Pubdate: Thu, 09 Oct 2008
Source: Globe and Mail (Canada)
Copyright: 2008 The Globe and Mail Company
Contact:  http://www.globeandmail.ca/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/168
Author: Kirk Makin

JUDGES SET TO DETERMINE WHETHER TRASH IS PRIVATE

Nothing was stirring but the raccoons on Dec. 17, 2003, when Calgary 
police swooped down in a predawn raid to snatch Russell Patrick's garbage.

Reaching over Mr. Russell's property line, officers made off with 
several bags of refuse, eliciting enough evidence of a potential 
drug-manufacturing operation to obtain a search warrant on his house.

Shortly afterward, Mr. Patrick was charged with producing and 
trafficking the methamphetamine MDA, launching a classic battle over 
the constitutional right to privacy.

At a Supreme Court of Canada hearing tomorrow, the judges will be 
asked to overturn Mr. Patrick's conviction and exclude the evidence 
on the grounds that seizing a citizen's garbage is the mark of a police state.

"The policy implications of the Crown's position are profound," 
lawyers Jonathan Lisus and Alexi Wood said in a Canadian Civil 
Liberties Association brief. "The state would be free to harvest 
waste in 'bad neighbourhoods' to build a database of information it 
would never otherwise be able to gather.

In a brief to the Court on behalf of Mr. Patrick, lawyer Jennifer 
Ruttan said that, while a hand reaching over a fence may seen like a 
minor intrusion, it can easily lead directly to a search warrant 
being issued for a dwelling.
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