Warrantless Searches A Violation of Rights

A B.C. Supreme Court Judge was told yesterday that the practice of searching homes with high power consumption is a violation of citizen’s rights against unreasonable search and seizure. A pilot project that targeted 1,000 of 6,000 high power consumption homes by Surrey Police, Safety Inspectors, B.C. Hydro personnel, and Firefighters. Last May the home of a couple was raided by this task force, they allowed everyone but the police to come in since the police had no warrant they were refused entry. No grow op was found and yet the city still cut the couples power on the grounds that they refused to allow the police entry.

The couple is now suing Surrey for damages, and I for one hope they win. I don’t care what the one persons prior history was there was no grounds for cutting the power, if there was enough evidence to support the theory that there was a grow op there then a warrant should have been obtained. These U.S. style raids should not continue.

The couples lawyer claims that Surrey’s pilot project has only managed to find one grow op out of those 1,000 homes targeted. 0.1% success rate is not an acceptable rate to uphold this practice.