Kyllo v. United States

The government argued that the scan only detected heat radiating from the home and that it did not detect “intimate details.” The government also argued that the defendant had not shown an expectation of privacy because he made no attempts to conceal the heat escaping from his home. The Court held that any information of a home that cannot be obtained except through either physical entry or sophisticated technology not readily available to the public is considered “intimate details.” In this case, the surveillance was a search and a warrant was needed to engage in the scan.