Opinion ID: 677467
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Thermal Imagery Search

Text: 13 Whether the FDLE's use of a thermal imager constituted an unreasonable search under the Fourth Amendment is a first-impression issue in our circuit. 3 The touchstone for this decision is whether the alleged search violated the defendant's legitimate expectations of privacy. Establishing a legitimate expectation of privacy is a twofold requirement, first that a person have exhibited an actual (subjective) expectation of privacy and, second, that the expectation be one that society is prepared to recognize as 'reasonable.'  Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 361, 88 S.Ct. 507, 516, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967) (Harlan, J., concurring). 14 In Katz, the Supreme Court held, What a person knowingly exposes to the public, even in his own home or office, is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection. But what he seeks to preserve as private, even in an area accessible to the public, may be constitutionally protected. Id. at 351, 88 S.Ct. at 511 (citations omitted). The record indicates that Ford made no attempt to conceal the heat generated by his marijuana hothouse. While Ford was careful to prevent any light from escaping the mobile home--for example, by boarding the windows from the inside--he took affirmative steps to vent the excess heat that was detected by the FDLE's thermal imager. Ford punched holes in the floor of his mobile home and forced the warmer air out using an electric blower. He also installed an air conditioner in one part of the mobile home. Ford may not have expected the FDLE to use a highly technical thermal imager to detect the heat emitted from his mobile home, Appellant's Brief at 25, but given his affirmative conduct to expel excess heat from his mobile home, we find that he did not seek to preserve the fact of that heat as private. Thus, we conclude that Ford did not exhibit a subjective expectation of privacy in the heat emitted by his mobile home. 15 Even if Ford did have a subjective expectation of privacy in the heat escaping his mobile home, he still must demonstrate that his is a subjective expectation that society is prepared to recognize as being reasonable. The Supreme Court has explained that [t]he test of legitimacy is not whether the individual chooses to conceal assertedly 'private' activity. Rather, the correct inquiry is whether the government's intrusion infringes upon the personal and societal values protected by the Fourth Amendment. Oliver v. United States, 466 U.S. 170, 182-83, 104 S.Ct. 1735, 1743, 80 L.Ed.2d 214 (1984) (footnote omitted). 16 One such value that has emerged as a significant factor in the Court's Fourth Amendment analysis is the intimacy of detail and activity that a surveillance technique reveals in a particular case. In Oliver, for example, the Court reaffirmed the open fields doctrine, first established in Hester v. United States, 265 U.S. 57, 44 S.Ct. 445, 68 L.Ed. 898 (1924), and held that individuals had no reasonable expectation of privacy in open fields. Oliver, 466 U.S. at 181, 104 S.Ct. at 1742. The Court distinguished such areas from enclaves [that] should be free from arbitrary government interference, id. at 178, 104 S.Ct. at 1741, reasoning that open fields do not provide the setting for those intimate activities that the Amendment is intended to shelter from government interference or surveillance, id. at 179, 104 S.Ct. at 1741. 17 The Court has permitted enforcement officials from a federal agency to photograph a manufacturing facility using a floor-mounted, precision aerial mapping camera from altitudes of 12,000, 3,000, and 1,200 feet without a warrant. See Dow Chemical Co. v. United States, 476 U.S. 227, 239, 106 S.Ct. 1819, 1827, 90 L.Ed.2d 226 (1986). In holding that the use of such a camera in an area falling somewhere between 'open fields' and curtilage did not intrude upon Dow's reasonable expectations of privacy, id. at 236, 106 S.Ct. at 1826, the Court relied solely on the device's degree of resolution: 18 It may well be ... that surveillance of private property by using highly sophisticated surveillance equipment not generally available to the public, such as satellite technology, might be constitutionally proscribed absent a warrant. But the photographs here are not so revealing of intimate details as to raise constitutional concerns. Although they undoubtedly give EPA more detailed information than naked-eye views, they remain limited to an outline of the facility's buildings and equipment. 19 Id. at 238, 106 S.Ct. at 1827. The Court suggested that more detailed surveillance techniques might have led to a different result, noting that [a]n electronic device to penetrate walls or windows so as to hear and record confidential discussions of chemical formulae or other trade secrets would raise very different and far more serious questions.... Id. at 239, 106 S.Ct. at 1827. 