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People typically view their cell phones as personal property that police would need a search warrant to access, just like their home. But, a circuit court judge has ruled that police can force an individual to divulge the contents of their phone if the phone utilizes a certain growing technology. While many are excited about the fingerprint technology system to unlock your phone that is available on such phones as the iPhone 5s, 6, and 6 Plus, as well as the Samsung Galaxy S5 and others, using that particular feature on the phone could lead you to lose what you...

In 1981, a lawyer tried to subpoena Ron Paul to testify in the trial of Don Black, a Grand Wizard for the Ku Klux Klan who would later go on to found the white supremacist, neo-Nazi website, Stormfront. Black was charged along with two other Klansmen with planning to violently overthrow the small Caribbean country of Dominica in what they called “Operation Red Dog.” While a judge refused to subpoena Paul, Don Black would come back to haunt him many years later. In 1981 a group of American and Canadian white supremacists lead by Klansman and mercenary, Michael (Mike) Perdue...

Seldom in American history has the Supreme Court unanimously rejected positions advocated by presidents' administrations. But in this respect at least, President Obama has produced the fundamental transformation he promised in his 2008 campaign. Over the last three years, the Court has rejected Obama administration positions repeatedly in unanimous 9-0 decisions. A review of these cases reveals much about the governing philosophy of the Obama administration. One thing is abundantly clear, namely that this administration has a crabbed view of the First Amendment right of free exercise of religion. That is apparent not only in June's 5-4 decision ruling in...

Lerner’s lawyer below says she did NOT waive her 5th Amendment rights. Professor Alan Dershowitz of Harvard Law says she did waive them. Bottom line — on close questions — you steer your client to a SAFE path. That is the role of a lawyer – to protect your client. As a former criminal defense attorney, I know the SAFE path would have been to say ZERO before the Committee (except to assert the 5th) and then go outside and say whatever you want to the cameras. The same would have been achieved with the safe route (and more!) except...

<p>Lois Lerner’s Lawyer: Holding Her in Contempt Would Be ‘Un-American’</p> <p>A lawyer representing former Internal Revenue Service official Lois Lerner is requesting a chance to plead her case against a planned House vote to hold her in contempt of Congress.</p>

Issues: Does a trial court’s rejection of a non-testifying defendant’s request for a no-adverse-influence instruction during the sentencing phase of a capital punishment trial violate that defendant’s Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination when the defendant has pled guilty to all of the alleged crimes and aggravating circumstances? Oral argument: December 11, 2013 Court below: United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit

A House committee is planning a showdown next week with a former Internal Revenue Service official who declined to answer questions last year about agency targeting of tea-party groups. The former official, Lois Lerner, appeared at a contentious hearing House Oversight and Government Reform Committee last May, soon after news broke that the IRS had targeted grassroots conservative groups for special scrutiny as they sought tax-exempt status. At the hearing, Ms. Lerner made an opening statement asserting her innocence of any wrongdoing, then sought to invoke her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. She declined to answer questions from committee members...

Microsoft announced a new effort to "[protect] customer data from government snooping." FSF executive director John Sullivan issued the following statement on Thursday, December 5th: "Microsoft has made renewed security promises before. In the end, these promises are meaningless. Proprietary software like Windows is fundamentally insecure not because of Microsoft's privacy policies but because its code is hidden from the very users whose interests it is supposed to secure. A lock on your own house to which you do not have the master key is not a security system, it is a jail. Even on proprietary operating systems like Windows,...

Petition for the DOJ to allow the American Justice system and due process to stand. No double jeopardy for George Zimmerman. "No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be...

On Tuesday, William W. Taylor III, attorney for Lois Lerner, the IRS official at the center of the Tea Party targeting scandal who invoked her Fifth amendment rights before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on May 22, set forward his client's hard line conditions to return and testify openly before the committee."They can obtain her testimony tomorrow by doing it the easy way … immunity. That’s the way to resolve all of this," he told Politico.Congressman Jim Jordan (R-OH), a member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee was unimpressed. "We hope she comes in and gives us the truth...

