Centerfield

Because there's no reasonable expectation of privacy in those publicly accessible areas (like the road in front of the house, &c.), there's certainly no 4th Amendment implication. The difference between Kyllo and nuclear radiation is that the nuclear material is radiating out of the house (that's the whole point); the presence of that matter in the roadway is different from the targeting of specific equipment towards a specific residence to ascertain what activity is going on inside. Once a radiation detector detected a suspicious level of radiation in a particular geographic region (e.g., a street block), that information may support probable cause itself to use the targeting equipment to determine which house is generating that radiation.

But technically, heat is electromagnetic energy that radiates from the home, and nucleear radiation is probably alpha particles radiating from the home. I think you can make a case that the two are very similar.

FWIW: Low-level thermal radiation (heat) is not a public health hazard. Particle and ionizing radiation most assuredly is.

Again, the discussions will turn to the legality of this highly classified program, away from the real illegality of the actions by "two individuals who declined to be named because the program is highly classified who spoke to U.S. News and World Report".

Rick is absolutely right. One should have no problem with the administration trying to conduct a surveillance for a dirty bomb in a public place. If the action is not legal, the Congress should make it legal -- even if someone's private property is involved. It is a no brainer.

Let some Senator or Congressperson get up and denounce this program - and see if he or she survives the 2006 election.

But, how about the leakers? Should they not be prosecuted? Shouldn't the discussions and debates focus on this barrage of illegal leaks from these agencies? Is there an anti-administration agenda in these agencies? Should the reporters for U.S. News go to jail if they want to protect the leakers?

Let some Senator or Congressperson get up and denounce this program - and see if he or she survives the 2006 election.

Rove and crew are gleefully oiling up the chainsaws as the wingers confidently stride farther out onto that limb. C'est la politique.

In the meantime, the actual Dem party leaders are being quite circumspect even while ranting, and letting the wingers do the dirty work. Nice to know that not ALL sense has left the party.

These leaks should concern everybody. The leakers need to be prosecuted and jailed. I don't care about the legality of the programs themselves. The lawyers can argue that. But we cannot win if we cannot keep mission-critical information secret.

And I thought US News was a conservative publication.

No publication is "conservative" when ad revenues are at stake. The one bias guaranteed to always be at work is the commercial bias. It bleeds, it leads. As Geraldo put it, "...reporters don't report buildings that don't burn."

I'm sorry to read you're so disrepectful of the constition.

But it now appears impechment is becoming much more of a possibility. not because the people are upset. they don't really matter. but because the business heavy hitters are now signaling it's ok for congress to consider impeachment.

Barrons magazine (dow jones inc. - parent of the wall street journal) published this in it's latest edition

"Willful disregard of a law is potentially an impeachable offense. It is at least as impeachable as having a sexual escapade under the Oval Office desk and lying about it later. The members of the House Judiciary Committee who staged the impeachment of President Clinton ought to be as outraged at this situation. They ought to investigate it, consider it carefully and report either a bill that would change the wiretap laws to suit the president or a bill of impeachment.

It is important to be clear that an impeachment case, if it comes to that, would not be about wiretapping, or about a possible Constitutional right not to be wiretapped. It would be about the power of Congress to set wiretapping rules by law, and it is about the obligation of the president to follow the rules in the Acts that he and his predecessors signed into law. ..."

While i doubt bush will be removed from office (cheney is a more realistic possibility) he is about to be stripped of legitimacy by big business.

Here is a link to the Barron's editorial.

In this post, I'm discussing nuclear monitoring. As the saying goes, the Constitution is not a suicide pact. Geiger counts in the driveway is not excessively intrusive.

No one has provided a scenario in which this would harm innocent people. In the case of wiretapping, the exposure of private conversations about lawful activity could be abused, if the conversations involved personal or trade secrets. There is no legitimate secret use of nuclear material in the home.

I always thought Jackson was building off of Lincoln's Lyceum speech, but Jackson was first on record.

Back when I was in law school, there was Constitutional controversy about whether the government could, without a warrant, use heat-sensing equipment to determine if your home was throwing off too much heat, which might indicat that marijuana was being grown inside. Some scholars argued that this sort of a "non-physical intrusion" violated the 4th Amendment? (In fact, this scenario was Question #3 on my Police Procedure exam.)

