{"id":7115,"date":"2024-03-08T22:04:43","date_gmt":"2024-03-08T22:04:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2024\/03\/08\/officers-need-warrants-to-use-aircraft-zoom-lenses-to-surveil-areas-around-homes-alaska-court-says\/"},"modified":"2024-03-08T22:04:43","modified_gmt":"2024-03-08T22:04:43","slug":"officers-need-warrants-to-use-aircraft-zoom-lenses-to-surveil-areas-around-homes-alaska-court-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2024\/03\/08\/officers-need-warrants-to-use-aircraft-zoom-lenses-to-surveil-areas-around-homes-alaska-court-says\/","title":{"rendered":"Officers need warrants to use aircraft, zoom lenses to surveil areas around homes, Alaska court says"},"content":{"rendered":"

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) \u2014 Alaska<\/a> law enforcement officers must obtain a warrant before using aircraft to scope out the area around a person’s home with binoculars or cameras with zoom lenses, the state’s highest court ruled in a decision released Friday.<\/p>\n

The Alaska<\/a> Supreme Court ruling comes in a case that dates to 2012, when Alaska State Troopers received a tip from an informant that John William McKelvey III was growing marijuana on his property in a sparsely populated area north of Fairbanks.<\/p>\n

IDITAROD MUSHER PENALIZED FOR IMPROPERLY GUTTING MOOSE AFTER KILLING ANIMAL WHEN IT ATTACKED DOGS<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

According to the ruling, McKelvey’s property was heavily wooded, with a driveway leading to a clearing where a house and greenhouse were located. Trees blocked the ground-level view of the buildings from outside the clearing, and a gate blocked cars from entering.<\/p>\n

In the court’s recounting of the case, two troopers, following up on the tip, flew past the property and used a camera with a high-power zoom lens to take photos that showed buckets containing “unidentifiable plants” inside the greenhouse. Based on the tip and flight observations, a search warrant for McKelvey’s property was obtained. During the search, officers found items including marijuana plants, methamphetamine, scales, a rifle and cash.<\/p>\n

McKelvey sought to have the evidence suppressed, but a Superior Court judge denied that.<\/p>\n

He was convicted of one court of third-degree misconduct involving a controlled substance and a weapons misconduct count. He appealed, arguing the judge wrongly denied his motion to suppress.<\/p>\n

An appeals court reversed the Superior Court judge, and the Supreme Court affirmed the appeals court decision in its ruling released Friday.<\/p>\n

The state maintained “that because small airplane travel is so common in Alaska<\/a>, and because any passenger might peer into your yard and snap a picture of you, law enforcement officials may do the same. We disagree,” the Alaska Supreme Court decision states.<\/p>\n

“The Alaska Constitution protects the right to be free of unreasonable searches,” the ruling states. “The fact that a random person might catch a glimpse of your yard while flying from one place to another does not make it reasonable for law enforcement officials to take to the skies and train high-powered optics on the private space right outside your home without a warrant.”<\/p>\n

Law enforcement officers must obtain a warrant before using aircraft and “vision-enhancing technology,” such as cameras with zoom lenses or binoculars, to surveil the area surrounding a person’s home that is protected from ground-level observation, the court said.<\/p>\n

Most land in Alaska is not considered “curtilage of the home, where the right to privacy is strongest. Therefore authorities are not necessarily restricted from using aircraft and vision-enhancing technology to surveil those areas,” the court said. Curtilage refers to the area in and around a home.<\/p>\n

Robert John, an attorney for McKelvey, called the ruling a “tremendous decision to protect the rights of privacy of Alaskans and hopefully set an example for the rest of the country.”<\/p>\n

The Department of Law did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) \u2014 Alaska law enforcement officers must obtain a warrant before using aircraft to scope out the area around a person’s home with binoculars or cameras with zoom lenses, the state’s highest court ruled in a decision released Friday. The Alaska Supreme Court ruling comes in a case that dates to 2012, when … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7115"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7115\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}