Abstract

Advances in technology present police and other government agencies with new methods of investigation. Some methods allow the government to gather evidence without any type of actual physical intrusion upon private citizens or property. One such method is aerial surveillance.

Constitutional challenges to the use of aircraft in government investigations began in state courts in the mid-1970s and in federal courts in the early 1980s. In 1986, the United States Supreme Court considered the constitutionality of warrantless aerial surveillance in both criminal and administrative investigations in California v. Ciraolo and Dow Chemical Company v. United States. What is most significant about these cases is the reasoning used by the Court. In both cases, the Court focused either on the manner of the search or on the place searched, rather than on whether the defendant's expectation of privacy as such was reasonable. The result in both cases was that the search was held to be constitutional. The reasoning of the court, along with the results reached, brings into question whether the Court may ever find a non-physically intrusive aerial surveillance unconstitutional.

This Comment will outline the historical developments of fourth amendment protections and the application of fourth amendment analysis to aerial surveillance. It will then analyze the Court's application of the fourth amendment in Ciraolo and Dow Chemical. Finally, the resulting limits of fourth amendment protection will be analyzed in light of historical developments and the two recent Supreme Court cases.

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