Law Commons^™

Peeping Techno-Toms And The Fourth Amendment: Seeing Through Kyllo's Rules Governing Technological Surveillance, Christopher Slobogin

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

This article suggests that the Supreme Court's decision in Kyllo v. United States may not be as protective of the home as it first appears. Kyllo held that use of a thermal imager to detect heat sources inside the home is a fourth amendment search, requiring a warrant and probable cause. But it also held that use of technology that is in "general public use" or that only discovers what a naked eye observer could see from a public vantage point is not a search, even when the location viewed is the interior of the home. This article shows that …