44
Stevens, J., dissenting
in a laboratory or opium den, enter the public domain if and when they leave a building. A subjective expectation that they would remain private is not only implausible but also surely not "one that society is prepared to recognize as 'reasonable.' " Katz, 389 U. S., at 361 (Harlan, J., concurring).
To be sure, the homeowner has a reasonable expectation of privacy concerning what takes place within the home, and the Fourth Amendment's protection against physical invasions of the home should apply to their functional equivalent. But the equipment in this case did not penetrate the walls of petitioner's home, and while it did pick up "details of the home" that were exposed to the public, ante, at 38, it did not obtain "any information regarding the interior of the home," ante, at 34 (emphasis added). In the Court's own words, based on what the thermal imager "showed" regarding the outside of petitioner's home, the officers "concluded" that petitioner was engaging in illegal activity inside the home. Ante, at 30. It would be quite absurd to characterize their thought processes as "searches," regardless of whether they inferred (rightly) that petitioner was growing marijuana in his house, or (wrongly) that "the lady of the house [was taking] her daily sauna and bath." Ante, at 38. In either case, the only conclusions the officers reached concerning the interior of the home were at least as indirect as those that might have been inferred from the contents of discarded garbage, see California v. Greenwood, 486 U. S. 35 (1988), or pen register data, see Smith v. Maryland, 442 U. S. 735 (1979), or, as in this case, subpoenaed utility records, see 190 F. 3d 1041, 1043 (CA9 1999). For the first time in its history, the Court assumes that an inference can amount to a Fourth Amendment violation. See ante, at 36-37.3
3 Although the Court credits us with the "novel proposition that inference insulates a search," ante, at 36, our point simply is that an inference cannot be a search, contrary to the Court's reasoning. See supra this page. Thus, the Court's use of United States v. Karo, 468 U. S. 705
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