Electricity police? SMUD customer sues utility, claims they provided personal information to authorities
SACRAMENTO — A new lawsuit says police are going to people's homes without a warrant just because they use a lot of electricity. The tactic is used to search for illegal marijuana gardens.
Tonight we're getting answers on how it appears some innocent people are being snared in this drug dragnet.
"We feel violated," said Alfonso Nguyen, a homeowner in Sacramento County.
Nguyen said Sacramento County sheriff's deputies have come to his family's home twice thinking he was illegally growing marijuana.
"They come at me as if I was a criminal," he said.
Deputies found no cannabis and Nguyen said the only reason he was a suspect is that he uses a lot of electricity.
"I pay an average of $400-$500 a month," he said.
He's now suing SMUD for giving cops his electric bill information.
"Doing so violates the state constitution and a state privacy statute," said Adam Schwartz, Nguyen's attorney.
Schwartz is with the civil liberties group Electronic Frontier Foundation, also known as EFF.
"What they are literally doing is sending lists of high energy users to the police knowing the police are going to use those to try and get into people's houses and search them," Schwartz said.
So why is his energy bill so high? Nguyen is disabled and uses an electric wheelchair and electric lift. He also lives in an older home and has to use the air conditioner and heater to keep it at a certain temperature due to his disability.
"When I get to extreme heat or extreme cold, I basically pass out," he said.
Illegal cannabis grows have been a problem in the Sacramento region for years.
But EFF says this drug dragnet is catching many innocent people.
"There are literally hundreds and hundreds of people on these lists who are turned into criminal suspects based merely on the fact that they are using unusually large amounts of electricity," Schwartz said.
The lawsuit also claims authorities are racially profiling the people they investigate.
"They are disproportionately picking people with Asian names as opposed to people with white names," Schwartz said.
SMUD wouldn't comment on camera but issued a statement saying "the California Public Records Act permits and sometimes requires the sharing of such information with local law enforcement agencies."
The lawsuit is not seeking money. Instead, they want the courts to put an end to this program.
"The remedy we seek in this case is an order from a judge to SMUD and the police to stop the illegal dragnet surveillance of electrical power," Schwartz said.
Nguyen said he also filed a written complaint with the sheriff's office, but the agency said they didn't find any wrongdoing.
