Electric Company to Work With Police to Sniff Out Illegal Marijuana Operations, Raising Privacy Concerns

Law enforcement is keen to crack down on illegal growing operations and often seek the assistance of utilities. Now, though, one utility is proposing providing more proactive assistance to law enforcement in a move that many worry may be unconstitutional.

This sort of issue has been faced by a number of states that have legalized marijuana, where illegal operators look to take advantage of legalization to have their growing operations fly under the radar. They will then sell in states where cannabis is still illegal.

It is this astronomical increase in power consumption that is often a telltale sign for law enforcement that a location is being used for an illegal marijuana grow operation.

Maine’s Versant Power has stated that it frequently receives subpoenas from law enforcement, sometimes for as many as 50 locations at a time, to look at the energy bills for locations suspected to be illegal grow houses.

Instead, they suggest that utility regulators should be more proactive in assisting law enforcement and wish to be allowed to report what they believe to be suspicious energy consumption to police without being solicited to do so first. 

The proposal that electric utilities should be allowed to report to law enforcement will be discussed by the Maine Public Utilities Commission.

Even if Versant has the best of intentions in trying to crack down on illegal operations, consumer privacy advocates are very critical of the notion of utilities volunteering private customer data in such a way.

The executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, Alan Butler, says a regulatory rule allowing electric utilities to provide private customer information with “no probable cause, no warrant, no judicial review” would be unconstitutional.

Jay Stanley, an American Civil Liberties Union privacy expert, compared the idea of utilities combing through consumer data and sharing it with law enforcement to an illegal dragnet, saying: “Utilities should not be doing that. They have a duty of protecting their customers’ privacy.”

In 2001, for instance, the Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional for federal agents to use thermal imaging equipment without a search warrant to detect heat from marijuana grow lights inside a man’s home.

There are legitimate reasons for astronomical usage, such as homeowners needing to use temporary heaters and fans to dry out a property after a flood. People could potentially be reported to the police for absolutely no reason, which is exactly why Mark Morisette from Central Maine Power described the proposal as “an eerie line to even consider crossing.”

But at the same time, people’s rights to privacy cannot be compromised in the name of safety. That’s a slippery slope, and once you start, even with an innocuous proposal like this one, it’s worrying to think about where it might end. Certain rights are constitutional for a reason and should be protected.