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Oh brother. You're right. THE SKY IS FALLING! THE SKY IS FALLING!

You seem to think that if the government isn't marching us to camps as we speak, then there is no danger to the Constitution. I agree some posters have taken dramatic license with the Boston searches, mostly in the form of photo mosaics (guilty) and videos. I equate these to modern day political cartoons (do we really believe our government is represented by a person named "Uncle Sam", or that a talking elephant is the spokesperson of the Republican Party?) which by necessity dramatize the situation. A little.

The majority of the discussion I have seen and taken part in on these threads has been lucid and rational on the part of those critical of the police searches. Either the exigent circumstances exception to the Fourth Amendment is broad and nearly limitless, or it is narrow and specific.

I join my fellow FReepers in stating I believe the case law carving out the exigency exception defines the exception to be narrow and specific - that an officer may enter and search a particular place for a particular person or items without a warrant - when there exists an emergency situation, subject to judicial scrutiny.

I do not believe that the Boston searches were conducted in this way. To mock this position as a "sky is falling" cry is to ignore that many of us opposing the police actions in Boston have legal and criminal justice backgrounds.

The house to house search in the defined area didn't work. The state lifted the “Shelter in place” order which is when a civilian found the terrorist. If the house to house search was fruitful then I could see the government using this tactic again. This situation was extenuating and something I have never seen in my 45 years of living in Boston. Hopefully I won't have to see this again. I could see a couple of lawsuits appear for violation of constitutional rights because of this action. My main concern was the suspect was apprehended. I had two cousins and one friend(Boston Police) involved in the search. After these 2 assassinated one police officer and nearly killed another officer while lobbing explosives at them my main concern was for their safety. Someday in hind site I will look into the search house to house but right now I am satisfied with action.

You seem to think that if the government isn't marching us to camps as we speak, then there is no danger to the Constitution.

Untrue.

I invite you to look at my posting history to get an idea of my feelings on this general subject.

I join my fellow FReepers in stating I believe the case law carving out the exigency exception defines the exception to be narrow and specific - that an officer may enter and search a particular place for a particular person or items without a warrant - when there exists an emergency situation, subject to judicial scrutiny.

An armed and dangerous islamist terrorist who had committed an act of mass murder a few days earlier, and had just murdered a cop named Sean Collier, engaged in a gun battle with cops on the streets in which 200 rounds were fired, carjacked someone and then robbed the person of his money, and was now on the loose in a densely settled metropolitan neighborhood rather fits the bill of an emergency situation, does it not?

No, I'm mocking the reactionaries here who are trying to make hay for their political beliefs out of this tragedy.

I was about a half mile away, as the crow flies, from where the first bomb went off. I saw paramilitary-style cops in full black combat gear and M4s all over my city the entire week, including, ironically enough, in front of the statue of Samuel Adams in front of Faneuil Hall. I saw big black humvees that looked like armored personnel carriers rumbling through the streets all week. Three DHS special forces vehicles are still parked outside of Boston Garden on Causeway Street.

I get it.

But enough is enough. This wasn't the King's Troops busting down doors to root out radicals, subversives, or undesirables. This was cops trying to keep their people safe, and this was people working with the cops to keep themselves safe AND nail the fucking bastard who did this to our city and to our people.

Let's keep our eyes on the prize and keep our powder dry for when we truly need it. Now is not the time, and when this kind of crap gets posted all over Free Republic, and people on our side buy into it, we walk right into the stereotype, and look exactly like the paranoid freaks the left likes to paint us out to be.