First a little background before the question.
About a month ago I received a long awaited arrest warrant for one of our local jokers. I decided that before we busted into his house to arrest him I would try out one of our new gadgets, a thermo-imaging camera. For those of you who dont know what a TIC is, it allows the user to look through the gadget like binoculars and it shows sources of heat. Thus allowing you to look into a house and see how many and where the occupants are located. This was the reason I was using it, first to see if there were other people in the house with him and where they were all located to make the effecting of the arrest warrant a safer process. Well he eventually sued the Police Department saying that we violated his constitutional right to privacy, because I did not have a search warrant. The issue is now going to court and we will see soon if the judges believe that a search warrant is required for the use of a TIC. I was just wondering if you would feel as if your right to privacy was infringed upon in this situation?
About a month ago I received a long awaited arrest warrant for one of our local jokers. I decided that before we busted into his house to arrest him I would try out one of our new gadgets, a thermo-imaging camera. For those of you who dont know what a TIC is, it allows the user to look through the gadget like binoculars and it shows sources of heat. Thus allowing you to look into a house and see how many and where the occupants are located. This was the reason I was using it, first to see if there were other people in the house with him and where they were all located to make the effecting of the arrest warrant a safer process. Well he eventually sued the Police Department saying that we violated his constitutional right to privacy, because I did not have a search warrant. The issue is now going to court and we will see soon if the judges believe that a search warrant is required for the use of a TIC. I was just wondering if you would feel as if your right to privacy was infringed upon in this situation?