It was too many appliances, not pot, that police found at Carlsbad home

[UpInArms]

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/breaking_news/8298678.htm

CARLSBAD, Calif. - When police noticed Dina Dagy's family was spending $250 to $300 a month on electricity, they suspected a marijuana farm was flourishing under high-intensity lights inside their suburban home.

What they found when they showed up with a drug-sniffing dog and a search warrant was a wife and mother who does several loads of laundry a day, keeps a dishwashing machine going, has three electricity-guzzling computers and three kids who can't remember to turn the lights out when they leave a room.

"It's hard to believe a high utility bill would be enough to issue a state warrant," said Dagy, who is demanding the Police Department issue a written apology.

Authorities say they have already apologized verbally several times and were only following proper procedures. Tracking down marijuana growers by reviewing electricity bills, they say, is a common practice.

...more...

Guess the mattress tag police will be making the rounds soon! Knocking on a door near you - the snoops must be having a heyday!

[KissMyAsscroft]

1. Well, youy know...coservatives want less government interference...

:eyes:

[TiredTexan]

2. A high electricity bill is absolutely not

enough, by itself, to establish sufficient "probable cause" to issue a search warrant. Although it is a common practice to use electricity bills as one factor in determining what households to look at, police usually find other indicia of criminal activity to add to the warrant request.

They've got an incredibly stupid judge or there was something else on the warrant application.

This is really getting weird and scary.

How furious would you be if they came and searched your house on the basis of an electricity bill?

[dArKeR]

5. How would the police know the bill was high before the warrant request?

Do the utility companies issue monthly reports to State and Federal police authorties?

And is this what our country needs to be doing wih our tax dollars? Tracking down people growing pot.

[benfranklin1776]

26. Precisely right.

There was absolutely zero probable cause of criminal activity here to justify this invasive, humiliating personal degradation. High electricity usage, by itself, does not establish more probably than not that criminal activity is afoot. Indeed it establishes more probably than not exactly what was the case here, namely that there are a number of energy thirsty appliances in use.

The homeowner should forget the apology which is meaningless and will do nothing to protect her from future such outrageous invasions of privacy. She needs to instead contact an attorney to file a civil rights lawsuit and she also needs to get the ACLU involved to put a stop to the practice of issuing these rubber stamp warrants based on what are clearly the most flimsiest of pretenses. Apparently, according to the officer quoted in the article, obtaining these warrants based on electricity usage is "common practice." It is a practice that needs to end post haste or else the fourth amendment has been tossed into the trash heap of history.

[hang a left]

3. That story sounds like bs to me.

Yeah right appliances and an electricity bill. What I found curious was the 3 computers. I wonder how old the kids are, or what websites are accessed. Bet ya it is cybersnooping before it is wattsnooping. They just will never reveal that we are being watched.

But don't mind me, I don foil for every occasion.

[htuttle]

14. Unfortunately, this has been going on since the 1980's

Ever since all that C.A.M.P. anti-grower effort got going.

Watch out if you happen to have a sauna in the basement too, especially if you live in the Pacific Northwest. The C.A.M.P. task forces have been known to consider an abnormally warm room in the basement (observed via infrared) probable cause as well.

[DoNotRefill]

22. Umm...

I recall not too long ago that SCOTUS issued a ruling that the police couldn't use an IR "print" of the house as grounds for a warrant on 4th Amendment grounds.

If they're still doing it up there, they need judicial smackies.

[benfranklin1776]

27. Correct.

The practice of using infrared thermal imaging devices to scan homes was deemed a search and, if conducted without a warrant issued upon probable cause, it is an unreasonable and unlawful search. The case is a 2001 case, Kyllo v. United States. http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=000&invol=99-8508

[Occulus]

33. This has happened before

In fact, I think it's police/energy company policy around here. I do believe Consumer's Enery reports "suspicious" electricity usage.... whatever that is.

[dArKeR]

4. Result of the new Repuke, Ah-no, leadership in CA and more things to

come?

[boobooday]

6. Turn off that microwave

When the helicopters fly over!

http://www.wgoeshome.com

[Rex]

7. Havent you heard? They don't need to knock anymore in Louisiana.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x449169

As long as it is a 'brief search'; police can just knock the door off the hinges, trash the house, and then leave without ever saying why.

This new law coming to a state near you.

[DoNotRefill]

23. Around here, at least....

that's a good way for cops to get shot by homeowners who think it's criminals breaking in.

It's called a "home invasion"...and is why I keep fully loaded high-power high-capacity evil "assault weapons" around the house. A level IIA bulletproof vest will not even slow the .30 cal bullets I use down, they'll go "through-and-through" with enough "oomph" to kill somebody behind them. If somebody breaks in without announcing, SOP is to shoot first, ask questions later. Of course, I live in a bad neighborhood...and no, I don't do anything illegal.

If, on the other hand, they knock with a warrant, I'd gladly let them search the house.

Molon Labe!!!

[SOS]

8. 4th Amendment now gone?

nt

[lolly]

9. Another casualty of War on Drugs

The Patriot Act started out as a "War on Drugs" measure; when it was rejected--in congressional committees, I believe--for trashing the constitution, its backers simply held on to it until after 9/11.

That's why it was ready so quickly after 9/11. It was just renamed and re-introduced as part of the war on terror.

