Court Opinion

ID: 9492484
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 14:42:18.555069+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:55:19.724881
License: Public Domain

NOONAN, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
The Thermovision 210, made and marketed by Agema Infrared Systems, (herein the Agema 210) is described by its maker in the following terms: “For law enforcement agencies and security organizations it provides a state-of-the-art means of extending operational capabilities and securing hard evidence not possible before. And it does it unobtrusively, noiselessly and immediately, requiring a minimum of operator training and effort.” As to “Interior Surveillance,” the company’s sales brochure that is part of the record on appeal states: “With a field view of 8 degrees by 16 degrees, the 210, properly positioned, can monitor activity in critical *1048rooms or large facilities, once again providing a permanent time-tagged record when connected to a VCR.”
The Agema 210 does not determine temperature but depends for its results on a comparison between the emissions from similar structures. It is not evident how these comparisons are reliable when the operator of the Agema 210 has no information about the interior insulation of either the structure he is examining or the structure he is using for comparison. The reliability of the readings of the machine is itself affected by the operator’s decision to adjust it. The defendant’s expert witness, who had had extensive experience working for the FBI, analyzed its vulnerability in these terms: “These infrared cameras can easily be manipulated to make a structure appear to be hot, when in reality it is not. This is achieved by increasing the gain and sensitivity buttons on the camera. The procedure is similar to using a 35 mm camera and manually opening the aperture on the lens.” It is this manipulable, not very accurate or reliable but easily usable, surveillance machine which is at issue here.
The Fourth Amendment forbids an unreasonable search by the government. A search has been authoritatively defined as occurring “ ‘when an expectation of privacy that society is prepared to consider reasonable is infringed.’ ” United States v. Karo, 468 U.S. 705, 712, 104 S.Ct. 3296, 82 L.Ed.2d 530 (1984) (quoting United States v. Jacobsen, 466 U.S. 109, 113, 104 S.Ct. 1652, 80 L.Ed.2d 85 (1984)). The term “search” is thus not itself a helpful term on which to focus. A court’s attention is directed to the “expectation of privacy” and society’s view of the reasonableness of the expectation.
I start with the proposition that “[t]he sanctity of the home is not to be disputed.” Segura v. United States, 468 U.S. 796, 810, 104 S.Ct. 3380, 82 L.Ed.2d 599 (1984). A search “inside a home without a warrant” is “presumptively unreasonable absent exigent circumstances.” Karo, 468 U.S. at 715, 104 S.Ct. 3296. At the same time the Fourth Amendment “protects people, not places.” Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 351, 88 S.Ct. 507, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967). As a consequence of this axiom, a forbidden search can occur even when no trespass is involved. It is, therefore, not helpful to the government that the Agema reaches into the interior only by inference. An invasion of property is not necessary to trigger the protection of the Amendment. See Katz, 389 U.S. at 353, 88 S.Ct. 507.
I have no doubt that Kyllo did have an expectation of privacy as to what was going on in the interior of his house and that this expectation was infringed by the government’s use of the Agema 210 although the machine itself never penetrated into the interior. The closest analogy is use of a telescope that, unknown to the homeowner, is able from a distance to see into his or her house and report what he or she is reading or writing. Such an enhancement of normal vision by technology, permitting the government to discern what is going on in the home, violates the Fourth Amendment. See United States v. Taborda, 635 F.2d 131, 139 (2d Cir.1980) (war-rantless use of telescope to see objects not visible to the naked eye violates the Fourth Amendment). No principled difference exists between a machine capable of reading reflections of light that a telescope picks up and a machine reading the emissions of heat as does the Agema. In each case the amplification of the senses by technology defeats the homeowner’s expectation of privacy. The government is not entitled to defeat this expectation by technological means. See Karo, 468 U.S. at 715, 104 S.Ct. 3296.
