Posted on 04/22/2013 10:54:14 PM PDT by EternalVigilance
It appears the ACLU is this guy's benchmark. Says a lot, doesn't it?
No, it's you who doesn't know anything about the ACLU. If the terrorist had been found with one of these stupid, illegal searches, then the ACLU would immediately file to have any evidence seized in that illegal search thrown out. The ACLU could give a rats ass about the citizens whose rights were violated. But had the cops found one ounce of pot or anything else like that during a search they would be guaranteed to have that evidence thrown out.
bump
The ACLU will always defend the obviously guilty because they believe that they protect everyone's rights by protecting the rights in the marginal cases. But along the way they forgot about the rest of us.
The 4th only protects against UNreasonable searches and seizures. It doesn’t protect against every search. A lot of you are forgetting what the text says. Searching your house when there’s justification under exigent circumstances (which is very strictly defined) is within the “spirit” or “confines” of The Fourth Amendment. Your comfort isn’t protected under the fourth amendment.
If they are entering your house looking for someone who fits the exigent circumstances criteria (as in this case) they don’t need a warrant because they’re not looking for evidence to incriminate you in a crime. If you try to block LEO’s from entering you’re actually violating the law/Constitution because they have a right to enter. If you use deadly force in Texas to resist an officer who is conducting a search lawfully or unlawfully you just broke the law unless they are using an extreme amount of force BEFORE you resist.
That said, if law enforcement wanted to search your house in Cut and Shoot, TX you’d be right since there’s no way a wounded suspect could make it here in a few hours.
Here’s a further explanation to hopefully help you understand and harness some of the misguided bravado.
http://www.volokh.com/2013/04/19/house-to-house-searches-and-the-fourth-amendment/
locking down a whole city and searching door to door is most certainly unreasonable
The only one that applies here is hot pursuit. Once they lost the perp that no longer applied. The link you posted about roadblocks applies and certainly a perimeter search would pose little burden to the citizens as the police merely glance in each car.
they don't need a warrant because they're not looking for evidence to incriminate you in a crime.
True from the ACLU's perspective. If they had picked up evidence about the perp the ACLU would have filed to have it tossed. But false from a privacy perspective. The 4th is not clear about privacy but the courts are. Forced searches are illegal with a few specific exceptions and no exceptions applied in Watertown.
bump
They had absolutely no reason to be locking down whole cities and searching door to door, there were no exgent circumstances to lead them to think the perp was in them.
If the police don't know where the perp is hiding, they cannot invade people's property withut permission, a warrant, or a hunch. Courts accept a hunch, but no hunch, no lunch.
I remember an incident when cops ran through someone’s backyard but they were clearly chasing someone moments before. I’m not sure if the homeowner kept the police flashlight they found the next day. That thing was heavy!
If the police knew the exact location of the perp, then the perp wasn't actually hiding, he was just fooling himself. The police were not searching the greater Boston area, they were searching a specific area in Watertown where they had reason to believe the perp was indeed hiding.
If the police do not know a perp is, they cannot enter private property. In some court cases a hunch was all they needed to gain legal entry.
We'll just have to wait and see if the courts find extenuating circumstances were involved, won't we?
First, an assessment by a retired head of a Duke University Law School and the ACLU are not definitive rulings whatsoever.
Second, the ACLU only acts quickly and forcefully when the civil liberties of those in this country who are mostly not a benefit to it are abridged (in their eyes). The citizens involved here probably didn’t fit their criteria.
Lastly, because a town full of sheep don’t even know their own rights, or have been conditioned from cradle to grave that ‘safety’ is more important than freedom doesn’t legalize the actions taken. In fact, their sheep mentality has damaged the rest of this country by giving the government precedent now.
No, we won't. The courts have already tossed evidence from illegal searches thousands of times. They would toss any evidence gathered from any of these searches for any crimes. What many people on this thread apparantly do not understand is that organizations like the ACLU do not file court cases for invasion of privacy unless there is a criminal case using evidence gathered by the invasion of privacy. If there is no such case here, then we won't "wait and see", but rather we will tell everyone (including many here) that giving up their rights is just fine and dandy.
Of course not.
The ACLU is part of the Ministry of Truth.
What evidence exactly are you claiming the police found during their search in Watertown?
I think the police asked permission to search the person’s house, which makes it legal.
They will do the same thing when the come for our firearms, only they won’t ask, they’ll knock then come in.
None. That's why there will be no ACLU case. What you and many people fail to realize is that the ACLU does not exist to protect the rights of the general public, but the rights of criminals, and known guilty-as-hell criminals for the most part. They look for cases in which evidence is gathered in clearly illegal searches (like the one in Watertown). If no such evidence was found (e.g. drugs) in any house during the searches, then there will be no cases filed by them.
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