A non-traditional test of the Fourth Amendment has been decided in the long-running dispute about Naperville, Illinois smart meters. The case is Naperville Smart Meter Awareness v. City of Naperville, which was recently ruled upon in the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Around 2009, the City of Naperville received a federal grant to update its electrical grid. Part of this update included “smart meters,” which collected information about a home’s electrical use frequently, often thousands of times per month. As opposed to the traditional meters, which collected the energy consumption data only once per month.
Besides providing the City much better information about energy consumption, the smart meters can and do collect and transmit information about what is going on inside a home. Using the data, researchers can determine which appliances are in a home, and when they are being used, since each appliance has its own “load signature.” The Court noted that “[a] refrigerator, for instance, draws power differently than a television, respirator, or indoor grow light.”
The Plaintiffs, a group of Naperville residents, sued the City alleging that the smart meters were an unconstitutional violation of Fourth Amendment rights (and a similar provision in the Illinois Constitution). The District Court in Chicago dismissed the group’s Complaint, and the Seventh Circuit affirmed [upheld] the dismissal.
The Fourth Amendment protects the people from unreasonable searches and seizures of their persons, houses, papers, and effects (Illinois’s reads “and other possessions”). The Court found the taking of smart meter data by Naperville was a Fourth Amendment seizure. “Where … the Government uses a device that is not in general public use [the Court debated whether smart meters were pervasive enough to fit into this category], to explore details of the home that would previously have been unknowable without physical intrusion, the surveillance is a ‘search.’” Of course, this is something that is only possible with modern technology, like recent cases of GPS tracking, or the thermal imaging used by the feds to detect marijuana growing in Kyllo v. United States, 533 U.S. 27, 31–32 (2001) .
However, where the searches were struck down in many of those cases, in Naperville Smart Meter Awareness, the Court determined that the search and seizure of data was reasonable. The data was not used for prosecution, but for administration and improvement of the public utility, which lessens the individual’s privacy interest. Also, the City stated it would not give the data to third-parties, including law enforcement, without a warrant. Further, the governmental interest of using the smart meters to improve the grid was significant. The Court stressed that the decision could be different if the facts regarding data collection and distribution were different.
For advocates of the right to privacy, perhaps no words in the Court’s Opinion rings truer than “The ever-accelerating pace of technological development carries serious privacy implications.” Some of that we seem to give away willingly, especially on social media outlets. It will take near-constant diligence and effort to make sure that the march of progress does not take away our most basic of liberties.
The Law Firm of David G. Sigale, P.C. was founded to serve the legal needs of the Chicago metropolitan area. Mr. Sigale has counseled and represented corporate and individual clients across the United States and internationally. He believes in protecting Americans from improper attempts by the government to infringe upon their constitutional rights. His firm services clients in Cook, DuPage, Kane, Kendall and Will Counties, and as well as reviews matters in other locations on a case-by-case basis. Contact the firm for a consultation.
