Reading Room Document

Environmental Protection Agency Overflights and Fourth Amendment Searches

Routine overflights of industrial plants by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), conducted at lawful altitudes and employing commercially available visual aids, do not constitute searches under the Fourth Amendment. Considering the comprehensive nature of the federal environmental regulatory scheme, corporate businesses may have no legitimate expectation of privacy against EPA observations for the purpose of detecting emissions into the air or discharges into water. The OLC does not provide release dates for its opinions, so the release date listed is the date on which the opinion was authored. The original opinion is available at www.justice.gov/file/24611/download.

September 23, 1980