In a 5-4 decision the Supreme Court ruled today that a potential defendant’s silence can be used against him if he is being interviewed by police but is not arrested (and read his Miranda rights) and has not verbally invoked the protection of the Fifth Amendment.Tim Lynch at the Cato Institute explains that the Salinas v. Texas case was intended to be about whether prosecutors during a trial could cast aspersions on a defendant’s silence during questioning that took place prior to arrest — prior to the defendent being told he had the right to remain silent. Instead, the Supreme...

No wonder Lois Lerner took the Fifth. Lerner, the IRS official sent on paid leave last Thursday after refusing to resign, would have had a tough time testifying before Congress about the agency’s discrimination against tea-party groups without incriminating herself in the process, an examination of her conflicting representations reveals. Republican lawmakers, hearing complaints about the lengthy, onerous, and intrusive lists of questions sent to their constituents, have for two years been working to uncover the scandal occurring at the nation’s tax-collection agency. Lerner was a major impediment to their attempted investigation. Her misdeeds go beyond a failure to inform...

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa said embattled IRS official Lois Lerner waived her Fifth Amendment rights and will be hauled back to appear before his panel again. The California Republican said Lerner’s Fifth Amendment right to avoid self-incrimination was voided when she gave an opening statement this morning denying any wrongdoing and professing pride in her government service. “When I asked her her questions from the very beginning, I did so so she could assert her rights prior to any statement,” Issa told POLITICO. “She chose not to do so — so she waived.” Lerner triggered...

Supreme Court on Friday agreed to consider whether a suspect's refusal to answer police questions prior to being arrested and read his rights can be introduced as evidence of guilt at his subsequent murder trial. Without comment, the court agreed to hear the appeal of Genovevo Salinas, who was convicted of murder and sentenced to 20 years in prison for the December 1992 deaths of two brothers in Houston.

American citizens can be ordered to decrypt their PGP-scrambled hard drives for police to peruse for incriminating files, a federal judge in Colorado ruled today in what could become a precedent-setting case. Judge Robert Blackburn ordered a Peyton, Colo., woman to decrypt the hard drive of a Toshiba laptop computer no later than February 21--or face the consequences including contempt of court. Blackburn, a George W. Bush appointee, ruled that the Fifth Amendment posed no barrier to his decryption order. The Fifth Amendment says that nobody may be "compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself," which...

House Republicans investigating the loan controversy had requested all internal White House documents about the issue. House Energy and Commerce subcommittee chair Rep. Cliff Stearns said that includes emails on the President’s Blackberry. On Friday the White House Counsel sent a letter to the House Energy and Commerce Committee explaining they won’t comply with the request because it “implicates longstanding and significant institutional Executive Branch confidentiality interests.” The response is hardly a surprise given past administrations’ refusal to comply with similar congressional requests. The difference here? President Obama is the first Chief Executive to carry a Blackberry, so it’s the...

The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution is unequivocal: no American shall "be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." No amount of ducking and diving will evade the inescapable fact that, for the first time, U.S. military officials in an aggressive overreach of constitutional authority deliberately targeted an American citizen for killing. And no amount of legalistic wordplay will alter the reality that al-Awlaki was denied due process. (No, Mr Gingrich, the signing of a death warrant by an American President does not constitute "due process," except perhaps in North Korea or Iran. Our...

This is all for now: Solyndra execs will decline to testify at Congressional hearing Friday, according to letters from their attorneys obtained by Reuters.

A smart middle-ground play for independents, but I thought he was supposed to be the great evangelical hope. Last week he said he was “fine” with New York legalizing gay marriage before clarifying today that he’s not fine with gay marriage itself. (In fact, he supports a Federal Marriage Amendment.) Now this. Why would a social-conservative voter looking for a champion who has traction in the polls prefer him to, say, Bachmann?Maybe Perry’s willing to shed some votes in Iowa in exchange for picking some up in New Hampshire. Despite holding personal pro-life beliefs, Texas Gov. Rick Perry categorized abortion...

The Colorado prosecution of a woman accused of a mortgage scam will test whether the government can punish you for refusing to disclose your encryption passphrase. The Obama administration has asked a federal judge to order the defendant, Ramona Fricosu, to decrypt an encrypted laptop that police found in her bedroom during a raid of her home. Because Fricosu has opposed the proposal, this could turn into a precedent-setting case. No U.S. appeals court appears to have ruled on whether such an order would be legal or not under the U.S. Constitution's Fifth Amendment, which broadly protects Americans' right to...