helocopter grow heat detection?

[merlockian]

hello there , from uk and just wondering if anyone knows about these choppers flying above?
people get busted by because of the heat given off from their loft grow?
heard its only with hps or mh but wana be sure-
im thinking of using a 200watt gro lux and dont wana get busted!
cheers guys

[twist n shout]

What you are describing is known as F L I R or forward looking infra red radar and it does indeed pick up the heat signature of marijuana.Pretty cool technology when u think about it.The bigger the grow the redder the glow.

[Delta9 UK]

I've wondered this but my grow is outdoor so no heat.

Can they pick up the leaf signature via IR? If so, well I'm fucked - that would explain why they hover over my house a lot LOL

[herbollah]

i don't think the cops would use that method to catch growers here in the uk . maybe for large scale operations , but not for your 'average joe' growing a couple of plants. there are a couple of reasons for this.

1. the police would rather not have to deal with weed users , as this uses up valuable police (coffee and doughnut) time. only for the stoner to walk away with a paltry fine.

2. although it would be evidence in court , they could not bust you on that evidence alone . these lights are legal to buy , legal to own and legal to use (providing it's not for mj. but how do they know that?).

could you picture the cops faces as they bust a tomato grower?

even though they SEEM to be trying their damndest to embarrass themselves at the moment , they really aren't. if there's one thing the british cops don't like it is a red face.

[Whos Carl]

I dont think they can legally use the evidence in court. This is because you have to have a search warrant to search a property so technically if they use it they need a search warrant. So they will need a reason to get a search warrant.

[Aristotle]

I don't believe they have to get a search warrant. I just think the police sometimes, in hotbed marijuana growing areas, just use this technology to seek out large grow ops. They don't go to a judge for permission to use modern technology and hover over an area. That's like saying they need a search warrant to patrol a certain zip code.

If the police have sufficient evidence, ie lots of infra red coming out of a shed in the middle of nowhere, THEN will the judge issue a search warrant to search the property.

But no judge in the world would issue a search warrant over a few infrared lights that are stationed in a suburban home, you have absolutely nothing to worry about.

[orangeman]

Just grow in your basement and be sure not to let heat build up...a 200w HPS shouldnt get you busted for heat.

[eil]

like someones said the law aint gonna send a chopper for a small grow its like what you see on police cammara action when some one does a runner the chopper can pick up thermol images as it would wouldnt it if someone had a attic bedroom the door could go in your bustedfor been in bed so how would they no, on one hand it could be a grow room on the other its a attick bedroom ive mentioned this to my mate he said you could have the lights on in the daylight hours if it really worried you but why would the chopper be out at night i live by the see so if you do here it its searching the sea once when there was a murder what im saying is theres a good chance you would here it

[graymatter]

No, you're all wrong. I once worked for George W. Bush and if there's one thing I hate more than TERRORISTS, it's POT GROWERS. You and your pot growing ways remind me of my youth, when all I had to worry about was dodging the draft by flying outdated fighter jets in the Texas Air National Guard.

[pmorris]

get some poly shield and seal the room up

[L3G10N]

could you picture the cops faces as they bust a tomato grower?


Man, i almost spit my coffee all over my screen when i read that one. I dont know why but its really funny thought to me. :D

[orangeman]

No, you're all wrong. I once worked for George W. Bush and if there's one thing I hate more than TERRORISTS, it's POT GROWERS. You and your pot growing ways remind me of my youth, when all I had to worry about was dodging the draft by flying outdated fighter jets in the Texas Air National Guard.

Oh really? And if you hate pot growers then the hell with you, why are you here? It has to come from some where if we want it. Some one has to grow it, just like money buds just dont grow on trees.....lol.

[burnable]

No, you're all wrong. I once worked for George W. Bush and if there's one thing I hate more than TERRORISTS, it's POT GROWERS. You and your pot growing ways remind me of my youth, when all I had to worry about was dodging the draft by flying outdated fighter jets in the Texas Air National Guard.


Sounds like someone has a bigger problem with his youth than he does with pot growers themselves.

i don't know of any patriotic American who wouldn't be disturbed by the notion that pot growers are more worthy of hate than terrorists. W. Bush just lost a little more credibility here because you represented him with this sentiment

[eil]

No, you're all wrong. I once worked for George W. Bush and if there's one thing I hate more than TERRORISTS, it's POT GROWERS. You and your pot growing ways remind me of my youth, when all I had to worry about was dodging the draft by flying outdated fighter jets in the Texas Air National Guard.

o dear you are in a strop with yourself chill man

[Zohar]

o dear you are in a strop with yourself chill man

I really hope you guys know he's not serious...

[eil]

I really hope you guys know he's not serious...

tell me how are we meant to know he's not serious there was no hint of it been a joke! and it wasn't funny reading, so do tell how do we know he was braking are balls, sorry if the attempt at hunmour din't come off,

[afghooey]

I guess few know this, but yeah: George W. Bush dodged his ticket to 'nam by pulling a few strings to get into the Texas Air Guard (somehow slipped past the year and a half waiting list).

So unless graymatter = GWB, I think he was probably joking.

[CultureCherryPopper]

No, you're all wrong. I once worked for George W. Bush and if there's one thing I hate more than TERRORISTS, it's POT GROWERS. You and your pot growing ways remind me of my youth, when all I had to worry about was dodging the draft by flying outdated fighter jets in the Texas Air National Guard.

Why did you have to turn something so simple and worth asking into something blindly and ignorantly unrelated? It's people like you that tarnish an already bad democrat name. joke or none aside. Bein' stoned is no excuse for stupidity.

