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Police received an anonymous tip that Nora was growing marijuana inside her rural farmhouse. Without a warrant, two officers walked up Nora's front path with a trained drug dog. The dog sniffed around the front door and alerted. The officers then walked through a closed side gate marked "Private" and entered a fenced backyard directly behind the house. From there, they looked through a basement window and saw grow lights.
Later that night, standing on a public road, an officer used a thermal-imaging device not commonly available to the public. The device showed unusually high heat patterns from the farmhouse walls. The next day, officers crossed an unfenced pasture 200 yards from the house and saw discarded fertilizer bags near a shed. The shed was used for farm equipment and was not connected to the house by any fence.
Officers used all of these facts in a warrant affidavit. A magistrate issued a warrant for the farmhouse and basement. During the search, officers found marijuana plants and charged Nora with drug offenses. Nora moves to suppress the plants.
Analyze which police actions were Fourth Amendment searches, whether any exception applies, and whether the warrant remains valid if tainted facts are removed from the affidavit.