Posted on 06/24/2011 10:04:33 AM PDT by The Magical Mischief Tour
THIS spring was a rough season for the Fourth Amendment. The Obama administration petitioned the Supreme Court to allow GPS tracking of vehicles without judicial permission. The Supreme Court ruled that the police could break into a house without a search warrant if, after knocking and announcing themselves, they heard what sounded like evidence being destroyed. Then it refused to see a Fourth Amendment violation where a citizen was jailed for 16 days on the false pretext that he was being held as a material witness to a crime.
In addition, Congress renewed Patriot Act provisions on enhanced surveillance powers until 2015, and the F.B.I. expanded agents’ authority to comb databases, follow people and rummage through their trash even if they are not suspected of a crime.
None of these are landmark decisions. But together they further erode the privilege of privacy that was championed by Congress and the courts in the mid-to-late-20th century, when the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement was applied to the states, unconstitutionally seized evidence was ruled inadmissible in state trials, and privacy laws were enacted following revelations in the 1970s of domestic spying on antiwar and civil rights groups.
For over a decade now, the government has tried to make us more secure by chipping away at the one provision of the Bill of Rights that pivots on the word “secure” — the Fourth Amendment’s guarantee of “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
“There was a code violation. They made a reasoned stop.”
Your statement here is the crux of the debate. You think it is “OK” to stack the books full of reasons for the City, County, or State to intervene in daily activity. I see that threshold as much much higher. I see Freedom to be sacred and not to be trifled with. You, don’t really mind occasionally performing Proskynesis for the State on occasion.
You see routine code violations. You think it’s just fine to empower your government to micro manage people’s lives. I find it makes me ill. I want to vomit in a trashcan.
I demand FREEDOM and LIBERTY. They mean something real to me. To you, routine code violations are something you will support and vote for, and vote to fund. That is why I am not a modern conservative. I will not vote for, nor will I vote to fund the enforcement of chicken shiite micro managing of other people’s behavior. Seat belt laws, texting laws, hand free device laws, vehicle registration laws, 90% of the traffic laws.
As a society we could teach people how to drive cars. We don’t do that. We teach people to comply with laws. That way we have a society of incompetent drivers who need lots of laws. Everybody is in violation, so everybody can be stopped. That is the whole point of drivers licenses, and the the whole “driving is a privilege not a right”.
Traffic laws are used to subvert the 4th.
I usually self identify as a Constitutional Conservative.
Searches and seizures based on valid exigent circumstances are reasonable.
and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
And that part of the amendment is the law that applies to search warrants.
My point is that the police no longer allow for reasonable suspicion to lead into an investigation which produces solid probable cause for an arrest. They simply jump over such basic legal thresholds straight into what courts now call testilying, to make the case.
The Wall Street Journal does a wonderful job of explaining this troubling trend in law enforcement today.
Legal System Struggles With How to React When Police Officers Lie
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123319367364627211.html
What do you consider valid exigent circumstances?
I think the point being that they were pulled over for not wearing their seat belts. Remember when they seat belt law was passed. The promise was no one would be pulled over for not wearing their seat belt. Yea. Right. I knew, knew dammit that was just bullshit to get the laws passed. And guess what. I was right.
Anyway, if you want to look at it another way, the officer was killed because of the seatbelt law. Why not? Makes as much sense as anything else.
In this case he thinks the sound of a toilet flushing was valid exigent circumstances...
I bet he loves the “furtive look”.
I have always wondered how in the hell a defense attorney could challenge the probable cause doctrine in a case like this.
Officer: I stopped the car and searched it after the passenger gave me a furtive look.
Attorney: No he didn’t.
Officer: Yes he did.
Judge: Off with his head!
You sum up the whole problem with such cases. Its basically the cops word against the accused. And more and more we are seeing more cops caught lying or testilying on the stand.
And nothing happens to them at all... we just had a cop here in Nashville caught redhanded lying in court on DUI cases. Over 30 of his DUI cases were tossed out due to what they called serious inconsistencies between his reports and the video of the event.
Yet he’s still on patrol, still locking people up for DUI and no doubt still lying on his reports too...
