This isn't anything particularly new, I'm afraid.

Instances like this are mentioned in the book Reefer Madness.

I spell it PR Kalifornia, and yes, it's where liberty goes to die. That and Taxachusetts. This is the place that wanted to run your thermostat from the Big Central People's Thermostat Control Center a few months back. They're nuts, and you couldn't pay me enough money to live there.

I saw a police raid on a pot house on TV last. One of the reasons given by one of the policemen was the high usage of electricity at the address. So it happens here in the UK as well.

I wonder if we are all being monitored?

Two possible reasons for the firearms search. If the goons take it as a given that you're in the drug business, having a firearm allows for much tougher prosecution. Also, slimeballs like former mayor Hahn in LA used to seize people's guns for any reason they could justify and never give them back. Carlsbad is closer to San Diego, however, so that might not be the case. My guess is it's just so they can stack on as many menacing charges as possible so that only most of them will be plead down.

Um just the one question at this point.
How are the Feds getting your Electricity Bill record?
Is there a cooperative agreement between private energy suppliers and the police to bust their best customers?
An odd way of doing business I must say!

However a policeman of my aquaintance, told me the other day that when the Bristol police chopper flew over St Pauls and Easton with the thermal imager on, they picked up 900 suspicious heat sources in 15 minutes. Far to many to cope with.

Does Al Gore get his house searched ?

Comrade Gore is wise enough not to live in California Jacob.

In Tennessee it is not a crime to use a lot of electricity (lucky for him) and one can also sell natural resources (again lucky for Albert Gore the mine owner) - rather than be told (as with modern California) "no we would rather buy ...... at wildly high prices from anti American dictatorships, than allow you to mine or drill for it here".

The latest move is the judgement of a Californian court that a person can not educate their own children (either at home or in a private school) unless the people doing the teaching have State teacher training certificates.

Even some Marxist ruled nations did not go that far, so perhaps "People's Republic of California" is unfair - on the People's Republics.

Perry, here in the UK it will not be long before your house can be raided for too much energy use. Not because you might be indulging in indoor horticulture, but just because you are wasting Gaiea's precious resources.

The technology will soon be good enough to detect if you've left a TV on standby or there's a lit power LED on your laptop, let alone whether you have a thermostat set higher than the state mandated 25 degrees.

The punishment will only be a carbon credit fine and re-education for the first offence, (oh, and DNA registration in case you can be tied to other crimes against humanity), but recidivism will incur draconian penalties.

Here in Australia we hear of houses or apartments being raided because of excessive use of electricity- excessive compared to your neighbours. It is the new method of detecting drug-growers. Our power supplies are govmint-owned, so they probably co-operate as one department to another.
As for the profit- I heard that one batch of 450 cannabis plants grown here in Sydney would have fetched something like one million Australian Dollars, when cultivated. With that sort of money on offer, I don't think the police will be putting them out of business soon, or ever...

No wonder the state is reluctant to push home generation of electricity, even thought it is probably the most efficient way of pandering to the green agenda whilst still allowing those with the desire for power hungry toys to have them. If we all generated our own electricity they couldn't monitor how much we were using.

Good point, Mandrill. That's another excellent reason for us all to start generating our own.

This looks like one of those areas where we can get the State fighting itself.

The more this big-brother espionage is publicised, along with the solution, home energy production, the more uptake there will be of the technology by home growers and other individualists. More sales of gear means prices drop faster, etc.

The tree-hugger side of the government wants green energy production; the storm-trooper side wants to spy on you. Wouldn't it be lovely to see them locked in mortal combat?

Dale; this is the way of thinking I am looking for:-) Unfortunately, the storm-trooper side usually wins. Besides, home energy production can be relatively easily banned - there will be no shortage of pretenses.

I just read the affidavit twice.

I don't think the electrical bill is the major basis for issuance of the warrant. I think the dog sniff went a lot further. Dogs aren't infallible, but they're pretty reliable. (Remember the standard for issuance of a warrant: it's not proof beyond a reasonable doubt.) I'd be willing to bet that the electrical bill was mostly meant to support an allegation that the marijuana was being grown there or stored in large quantity, and not just in personal-use amounts.

Don't ask me why a dog sniff from outside an enclosure falls under plain view but FLIR from an aircraft some distance away requires a warrant. I couldn't explain that one.

The reason that the affidavit mentioned firearms is that, in most states, being armed in the commission of other crimes is a sentence enhancer if not a stand-alone crime itself. I believe that this is true in California.

I'm a little disappointed, though. Since everyone on teh interwebz knows that cops always plant stuff, I'm a little bothered that the return of service read "no items taken."

Couldn't that fascist pig bastard have even come up with an unregistered drop gun or something?