20 Similarly, in Florida v. Riley, 488 U.S. 445, 109 S.Ct. 693, 102 L.Ed.2d 835 (1989), the Court suggested that the intimacy of detail was relevant for Fourth Amendment purposes. In Riley, the Court held that no search occurred when a police officer in a helicopter circled twice over an enclosed greenhouse at a height of 400 feet and observed through openings in the roof what he thought was marijuana. Id. at 450, 109 S.Ct. at 696. Acknowledging that not every inspection of the curtilage of a house from an aircraft will ... pass muster under the Fourth Amendment simply because the plane is within the navigable airspace specified by law, the Court concluded, 21 As far as this record reveals, no intimate details connected with the use of the home or curtilage were observed, and there was no undue noise, and no wind, dust, or threat of injury. In these circumstances, there was no violation of the Fourth Amendment. 22 Id. at 452, 109 S.Ct. at 697. 23 Like the aerial photography in Dow, the thermal imagery at issue here appears to be of such low resolution as to render it incapable of revealing the intimacy of detail and activity protected by the Fourth Amendment. A thermal imager operates by detecting differences in the surface temperature of objects; it cannot penetrate walls or windows to reveal conversations or, as used here, human activities. Although the device used by the FDLE can detect differences as small as half of a degree, as used against Ford it could only describe conditions within the mobile home in gross detail. The FDLE operator was able to detect high heat transmission from underneath the mobile home and in one corner wall of the structure, extending up four or five feet from the floor. Such information is neither sensitive nor personal, nor does it reveal the specific activities within the mobile home. See United States v. Pinson, 24 F.3d 1056, 1059 (8th Cir.1994) (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.). 24 Additionally, the Court's precedents regarding waste disposal suggest that Ford's expectation of privacy in his vented heat is not one that society is prepared to accept as objectively reasonable. In California v. Greenwood, 486 U.S. 35, 108 S.Ct. 1625, 100 L.Ed.2d 30 (1988), the Supreme Court held that a homeowner did not have an objective expectation of privacy in garbage left for collection outside the curtilage of his home. Id. at 37, 108 S.Ct. at 1627. The Court stated that it was common knowledge that garbage left at the curbside is readily accessible to the public, most obviously the trash collectors for whom the garbage was deposited. Id. at 40, 108 S.Ct. at 1628. The heat that Ford intentionally vented from his mobile home was a waste byproduct of his marijuana cultivation and is analogous to the inculpatory items that the respondents in Greenwood discarded in their trash, see id., smoke plumes rising from a chimney, see Air Pollution Variance Board of Colorado v. Western Alfalfa Corp., 416 U.S. 861, 865, 94 S.Ct. 2114, 2115, 40 L.Ed.2d 607 (1974) (holding that a state health inspector may observe smoke plumes emitted from chimneys without a warrant because [h]e had sighted what anyone in the city who was near the plant could see in the sky--plumes of smoke), and scents emanating from luggage, see United States v. Place, 462 U.S. 696, 707, 103 S.Ct. 2637, 2644-45, 77 L.Ed.2d 110 (1983) (holding that exposure of luggage in a public place to a trained canine does not constitute a search under the Fourth Amendment). All of these cases involved waste products intentionally or inevitably exposed to the public, and the Court found that the owners did not have an objectively reasonable expectation of privacy. 25 Moreover, Ford exposed his waste heat to the public even if the emissions were not visible to every passerby. The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that the fact that a surveillance device allowed for super- or extra-sensory perception is not fatal to a Katz analysis. See Dow, 476 U.S. at 239, 106 S.Ct. at 1827 (precision aerial mapping camera); Place, 462 U.S. at 707, 103 S.Ct. at 2645 (canine sniff); United States v. Knotts, 460 U.S. 276, 285, 103 S.Ct. 1081, 1087, 75 L.Ed.2d 55 (1983) (radio transmitting locator). As one court observed: 26 In Greenwood, the exposure was visual and the Court found that it was in no way diminished by the fact that the garbage was stored in opaque trash bags. Here, the exposure is heat-sensory and is in no way diminished by the fact that the source of the heat could only be detected by the use of the [thermal imager]. 27 United States v. Penny-Feeney, 773 F.Supp. 220, 226 (D.Hawaii 1991), aff'd sub nom. United States v. Feeney, 984 F.2d 1053 (9th Cir.1993). Given the low resolution of thermal imagery and the similarities between Ford's waste heat and other emissions not protected by the Fourth Amendment, we conclude that Ford did not have an objectively reasonable expectation of privacy in the heat emanating from his mobile home.