The War on Drugs eviscerated a lot of the 4th Amendment. The War On Terror takes it a few steps farther.

(Anti-Flame Disclaimer -- I'm NOT arguing against the government's actions in Tully's post. Just making a comment about the large context.)

Radiation monitoring of all public and near private area's (neighborhoods)should be a normal part of the EPA's job, not the FBI.

Bernie, if you can explain how significant levels of hard radiation would be likely to occur naturally in such places with no federal crimes involved, then I might think it was the EPA's job.

Oberon, I think that's the Kyllo case that JD referred to in the first comment, and I think the court decided that it was indeed an intrusion--as were the "high electric bill as probable cause" cases. But I could be wrong, and I certainly haven't researched it for details. I would guess that they ruled it as an invasion, as I can think of many legitimate reasons for homes to stand out thermally or have high electric bills, even to have grow-light spectrum leakage without any illegal activity involved.

I think there would also be some cross-arguments with the drug dog/random traffic stop cases. Once again I haven't done the needed research, but IIRC the crucial point in those was that the dogs would alert only on banned substances. But a car on a public roadway is not a home.

Just for the record: Alpha radiation can't radiate out of a house. It can't even penetrate skin or paper. Only gamma an neutron can't be measured at any significant distance. Beta radiation is detectable at intermediate distances.

Ionizing radiation is present everywhere all the time. Everyone posting on this board is radioactive. What makes certain ionizing radiation sources dangerous are their intensity. Also certain manufacturing and biological processes tend to concentrate naturally occurring radioactive material. One of the biggest problems Homeland Security has is distinguishing kitty liter, lantern mantles and concrete from a nuclear bomb. Bananas and Brazil nuts are two examples of biological concentration of radioactive material.

Any level of radiation that requires you to walk on to someones property to verify its existence is not strong enough to qualify as a health hazard. And radiation emanating from someones property simply may mean they used a hot batch of concrete during the building construction. Spectral analysis is the only way to distinguish a threat from a fluke.

PS: As you might imagine its all much more complicated than a three paragraph summary can provide.

Oops!
That was supposed to say “Only gamma an neutron CAN be measured at any significant distance. “

Any level of radiation that requires you to walk on to someones property to verify its existence is not strong enough to qualify as a health hazard.

At least not to those not on the property--unless it's been accumulated for the purpose of dispersing it and making it a health hazard. Yep, why I specified "hard" radiation. Radiation of assorted types is everywhere, life wouldn't be possible without it. :-)

If you're looking for nuclear material, you're looking for specific "signatures" standing out against background radiation. Detecting a shielded source without entering the property could be very tricky, depending on the size of the property. Discriminating a low-level source from those potential "natural" sources could require a better look.

Where I suspect (and one of the attorneys would have to address that) the line would be between grow-lights standing out against background and radiation standing out against background is that grow-lights aren't a health hazard, but hard radiation is, and there are legitimate reasons to have grow-lights, but no legititimate reasons for having high concentrations of nuclear material.

I'm going to assume that by 'Hard radiation” you mean gamma or neutron.
An by “signature” you mean type and spectrum .

A gamma source is the most likely to be used as a dirty bomb. While a neutron source would be a nuclear bomb. If you ever detect a neutron source call the police. (On the other hand, who owns a neutron detector?)

Any material used by a terrorist is going to have a very distinctive spectrum since it will probably be concentrated man made nuclear material (Co-60 or Cs-137). If there is enough to be a threat its will be easy to detect and discern from natural material, if you know what you are doing and have the right equipment and database.

I just don't see the distinction between suspecting someone has guns and explosive or that they have radioactive material. Except that people seem to have an almost superstitious fear of radiation.

Just as a cute little side story: I know a guy who was driving between two sites and forgot to turn off his equipment. While driving along the road the detectors went wild. Turned out a church had made their giant concrete cross out of naturally radioactive material. It was easily detectable from the road, but not hot enough to be a health hazard, so they just got back in the car and drove off.

You assume correctly!

I can make a gamma detector out of a coffee can, some drywall, a bit of tinfoil and some other odds and ends. But I'd hate to vouch for accuracy, and it wouldn't be directional. :-)