The court holds that the Agema 210 merely reads emissions off the roof. The court notes, reasonably enough, that there is no evidence that Kyllo had any expectation of privacy as to these emissions. The emissions have been treated as waste energy, comparable to the waste disposed of as garbage that the government is entitled to inspect without violating the Constitution. See United States v. Robinson, 62 F.3d 1325 (11th Cir.1995), cert. denied, 517 U.S. 1220, 116 S.Ct. 1848, 134 L.Ed.2d 949 *1049(1996); United States v. Myers, 46 F.3d 668 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 516 U.S. 879, 116 S.Ct. 213, 133 L.Ed.2d 144 (1995); United States v. Pinson, 24 F.3d 1056 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 513 U.S. 1057, 115 S.Ct. 664, 130 L.Ed.2d 598 (1994).
This analogy fails because, unlike garbage which is purposely discarded, emissions of heat occur without conscious attention by the homeowner. See United States v. Ishmael, 48 F.3d 850, 854 (5th Cir.) (finding warrantless thermal imagery permissible but rejecting the ‘Vaste heat” analogy), cert. denied, 516 U.S. 818, 818, 116 S.Ct. 74, 75, 133 L.Ed.2d 34, 34 (1995). It is strange to focus on the homeowner’s non-existent expectation as to emissions. The homeowner’s expectation is directed to the privacy of the interior of his home. It is that expectation which the Fourth Amendment is intended to protect.
On behalf of the government, two other analogies need to be considered. If Kyllo started a fire in his fireplace there is no doubt the government could use the smoke rising from his chimney as a basis for securing a warrant if a fire in the house suggested the commission of a crime. If Kyllo was operating a methamphetamine laboratory in his home and the smell reached the nose of a policeman on the street, there would be probable cause to seek a warrant. See United States v. Johns, 948 F.2d 599, 603 (9th Cir.1991). The trouble with these two analogies is that they both depend on unaided human senses reading the signs from the house. In each the homeowner has no reasonable expectation that the signs will not be observed. Our case involves amplification of the senses by technology. That kind of amplification is critical as it defeats the homeowner’s expectation. It is the effect on this expectation that makes the amplification impermissible.
Given that Kyllo does have an expectation of privacy as to the interior of his home, is society prepared to view it as reasonable? Here is the point at which the protection of the Fourth Amendment is in tension with the social desirability of suppressing crime wherever it is found. The Fourth Amendment is not intended to make the home a sanctuary for the commission of crime with impunity. It is intended to allow governmental intrusion into the home only in exigent circumstances or upon judicial approval of the intrusion. A different rule might be fashioned, but the present rule is that even a search to find probable cause for obtaining a warrant — even such a search which has as its object the ultimate obtaining of a magistrate’s approval — cannot be conducted without violation of the Fourth Amendment. See Karo, 468 U.S. at 710, 104 S.Ct. 3296. Society has determined that it is reasonable for the home to be a citadel safe from warrantless inspection. See Segura, 468 U.S. at 810, 104 S.Ct. 3380.
It is argued that the several decisions by circuit courts already cited show society’s disapproval of the expectation of privacy as to emission of heat. There are, however, cases in the contrary direction. Two state cases within this circuit, State v. Siegal, 281 Mont. 250, 934 P.2d 176 (1997), and State v. Young, 123 Wash.2d 173, 867 P.2d 593 (1994), have found thermal imaging to violate state constitutions. Two courts have held it violative of the Fourth Amendment. See People v. Deutsch, 44 Cal.App.4th 1224, 52 Cal.Rptr.2d 366 (1996); United States v. Field, 855 F.Supp. 1518 (W.D.Wis.1994). In the end what society is prepared to find reasonable must, for us, be determined by the most relevant analyses and analogies. To conclude that because this court holds the expectation unreasonable it is unreasonable is to argue in a circle.
