Cannabis Seeds Sativa, Growing Marijuana Pictures, Cannabis Culture

Devices - Marijuana Controlled Buy

Devices
Thermal Imaging Devices & Forward Looking Infrared Devices
The array of high-tech devices used by law enforcement agencies to fight the War on Drugs is frightening. Even local agencies now have equipment that allows them to see and hear through walls and locate items in almost complete darkness. One such device, known as a Thermal Imaging Device (TID) is essentially a temperature sensitive telescope. Viewed through a TID, relatively colder objects appear darker, and relatively warmer objects appear redder. Officers can use this device to spot a human being hiding in a field at night because his body temperature is warmer than the surroundings. It should be no surprise that such a device is quite capable of detecting a 1000 watt halide light hanging above someone's indoor garden.

A police officer's use of high-tech devices like TID's and similar functioning Forward Looking Infrared Scopes (FLIR's) raises numerous constitutional issues. Does an officer conduct a "search" by pointing such a device at a home? If so, does such a search require a search warrant? The use of these devices also raises questions regarding the accuracy and reliability of the evidence so obtained. The courts, which have examined these issues, have reached different conclusions.

In 1991, a federal district Court in Hawaii held that it did not constitute a "search" for officers to aim an FLIR at the defendant's home from a helicopter hovering 1200 to 1500 feet above the home. The court based its decision, in large part, on the manner in which an FLIR obtains information:
[An FLIR is] a passive, non-intrusive instrument which detects differences in temperature on the surface of objects being observed. It does not send any beams or rays into the area on which it is fixed or in any way penetrate structures within that area ... [t]he instrument's sole function is to detect differences in surface temperatures of objects. It’s being directed at objects in the early morning or evening, without direct sunlight present, shows man-made heat sources on those objects as shading from a white color for intense heat to shades of gray for cooler temperatures on the same objects.

The court pointed out that the homeowner used exhaust fans to vent heat from ten one-thousand watt lights. The court termed this "heat waste," and "abandoned heat," and compared such heat waste to curb-side garbage that the Supreme Court had decided can be searched without a warrant. In other words, the court reasoned that when the defendant fanned his heat waste outside into a public area, he relinquished any reasonable expectation of privacy with regard to it. It was, said the court, equivalent to placing garbage on the street for pickup.

Based on this reasoning, the court ruled that using an FLIR to detect the heat waste was not a "search" within the scope of the Fourth Amendment, concluding that an officer can use an FLIR any time and for any reason without first having to obtain a search warrant. (U.Sv.Penny-Feeney [D. HW1991] 773 F.Supp 220, affirmed 984 F.2d 1053.)

The Eighth Circuit, citing the above case, has likewise analogized the FLIR to a garbage search as well as to a dog sniff:
... The use of the FLIR device is analogous to the detection of odors emanating from luggage or the search of garbage left outside for collection. Any subjective expectation of privacy [the defendant] may have had in the heat radiating from his house is not one that society is prepared to recognize as "reasonable." The detection of the heat waste was not an intrusion into the home; no intimate details of the home were observed, and there was no intrusion upon the privacy of the individuals within. None of the interests which form the basis for the need for protection of a residence, namely the intimacy, personal autonomy and privacy associated with a home, are threatened by thermal imagery. (US v. Pinson [8th Cir. 1994] 24 F.3d 1056.)

The Washington Supreme Court has ruled the opposite way, finding it a violation of the state's constitution to use a TID without a warrant. In the Washington case, the police received an anonymous written note claiming that Robert Young was operating "a big marijuana grow" in his home. The officers confirmed that Mr. Young lived at the address stated in the note and noticed that his basement windows were "consistently covered." They also obtained the power consumption records for his home for the previous six years and found that his electrical consumption had recently jumped to an abnormally high level. Based on this information, a group of officers and a DBA Special Agent drove by Young's home, parked on the street, and pointed their infrared thermal detection device at Young's home, detecting "abnormal heating patterns."

The officers then used the TID to check the heating patterns of other homes in the neighborhood. When these patterns were compared to the patterns detected from Mr. Young's home, the officers concluded that his pattern was unique and indicated (along with the other circumstantial evidence) that he was indeed growing Cannabis inside his home.

Based on an affidavit reciting the above facts, the officers obtained a search warrant, executed it, and seized a quantity of marijuana from Mr. Young's home. The case went all the way to the Washington Supreme Court, which ruled that "the infrared surveillance not only violated the defendant's private affairs, but also constituted a violation of the Washington State Constitution's protection against warrant less invasion of his home." While the court rested its opinion on the state constitution, it also ruled that the search also violated the Fourth Amendment. Consequently, the court excluded the illegally seized evidence and reversed Mr. Young's conviction.

In reaching its decision that the warrant less use of the TID was unlawful, the court made several important points that are worth quoting at length. First, with regard to whether the use of such a device is a "search," the court pointed out "as a general proposition, it is fair to say that when a law enforcement officer is able to detect something by utilization of one or more of his senses while lawfully present at the vantage point where those senses are used, that detection does not constitute a 'search.'" In the case of a police officer's use of a TID, however, the situation is much different.