LOL... that's a good one, you got any other jokes you can tell?
Seriously, you don;t believe that crap do you?
Traffic court is nothing more than a money extraction scheme, put in place by politicians looking to fatten the general fund.
Thank you for the link.
If you’re addressing police corruption, I believe there has always been a problem with that, to a lesser/greater extent. Are there bad police officers out there? Yes. There are bad humans in just about any organization. It’s where folks try to make the case that the vast majority if officers are bad, that I roll my eyes and leave the room.
I continue to believe there are officers out there who try to be of service to the community they serve. I still believe most officers fall into that category.
I do believe it is a tough job. I wouldn’t want to be doing it. Coming into constant contact with criminals tends to warp a person’s outlook.
Not only do you see the absolute worst of humanity, but walking into a situation trying to help one person out may cost you your life.
I was outside a club one night. A guy had thrown his date onto the hood of a car and was continuing to act violently toward her. My friend and I tried to come to her aid, when she jumped off that hood and cursed us up one side and down the other, almost becoming violent towards us.
This is what police officers go through on a regular basis. No thanks.
It is a matter of how much risk a person is willing to take on, versus how much risk a person wants to transfer.
I am willing to pay for liberty with risk. Most will not make that bargain. They want safety guaranteed, or at least attenuated. Lots of conservatives make the same arguments you do for freedom. But at the end of the day are pretty happy to have the streets crawling with armed government employees.
As far as the personal culpability of cops goes I have a differing idea of that as well. I would never, ever, not if I was starving to death take a job for any city or county. Police convert the mass tyranny of my neighbors into an individual application of subjugation. Yet cities and counties never find themselves short of applicants. So I cannot respect a person who will trade the God given dignity and self respect of individuals for a big hunk of gubment cheese.
In former times we suffered from lawlessness. Today, we suffer from too many laws. It is an old, old story. Participating in modern law enforcement is to participate in Athenian style democracy. “They” can vote you dead. Our Republican Constitution was designed to thwart the Athenian mob. You know this mob. It was the mob of the guillotine. The mob of the French Revolution.
We have a Declaration of Independence that talks about Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. Then Adams, Locke, Jefferson, Franklin, Washington tried to create a constitution that would keep the mob in check, and the government in check.
Today we have a government that tries to do everything. Constitution be damned. Nothing the Commerce clause cannot accomplish at the federal level. At the local level everybody salivates at the chance to harness the full force of government to control the behavior of other people. I am not a modern conservative in the sense that I don't want to harness the power of government to do anything. I want contact with government to be rare, not routine. Conservatives don't want that. They want “good government”. I want freedom, and I will pay for it in risk.
“If you’re addressing police corruption, I believe there has always been a problem with that, to a lesser/greater extent. Are there bad police officers out there? Yes. There are bad humans in just about any organization. It’s where folks try to make the case that the vast majority if officers are bad, that I roll my eyes and leave the room.”
This is why you don’t elevate overlords. People will always be corrupt.
It's said that "power corrupts," but actually it's more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power. When they do act, they think of it as service, which has limits. The tyrant, though, seeks mastery, for which he is insatiable, implacable.
David Brin, The Postman (1997)
Great post.
In the end, what you propose is absolute anarchy.
Someone guns down your spouse on the street, hey, I got a shot off before he ran off. Whoopie. Now he’s free to go two miles over and do it again.
Three months later he’s doing stuff in San Diego. Here’s a guy that would be known to have committed fifteen murders, 72 armed robberies, and an untold amount of other petty larceny or outright felonies. Sad think is, San Diegans don’t have clue one who they are dealing with. Nobody is collecting data and disseminating it with regard to this guy.
There’s no police force or other agency around to develop information and be on the look-out for him. He won’t be picked up at all. And until some unsuspecting citizen is able to avoid this guy’s initial attack and turn the tables, he going on doing what he wants.
This may sound good to you. It doesn’t to me.
Look, please don’t quote some Leftist’s idea of sentient thought from a movie spewing a Liberal’s point of view about a post apocalyptic world to me.
We’re talking about a civilized society that must have some ground-rules.
If you want to talk about some hypothetical post apocalyptic world, I’m not your guy.
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