Question: What were the central arguments in the Kyllo case and why does this case challenge our notions of simple conservative and liberal positions on the law?
Opinion Chart
Opinion
Scalia
Stevens
How were the federal agents using technology in this case and were they careful?
Stevens
How were the federal agents using technology in this case and were they careful?
The law enforcement officers used more than naked eye surveillance of the home by using sense-enhancing technology to gain information regarding the interior of the home which is basically intrusion into a constitutionally protected area
The fairly primitive thermal imager that was used by the officers to gather data that was exposed on the exterior of the house’s wall was not a violation of the petitioner’s fourth amendment
What constitutes plain or public view?
Plain view constitutes the part of the house of the petitioner’s home that is in the open and is not trespassing as the officers were passing by
Plain view constitutionally involves making conclusions from information that is available in the open.
What does this say about the use of technology and the 4th amendment? Is there a “bright-line”?
Any information collected from the outside regarding the interior of a constitutionally protected space that would not have been obtained without physically entering the place is considered as intrusion. This creates a bright line which restricts technology from being used in the “search” without issue of a warrant.
The judicial should take into consideration the counsel of indirect inferences made from “off-the-wall” surveillance in consistence with the fourth amendment. Now that the court has created the bright line, the court is neither being prudent nor consistent with the law.
Your opinion
In my opinion, the law should protect the people’s right to privacy. This should prohibit the law enforcement officers from using whatever means to gain access either virtually or physically into someone’s private space.
Where do you stand on the question of original vs. evolving meaning? More specifically, do you think that a justice in 2016 can and should put him or herself in the place of a person who lived in 1787-88 and only interpret the meaning of the Constitution in that limited way? Or do you think that justices have to read between the lines of the Constitution and adjust for new social developments, like birth control, even if there is some risk of a justice going too far and changing constitutional law radically? Explain your answer.Type in a 50-word answer to this question.
In my opinion, just as everything in nature evolves the constitution should also evolve while not affecting the original meaning of the law. In this light, we should yearn to embrace a new understanding of the law since the circumstances that caused the original law to be created have rather evolved as well.
