Kyllo V. United States - Opinion of The Supreme Court

Opinion of The Supreme Court

The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the thermal imaging of Kyllo's home constituted a search. Since the police did not have a warrant when they used the device, which was not commonly available to the public, the search was presumptively unreasonable and therefore unconstitutional. The majority opinion argued that a person has an expected privacy in his or her home and therefore, the government cannot conduct unreasonable searches, even with technology that does not enter the home. Justice Scalia also discussed how future technology can invade on one's right of privacy and therefore authored the opinion so that it protected against more sophisticated surveillance equipment. As a result, Justice Scalia asserted that the difference between "off the wall" surveillance and "through the wall" surveillance was non-existent because both methods physically intruded upon the privacy of the home. Scalia created a "firm but also bright" line drawn by the Fourth Amendment at the "'entrance to the house'". This line is meant to protect the home from all types of warrantless surveillance and is an interpretation of what he called "the long view" of the Fourth Amendment. The dissent thought this line was "unnecessary, unwise, and inconsistent with the Fourth Amendment" because according to Scalia's previous logic, this firm but bright line would be defunct as soon as the surveillance technology used went into general public use, which was still undefined.

In the dissent Justice John Paul Stevens argued that the use of thermal imaging does not constitute a search, which requires a warrant, because any person could detect the heat emissions. He argued that this could be done by simply feeling that some areas in or around the house are warmer than others or observing that snow was melting more quickly on certain sections of the house. Since the public could gather this information, Stevens argued, there is no need for a warrant and the use of this technique is not unconstitutional. Moreover, Stevens asserted that the use of the thermal imaging device was merely "off the wall" surveillance because it did not detect any "intimate" details of Kyllo's home. Finally, Stevens commented on the absurdity of Kyllo's trying to incorporate something as intangible, fluid and public as heat into the private sphere. He explained, "Heat waves, like aromas that are generated in a kitchen, or in a laboratory or opium den, enter the public domain if and when they leave a building."

The decision did not break along the traditional "conservative" and "liberal" wings of the court: the majority opinion was written by Scalia, joined by Souter, Thomas, Ginsburg and Breyer, while Rehnquist, O'Connor, Kennedy and Stevens dissented.