Texas Wesleyan Law Review
Thermal Imaging Technology: Should Its Warrantless Use By Police Be Allowed in Residential Searches?
Publication Date
3-1-1997
Document Type
Note
Abstract
Part I of this Note examines the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizures, the Katz test used to determine whether an individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy in the thing searched, and how advancing technology has blurred the division regarding whether and when an individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy for Fourth Amendment purposes. Part I also reviews certain police surveillance technologies that courts have analogized to FLIR. Part II questions the adequacy of the Katz standard for determining whether FLIR imaging constitutes a search, proposes that comparing FLIR to other search devices and methods is inaccurate because FLIR is unique and unlike other modes and devices of police surveillance, and discusses the consequences of law enforcement's unrestricted use of FLIR technology. Finally, this Note contends that courts should not allow law enforcement agencies to use FLIR to search residences because it violates the Fourth Amendment.
DOI
10.37419/TWLR.V3.I2.4
First Page
393
Last Page
420
Recommended Citation
Mark J. Kwasowski,
Thermal Imaging Technology: Should Its Warrantless Use By Police Be Allowed in Residential Searches?,
3
Tex. Wesleyan L. Rev.
393
(1997).
Available at:
https://doi.org/10.37419/TWLR.V3.I2.4