The only Court of Appeals to consider this question and determine that the use of thermal imaging is unconstitutional was the Tenth Circuit in United States v. Cusumano, 67 F.3d 1497 (10th Cir.1995). The opinion was vacated on rehearing en banc on the ground that the court did not need to reach the thermal imaging question. See United States v. Cusumano, 83 F.3d 1247 (10th Cir.1996). Consequently, the decision does not have more than a hypothetical character, but it has been *1050praised as “the most exhaustive and compelling analysis of the use of a thermal imager.” Wayne R. LaFave, Search and Seizure: A Treatise on the Fourth Amendment, § 2.2 (Supp.1998). Professor LaFave himself argues forcefully in support of the analysis and conclusion. See id. The expectation analyzed by Cusumano and LaFave is not the expectation of the homeowner as to the emissions from the roof, but the homeowner’s expectation as to the privacy of the interior of the home. That the interior is the proper focus is argued by analogy with Katz — in Katz the focus having been on the phone conversation, not on “the molecular vibrations of the glass that encompassed [the] interior,” which were the vibrations actually picked up by the bug. Cusumano, 67 F.3d at 1501. Technological enhancement that reveals conversation is impermissible. See Katz, 389 U.S. at 353, 88 S.Ct. 507.
The first reaction when one hears of the Agema 210 is to think of George Orwell’s 198k- Although the dread date has passed, no one wants to live in a world of Orwellian surveillance. On the hearing of this case on its first appeal we were prompt to express concern as to whether the Agema 210 could “detect sexual activity in the bedroom,” and to state that a technology revealing sexual activity was impermissible. United States v. Kyllo, 37 F.3d 526, 530 (9th Cir.1994). On this appeal the majority does not deviate from this position while it views the Orwellian dangers as speculative and at most potential.
The Agema 210 is a crude instrument. It reveals only two things: Heat-causing activity within a home and the rooms or area where the heat is being generated. For the majority these limited capacities let the Agema 210 pass muster: The “crucial inquiry” for the majority is whether the Agema 210 reveals “intimate details.” Because what it reveals is not sensitive or personal or a specific activity, no unconstitutional search is being performed. It is as though if your home was searched by a blind policeman you would have suffered no constitutional deprivation.
The majority’s error has been to focus on a phrase from dicta on Dow Chemical Co. v. United States, 476 U.S. 227, 106 S.Ct. 1819, 90 L.Ed.2d 226 (1986). At issue in Dow Chemical was aerial photography of a 2,000 acre manufacturing plant. The Court held: “We conclude that the open areas of an industrial plant complex with numerous plant structures spread over an area of 2,000 acres are not analogous to the ‘curtilage’ of a dwelling for purposes of aerial surveillance.” Id. at 239, 106 S.Ct. 1819. In reaching this conclusion, the Court observed: “It may well be, as the Government concedes, 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.” Id. at 238, 106 S.Ct. 1819. To rely on the phrase “intimate details” as stating the criterion is to wrench the phrase from context. Dow Chemical was not about a home, an enclosed space or anything going on in a home. If Dow Chemical is to be invoked at all, the dicta on intimate details is controlled by the dicta warning on the use of “highly sophisticated surveillance equipment not generally available to the public.” Id. Because of its error as to the crucial inquiry, the majority sees the dangers presented by the Agema 210 as merely potential, not actual. To the contrary, the intrusion into the home, while gross and global, is also real. A variety of heat-producing activities can take place within the walls of a home. As to such of these activities as are innocent, no one doubts that society views the expectation of privacy as reasonable — • for example, the use of a sauna in a sauna room; the making of ceramics in a kiln in the basement; the hothouse cultivation of orchids, poinsettias or other plants in a domestic greenhouse. Any of such activities can cause the emission of heat from the home which the Agema 210 can detect. The activity will be reported as well as *1051where it is taking place. That is the present, not potential, intrusion of privacy which the Agema 210 can effect.
The defense of the machine that it does not see very well hurts the government by underscoring the unreliability of the Age-ma 210. This defense amounts to saying that if a constable makes a blundering search, it should not really count as a search. The argument is the opposite of that which justified the examinations in United States v. Place, 462 U.S. 696, 707, 103 S.Ct. 2637, 77 L.Ed.2d 110 (1983), and Jacobsen, 466 U.S. at 123, 104 S.Ct. 1652,—they revealed only contraband and nothing else. The machine as blind or blundering constable does not pass the criteria of the Fourth Amendment.
The government does not contend that the information provided the magistrate was sufficient to sustain a search warrant without the addition of the Agema readings. As these readings violated the Constitution, they should be suppressed and the conviction reversed.'