The Alaska Supreme Court issued an opinion last week declaring the police practice of taking overhead pictures using telephoto lenses without a warrant to be an unreasonable search in violation of the Fourth Amendment’s and the Alaska Constitution’s protections of privacy.
The Alaska high court relied on similar rulings from cases out of California, Hawaii and Vermont, in concluding a person’s home and surrounding land that are plainly visible from the sky “may nonetheless be subject to a reasonable expectation of privacy, making the ‘open view’ doctrine that applies at ground level inapplicable,’ according to the court’s majority opinion written by Justice Dario Borghesan, with Justices Daniel Winfree and Jennifer S. Henderson joining.