[graymatter]

Oh really? And if you hate pot growers then the hell with you, why are you here? It has to come from some where if we want it. Some one has to grow it, just like money buds just dont grow on trees.....lol.

Sarcasm, dude... I love weed. Peace!

[brookerosebud]

man, whats up with you guys?

George W doesn't have any credibillity anyways, so what does a statement matter? this guy made a joke (and yes, it WAS funny if you understand where he's coming from) and thats all.

now we are all way off topic because every one wants to complain. Smoke a doobie, chill out, laugh, have fun, why do we have to attack each other? don't we all have a common goal?

MAKE IT LEGAL

love, brooke

[jamstigator]

In the U.S., the act of thermally imaging your home IN AND OF ITSELF constitutes a search and is thus illegal without a warrant. That's been ruled on by the Supreme Court, so that is the law of the land. In other words, they can't use thermal imaging to obtain a warrant; they must have a warrant first, for some other reason (leaves in your trash, see a bong through your window, something). And obviously, once they have a warrant, then it's cheaper and more effective (and probably more fun for the cops) to send a couple squad cars over and tear your house apart, rather than use an expensive helicopter and thermal imaging equipment.

[jonnypotseed]

i thought that the plant has its own thremal signature. and that signature is what they are looking for? and i also thought that the helo was used mainly to cover ground outside .....

[deftdrummer]

Generally here in the states this is how it goes down:

First, a law enforcement unit would either have to have a tip or actually fly over a large region first before sending out other aircraft to try and properly identify the crop. Contrary to what some people think, marijuana does not give off a heat signature that can be detected by any type of aircraft that local law enforcement would be using. Perhaps the ATF task force or the military, but not local government and law enforcement.

The way large crops are discovered outside is due to the heat given off by water lines. Water carries a temperature warmer than the ground when it it routed through piping under the crop as with irrigation. What gives the grower away is the fact that the water and piping under the ground actually warms up the surface so that small lines or "grids" can be identified by infa red. Outdoor growers in remote regions also need power, and often times the underground generators or the exhaust venting from them give a grow away the same way the irrigation lines do.

Thermal imaging equipment cannot be used to see through a house, not only that but it would be too much trouble to do that for an indoor grower. The reason police do not have to have a warrant to arrest someone (if they are caught) is because most growers choose remote areas either where the owner is no where to be found or if the land has no owner. This takes away all associations to the grower and also enables the grower to be more stealth. In this case, law enforcement can fly over whatever they and and put you in jail for growing even though they didn't have a warrant in the first place.

I am involved with emergency medical dispatch and also search and rescue and law enforcement personnel on a constant basis, some of which have pilots I have personally talked with about methods for catching pot growers. In fact, many pilots get a sort of adrenaline rush off catching growers.

[jamstigator]

"WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Monday that thermal
imaging to record the amount of heat emanating from a house, a police
practice often used to help detect illegal drugs, represented a search
covered by constitutional privacy protections.

The court's 5-4 ruling was a setback for the U.S. Justice Department ,
which argued the use of a thermal imager by law enforcement officers to
detect the heat emitted from a house was not a search and was not covered
by the privacy protections.

Justice Antonin Scalia said for the court majority that when the
government uses a device not in general public use to explore the details
of a private home that would previously been unknowable without physical
intrusion, the surveillance is a search and requires a warrant."

That was ruled on just a few years ago in the U.S., and undoubtedly pissed off the DEA, because now thermally imaging someone's home is considered a search and requires a warrant. That's only in the U.S. though; I don't know how other countries have ruled, but in the U.S., you have little to fear from thermal imaging. I mean, they fly overhead and point the thermal imager at your home and see the heat from 500 1k lights, THEY have just broken the law, by remotely 'searching' your home without a warrant. Which means that anything they might discover as a consequence of the thermal imaging would be fruit from the poisonous tree and would be thrown out in court.

[jamstigator]

A link with better info, including why the Supreme Court ruled the way it did:

http://www.cognitiveliberty.org/dll/kyllo1.htm

[jamstigator]

Oh, here's a Wiki on it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyllo_v._United_States

So, they thermally imaged his home, discovered a huge grow operation, used the thermal imaging to get a warrant (can't do that anymore), and raided his house, caught him red-handed. He fought it to the Supreme Court and they ruled that thermal imaging IS a search, and requires a warrant, then referred the case back to the lower court (so they could see if, absent the thermal imaging, they had enough probable cause to get a warrant). They had basically no other evidence, so Kyllo is now a free man. And thanks to him fighting that case all the way to the top, indoor growers across the U.S. can all breathe a little easier. Seeing as how the raid on his home was ultimately deemed illegal (because of the lack of a warrant before thermally imaging it), I wonder if they had to give him back all his lights and plants. Heh.

[L3G10N]

I know this guy, older man in his late 50's old stoner guy. He told me once one of is buddies got raided on his property because a chopper saw lots of heat signatures coming from his land. Turns out, this old man grew nothing but Okra plants. He was telling me that Okra puts off the same signature and marijuana. Dont know how legit this is but i thought it was funny. And he said the LEO's told him "you better watch your back" Im thinking.. for Okra? HAHAHAHHAA. Hey buddy, you better watch it with all that Okra or we'll throw the book at you.

[jOnJoNbLaZiNi]

ok so they need a warrant to scan your house but what if it is a shed next to your house which raises a thermally imaged eyebrow?? i know that a search warrant is different for them to search your house so what would be the restrictions on thermally scanning it.??

[peeples]

fact is thermal imaging technology is not relative to x-ray technology