What's frightening is that, if any of those teenagers in the Dagy family had had a few joints, the whole family could have been arrested; might even have had their house confiscated, no?

This electricity bill thing seems to be a way to get around the restrictions on unreasonable searches and seizures. Pretty much anything, it seems, can be considered "suspicious" and grounds for a search warrant.

[hang a left]

10. Hey lolly, do you have a link to the morphing of the Patriot Act.

I have never read about that and I would like to. Thanks in advance.

[lolly]

12. Gee, wish I did

I just remember when it first came out and there was very muted debate about it--I read this somewhere, and it all made sense. Why else would they be able to cobble together serveral hundred pages (700- something?) in such a short time? Maybe it was one of the handful of senators/reps who voted against it?

Wonder if ACLU website would have that info? It would probably be in some archive, since it would have been from 2001.

Sorry for not being more help--if I find more I'll be back . . .

[lolly]

13. Quick Google Search

Didn't turn up the exact charge I made earlier, but several articles (Salon, for example) on how the Patriot Act was built on the infringements to civil liberties that were initiated with the War On Drugs. ACLU website (www.aclu.org) does have documents and papers arguing that the two (drugs, terror) are lumped together in most efforts to roll back civil liberties.

This article was part of a series from last year that seems to have covered some of the intermingling of the two in some depth.

http://www.detnews.com/2003/editorial/0309/15/a10-270439.htm

[Columbia]

11. Saw the same thing happen on COPS awhile back

The probable cause given for the warrant was just the high electrical bill. Nothing else. Sad time for constitutional rights right now...

[shanti]

15. they will dig through your garbage too

if they feel that it's warranted. it was done to someone who lived in the norcal foothills a few years ago. shoot, they can plant ANYTHING if they want to! :grr:

[lolly]

16. Garbage a factor here, too

Apparently, the fact that they didn't bring their bags of garbage out until the day of trash pickup (or the evening before) was suspicious--supposedly, that's another sign of drug manufacturing on the premises.

Well, damn, our trash gets pickup up tomorrow and I haven't brought it out yet. Guess they have cause for a warrant now?

I guess next they'll determine that drug dealers often use the bathroom before going to bed--so after analyzing sewage usage, they'll have cause to search the houses of people who habitually use the bathroom sometime in the late evening.

[AndyTiedye]

31. Nobody Puts Out their Garbage Early Here, or the Raccoons Get Into It

and electric rates are very high in California, thanks to Bush/Enron.
I could easily see a large family running up that kind of bill.
Or anybody who has a hot tub (something our state is somewhat noted for).

Are they using the Patriot act to get access to all utility bills
and going on fishing expiditions?

Sue the Bastards.

and make that a woodburning hot tub.

[davsand]

20. I hope they let me know if they want to search my garbage.

I'll be sure to scoop both litter boxes and clean the fridge out too!

:puke:

Laura

[Endangered Specie]

17. Not pot, just too many pots (and pans)

[jmowreader]

18. Imagine what they'd do to a coral grower!

Lots of people cultivate acroporid coral for sale. It's fairly easy: buy an acroporid coral, cut it into pieces and glue each piece to a rock. Put the rocks in a stable marine aquarium and they'll grow rapidly. Acroporids sell for a goodly amount of money, so there is definitely a profit margin here.

The only problem here is that acroporid corals need a lot of light to thrive, and the kind of light they need takes a huge amount of power to run.

Cops are using power-usage analyzers on suspected dope growers' electric lines. If I was growing acroporids in my basement and you were analyzing my power, my coral farm would look exactly like a marijuana farm--and next thing you know, you've got cops throwing my corals all over the damn room looking for the weed they know is in there!

[DemoTex]

19. I guess I'll be getting a visit from the SS soon.

I've got a dedicated 220 VAC line for my ham radio station, and I have been steaming wall-paper with an electric steamer for two days now. I'll have quite a bill from my EMC next month. I'll tidy up for the gendarme's visit.

[AndyTiedye]

32. I think a big antenna on the roof might work in your favor

by providing an obvious reason for your electricity consumption.

Hams also have a tradition of making ourselves useful in real
emergencies, and most law enforcement people respect that to
some extent at least.

[Ilsa]

21. Uh-oh. My hot flashes are going to get me in trouble....

It's only March and I've been turning down the AC to 70 at 3am when my internal roaster flames up. I guess I better get ready for a raid in Texas (with no help from the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals).

[American Renaissance]

24. stealing electricity

a grow house near here was busted a few weeks ago, the growers had hacked their power recorder to lower and amount of electricity it appeared they were using.

[Dr Fate]

25. Someone is going to get shot if they keep is up...

Amazing- I cant believe they did not even PROFILE the family before violating their home...

I would try to sue if it were me...

[DoNotRefill]

28. I was talking to a bailiff on Tuesday...

and he recounted a story of a cop on a no-knock raid where they raided the wrong address. The elderly woman who lived there with her crippled husband shot and killed the first cop through the door, thinking it was a home invasion. She was tried and acquitted.

[rednek_Liberal]

29. Note to self:

Turn off Grow lights at night.

[AP]

30. Cops should execute search warrant on PG&E corporate HQ and find out how

they manage to steal from their 'customers' like that.