Pubdate: Thu, 25 Nov 2010 Source: Sault Star, The (CN ON) Copyright: 2010 The Sault Star Contact: http://www.saultstar.com/feedback1/LetterToEditor.aspx Website: http://www.saultstar.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1071 Author: Brian Lilley Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mjcn.htm (Cannabis - Canada) MONITORING POWER USE NOT INVASION OF PRIVACY: COURT OTTAWA -- Criminals running marijuana grow-ops in their homes should have no expectation of privacy, according to a Supreme Court ruling issued Wednesday morning. The case, involving Calgary resident Daniel Gomboc, split the highest court three ways as justices argued over privacy rights. Police attached a digital recording ammeter, or DRA, to Gomboc's home in 2007. The DRA provided police with a pattern of electricity use consistent with a grow-op. Combined with other observations police made of Gomboc's home, they obtained a search warrant and found hundreds of marijuana plants. Gomboc was convicted of two drug-related offences, but he appealed them, citing the use of the DRA without first obtaining a warrant constituted an illegal search of his home. The Alberta appeal court ruled the use of the electricity-monitoring device was a search. The Supreme Court disagreed and reinstated Gomboc's convictions. Four of the Supreme Court judges, led by Justice Marie Deschamps, ruled disclosure of electricity usage through the DRA didn't violate Gomboc's privacy rights because it didn't provide police with personal information about his lifestyle. They also cited the regulation in the contract between Gomboc and his electrical provider, Enmax, which allows the utility to provide usage information to police unless a customer specifically demands the utility keep that information confidential. Three of the judges sided with an opinion written by Justice Rosalie Abella, which said privacy was a concern but the convictions should stand. "In my view, given the fact that the information emanated from his home, the most protected of privacy spheres, he may well have succeeded but for the existence of the regulation, which makes any expectation of privacy objectively unreasonable," Abella wrote. Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin and Justice Morris Fish issued a dissenting opinion that would have set aside Gomboc's convictions. Fish and McLachlin called the use of DRAs without warrants "an incremental but ominous step toward the erosion of the right to privacy." The pair also question whether it is legitimate to expect electricity customers to know their usage could be shared with police without making a specific request for confidentiality. - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom