police in Florence, Ore. -- with no probable cause stated 
to justify it -- used a "thermal imager" to detect excessive heat 
coming from Danny Lee Kyllo's home. Based on that "evidence" alone, 
they obtained a search warrant and found more than 100 marijuana 
plants he had been growing under special lights.

How does using this device differ from an officer walking by on 
public property and seeing something through a window in a private 
residence? Should such a scan, which does not involve physical 
intrusion onto private property, really be considered a 
constitutional violation?

In the past, the court has allowed law enforcement agencies -- 
without warrants -- to fly over a person's property or use a 
flashlight to illuminate a person's car. However, the justices have 
required warrants when officials put microphones inside a person's 
home or listening devices on telephones, among other surveillance 
methods.

It's a fine line, to be sure. But important principles can turn on 
that fine line.

The Internet, for example, did not exist when the Bill of Rights 
first decreed that officials must have a reasonable suspicion -- used 
to obtained a duly authorized warrant -- to violate the sanctity of 
our person and our "papers." Our papers now include various 
electronic communications, including through the Internet. Police 
should be required to show the same proof to go roaming there as they 
do to open our mail.

That fine line is what distinguishes between reasonable efforts to 
detect and punish crime and granting government officials carte 
blanche to do whatever they wish to make sure our lives conform to 
officially sanctioned activities. There is a world of difference 
between acknowledging that police occasionally see things through a 
window and permitting them to snoop -- with ever more sophisticated 
electronic ease -- in anybody's house whenever they feel like it for 
any reason.

Big Brother, if we allow him to flourish, will not just watch the bad 
guys. He will watch everybody, including you and me.
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