Where did that scum bag Scalia get the 'in general public use' test? Geez, these guys make it up as they go along... ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2001 11:25:19 -0400 (EDT) From: George@Orwellian.Org Reply-To: cypherpunks@ssz.com To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net Subject: CDR: SCOTUS rulz! http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Scotus-Heat-Detector.html # # June 11, 2001 # # Court Rules Against Heat-Sensor Searches # # Filed at 11:03 a.m. ET # # WASHINGTON (AP) -- Police violate the Constitution if they use # a heat-sensing device to peer inside a home without a search # warrant, the Supreme Court ruled Monday. # # An unusual lineup of five justices voted to bolster the Fourth # Amendment's protection against unreasonable searches and threw # out an Oregon man's conviction for growing marijuana. # # Monday's ruling reversed a lower court decision that said # officers' use of a heat-sensing device was not a search of Danny # Lee Kyllo's home and therefore they did not need a search warrant. # # In an opinion written by Justice Antonin Scalia, by many measures # the most conservative member of the court, the majority found # that the heat detector allowed police to see things they otherwise # could not. # # ``Where, as here, the government uses a device that is not in # general public use to explore details of the home that would # previously have been unknowable without physical intrusion, the # surveillance is a 'search' and is presumptively unreasonable # without a warrant,'' Scalia wrote. # # While the court has previously approved some warrantless searches, # this one did not meet tests the court has previously set, Scalia # wrote. # # The decision means the information police gathered with the # thermal device -- namely a suspicious pattern of hot spots on # the home's exterior walls -- cannot be used against Kyllo. # # The court sent the case back to lower courts to determine whether # police have enough other basis to support the search warrant # that was eventually served on Kyllo, and thus whether any of # the evidence inside his home can be used against him. # # Justices Clarence Thomas, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg # and Stephen Breyer joined the majority. # # Justice John Paul Stevens wrote a dissenting opinion joined by # Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, and Justices Sandra Day # O'Connor and Anthony M. Kennedy. -- ____________________________________________________________________ "...where annual election ends, tyranny begins;" Thomas Jefferson & Samuel Adams The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage@ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------