CDR: Re: police IR searches to Supremes

[jim bell]

----- Original Message -----
X-Loop: openpgp.net
From: Sampo A Syreeni <ssyreeni at cc.helsinki.fi>
To: Multiple recipients of list <cypherpunks at openpgp.net>
Sent: Wednesday, September 27, 2000 3:52 AM
Subject: Re: police IR searches to Supremes


> On Tue, 26 Sep 2000, Steve Furlong wrote:
>
> >>  Supreme Court to hear thermal peeking case
> >>  By MICHAEL KIRKLAND
> >
> ><<snip most of the article>>
> >
> >I don't see how any rational mind could see this type of search as
> >allowed under the US 4th Amendment. Too bad no jurist has asked my
> >opinion.
>
> Well, I think that as long as a conventional photograph is taken from a
> public place, it does not constitute a punishable breach of privacy.
What's
> so very different about doing the same thing with IR?
>
> Sampo Syreeni <decoy at iki.fi>, aka decoy, student/math/Helsinki university

You probably don't understand how this IR  technology works. And you almost
certainly don't understand how American police are SUPPOSED to treat such
evidence.  This system merely allows one to measure the temperature of the
outside surface a building without touching it.  (modulo emissivity issues).
Alone, that tells you practically nothing about the contents of the
building.

Now, American police are supposed to work on the standard of "probable
cause."  While, thank heaven, I'm not a lawyer, I have experience with the
high level of dishonesty in various police-type organizations in America.
"Probable cause" OUGHT to mean that the police have determined that, more
likely than not, a crime is being committed as evidenced by a particular
piece of evidence.  But evidence of a warm house is just and only that:
Evidence of a warm house. That warmth may be due to no more than a lack of
insulation, a mis-set thermostat, an invalid who requires higher temperature
to feel comfortable, etc.

No, the problem is that the cops take what would constitute reasonable
evidence of a warm house,  and parlay it into supposed "probable cause" that
a crime is being committed.  Totally bogus concept.  Extreme stretch.  What
the police are REALLY doing is "wowing"  some marginally-intelligent judge
with high-tech, diverting attention from the fact that the evidence doesn't
actually support what it would need to support to obtain the warrant.