In this case, the police were positioned on the street, which is a lawful, non-intrusive vantage point. Therefore, the question is one of the intrusiveness of the means used and the nature of the property observed. The police used an infrared thermal detection device to detect heat distribution patterns undetected-able by the naked eye or other senses. With this device the officer was able to, in effect, "see through the walls" of the home. The device goes well beyond an enhancement of natural senses. In addition, the nighttime infrared surveillance enabled the officers to conduct their surveillance without Mr. Young's knowledge. The infrared device thus represents a particularly intrusive means of observation that exceeds our established surveillance limits.
The nature of the property viewed was also a factor in finding that the surveillance unconstitutionally intruded on Mr. Young's private affairs. The infrared device was targeted at the outside of the home but allowed the officers to see more than what Mr. Young left exposed to public view. The device allowed the officers to draw specific inferences about the inside of the house:
When directed at a home, the infrared device allows the officer to determine which particular rooms a homeowner is heating, and thus using, at night. This information may reflect a homeowner's financial inability to heat the entire home, the existence and location of energy consuming and heat producing appliances, and possibly even the number of people who may be staying at the residence on a given night. The device discloses information about activities occurring within the confines of the home, and which a person is entitled to keep from disclosing absent a warrant. Thus, this information falls within the "private affairs" language of [the Washington constitution].
The court was also outraged by the officers' conduct in pointing the TID at neighboring houses and recording the heating patterns of those homes:
It is especially troubling that the police conducted thermal investigations not only on the defendant's home, but on the homes of his neighbors as well... There is no indication these neighbors were suspected of any criminal activity whatsoever. If we were to hold the use of the device does not constitute a search, no limitation would be placed on the government's ability to use the device on any private residence, on any particular night, even if no criminal activity is suspected. Such police activity is constitutionally offensive.
Such unrestricted, sense-enhanced observations present a dangerous amount of police discretion. This kind of surveillance avoids the protection of a warrant issued upon probable cause by a neutral magistrate. Not only does this practice eviscerate the traditional requirement that police identify a particular suspect prior to initiating a search, but it also facilitates clandestine investigations by the police force, which are not subject to the traditional restraint of public accountability. .. . Such secret surveillance may not only chill free expression, but also may encourage arbitrary and inappropriate police conduct.

Finally, the court examined the validity of the argument that heat waste was analogous to garbage placed on the curb. The court rejected the validity of this analogy, explaining:

Infrared device was targeted at the outside of the home but allowed the officers to see more than what Mr. Young left exposed to public view. The device allowed the officers to draw specific inferences about the inside of the house:
When directed at a home, the infrared device allows the officer to determine which particular rooms a homeowner is heating, and thus using, at night. This information may reflect a homeowner's financial inability to heat the entire home, the existence and location of energy consuming and heat producing appliances, and possibly even the number of people who may be staying at the residence on a given night. The device discloses information about activities occurring within the confines of the home, and which a person is entitled to keep from disclosing absent a warrant. Thus, this information falls within the "private affairs" language of [the Washington constitution].
The court was also outraged by the officers' conduct in pointing the TID at neighboring houses and recording the heating patterns of those homes:
It is especially troubling that the police conducted thermal investigations not only on the defendant's home, but on the homes of his neighbors as well... There is no indication these neighbors were suspected of any criminal activity whatsoever. If we were to hold the use of the device does not constitute a search, no limitation would be placed on the government's ability to use the device on any private residence, on any particular night, even if no criminal activity is suspected. Such police activity is constitutionally offensive.
Such unrestricted, sense-enhanced observations present a dangerous amount of police discretion. This kind of surveillance avoids the protection of a warrant issued upon probable cause by a neutral magistrate. Not only does this practice eviscerate the traditional requirement that police identify a particular suspect prior to initiating a search, but it also facilitates clandestine investigations by the police force, which are not subject to the traditional restraint of public accountability ... Such secret surveillance may not only chill free expression, but also may encourage arbitrary and inappropriate police conduct.

Finally, the court examined the validity of the argument that heat waste was analogous to garbage placed on the curb. The court rejected the validity of this analogy, explaining:

... It is difficult to say one voluntarily vents heat waste in the same way that one disposes of garbage. Heat, unlike garbage, automatically leaves a person's home without any deliberate participation by the homeowner. Even if some heat is vented to the outside, the device detects all heat leaving the home, not just the heat directed out through the vent. Moreover, the [United States Supreme Court] also noted that one can avoid the risk by not placing private information in the garbage. On the other hand, the only way for a person to avoid the risk of exposure in this case would be to turn off all heat sources in the home, even in sub-zero temperatures. In addition, one could not stand near an open window or any part of the home constructed of material such as plywood because the device is capable of revealing the presence of human forms in these circumstances. (State v. Young [WA 1994] 867 P.2d 593.)

While courts remain divided on the constitutionality of warrant less FLIR and TID scans, the most recent cases seem to indicate a trend toward finding such police methods unlawful. For example, in addition to the Washington case just discussed, a federal district court in Texas, rejecting arguments making comparisons to garbage left on the curb as well as to dog sniffs, recently held that an FLIR scan is a search that is unlawful unless authorized by a search warrant. With regard to the dog sniff analogy, the court commented:
The comparison of dog sniffs and Flirts fails on two levels. First the thermal imager cannot distinguish between "contraband heats," and "legal heat," so that the information garnered from such a technique is less limited, and thus results in more intrusion than a dog sniff. Second, ado’s sense of smell, while more acute than a human's, does not compare to a technology that can turn minute gradations in temperature into video tapes from 1500 feet away. (US. v. Ishmael [ED. Tex. 1994] 843 Sup. 205.)

The Dee’s NADDIS Database
The DBA maintains the Narcotic and Dangerous Drug Information System (NADDIS) which is a computerized compilation of the DEA's information on known and suspected drug traffickers. The government attempts to keep the details of the NADDIS system secret. Secondary literature depicts NADDIS as a disordered, unselective repository of unsubstantiated and often dated allegations. It's difficult to get much reliable information about the NADDIS database,