
An electrical company in Maine is trying to get in good with police by promising to tattle on customers that the company believes is using too much electricity, indicating that the customer is running an illegal marijuana operation.
Versant Power, like other electric companies, is getting a growing number of subpoenas from cops looking to bust illegal grow operations. Utility companies around the country are reporting that power demand from certain customers has jumped substantially after their state decriminalized marijuana use, sales, or growth.
But Versant isn’t satisfied with merely cooperating with subpoenas; it wants to make them unnecessary by voluntarily turning in customers that it believes are growing weed. Versant’s in-house lawyer, Arrian Myrick-Stockdell said it would be faster and more efficient if companies like his could proactively report customers before getting an order from law enforcement.
Speaking to state regulators, Myrick-Stockdell bragged that Versant “has a very high success rate” in pinpointing just who might be illegally growing weed. The spike in electricity associated with growing marijuana comes from the electricity-hungry special lights that people use to grow the plant indoors.
The Maine Public Utilities Commission will consider the proposal to allow utilities to report customers to cops at its meeting next week. As expected, civil liberties and privacy advocates are alarmed at the idea.
The Electronic Privacy Information Center said if regulators allow this they’ll be in violation of the constitution. Why? Because companies would be divulging private consumer information to law enforcement without anyone having to get a warrant, show probable cause, or get a judge’s approval.
The American Civil Liberties Union has a similar take. ACLU privacy advocate Jay Stanley said what Versant wants to do amounts to an unlawful dragnet. He said companies have a duty to respect the privacy of their customers.
Recent marijuana-growing busts in Maine show how much illegal growers are giving away about their operation through their electric bills. In one case, a home that usually consumed $300 worth of power every month suddenly started sucking down $9,000 worth of energy from the grid.