Free Republic

The terrorist attack in Boston and ensuing events in Watertown had everyone on edge, but shocking new home video from Massachusetts show law enforcement officers trampling over the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution – which guarantees “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures… 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.” A video recently uploaded to YouTube by residents whose home was searched...

How is it at all legal for the police to have coerced people from their homes during the house to house search that was conducted in Watertown MA last week? By 'coerced', I mean being told to leave their residence by police SWAT teams. When you have 10 police pointing rifles at you, yelling at your to get out of your house, I'd consider that coersion. These people were removed from their homes and forced to go someplace else. It appears that they were not 'allowed' back into their homes for hours. How is that possible in America? Were homeowners...

Sounds like right-wing, anti-Obama rhetoric, doesn't it? In California, it is dangerously close to true. Thursday, the state legislature approved $24 million to expedite gun confiscation. They are coming for your guns! And if they show up at your door in California, without a search warrant, you still don't have much of a choice but to hand over the weapon. Does this sound like a violation of the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution? This is a very slippery slope. The text of the Fourth Amendment: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers,...

The Republican led U.S. House of Representatives passed CISPA on Thursday with a majority of the major problems still intact. However, they wouldn’t even allow debate on an amendment put forward by Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) which would have made a provision for obtaining a warrant before any kind of spying into private data could be done. Grayson’s one-sentence amendment would have required the National Security Agency, the FBI, Homeland Security and other agencies to secure a “warrant obtained in accordance with the Fourth Amendment” before searching a database for evidence of criminal wrongdoing. Grayson complained this morning on Twitter...

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) released a report documenting attempted abuses of federal power by the Obama administration on Tuesday, saying the administration “knows virtually no bounds.” Cruz points to Obama’s own Supreme Court appointees, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, to make his case: "When President Obama’s own Supreme Court nominees join their colleagues in unanimously rejecting the Administration’s call for broader federal power six times in just over one year, the inescapable conclusion is that the Obama Administration’s view of federal power knows virtually no bounds,” the senator’s report said. The Obama administration’s over-reaching includes attempts to electronically track Americans...

The Internal Revenue Service doesn't believe it needs a search warrant to read your e-mail. Newly disclosed documents prepared by IRS lawyers says that Americans enjoy "generally no privacy" in their e-mail, Facebook chats, Twitter direct messages, and similar online communications -- meaning that they can be perused without obtaining a search warrant signed by a judge. That places the IRS at odds with a growing sentiment among many judges and legislators who believe that Americans' e-mail messages should be protected from warrantless search and seizure. They say e-mail should be protected by the same Fourth Amendment privacy standards that...

An Omaha police supervisor has been placed on administrative leave as authorities continue to investigate the circumstances of a controversial arrest in north Omaha. The World-Herald has learned that the command officer is Sgt. Aaron P. Von Behren, a 15-year department veteran and one-time recipient of the department's life-saving award. The World-Herald also learned the identity of an officer who earlier was placed on administrative leave: James T. Kinsella, a veteran of nearly five years.

FBI investigators for at least five years have routinely used a sophisticated cellphone tracking tool that can pinpoint callers’ locations and listen to their conversations — all without getting a warrant for it, a federal court was told this week. The use of the “Stingray,” as the tool is called, “is a very common practice” by federal investigators, Justice Department attorneys told the U.S. District Court for Arizona Thursday, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. Installed in an unmarked van, Stingray mimics a cellphone tower, so it can pinpoint the precise location of any mobile device in range and...

s I posted earlier, the 17-year-old Houston resident was shot to death Tuesday by a police SWAT team during a drug raid on his family's home. It's increasingly looking like yet another paramilitary drug raid gone horribly wrong. The father of a 17-year-old killed by a police officer who was looking for drugs at his home said the shooting was unprovoked. [...] The elder Castillo said his son was awakened by the pleas of his 20-year-old sister, Ashley. When the younger Castillo turned toward Falks, he said, the officer shot him in the face. "My son heard her say, 'Don't...

The Supreme Court has ruled that police use of a drug-sniffing dog on a homeowner's porch is a violation of the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable searches and seizures. [...]

Did this photograph spark a police action that tried to enter a New Jersey home without a warrant? That’s the story being told on a website dedicated to “Open Carry” in the state of Delaware. The title of the story, “The fight has officially been brought to my front door.” (PHOTO AT LINK) The young man in the photo is the 11-yr-old son of Shawn Moore. The gun is a .22 rifle, a copy of the AR-15, but a 22 caliber. The photo was posted on Facebook by a proud father. That Facebook posting apparently triggered an anonymous call to...

In an attempt to pursue terrorists across the globe, the Obama administration has proposed legislation that will give spy agencies access to citizens’ finances. Currently, the FBI is the only agency that has access to these databases, but the plan will give the CIA and NSA the same access. So does this proposition take the war on terror too far? Private investigator Kenneth Cummins explains the legality of the legislation.

Hudson County, New Jersey --(Ammoland.com) At approximately 10pm on Thursday night, January 24, 2013, 33-year-old Keith Pantaleon of Jersey City, New Jersey, was in the bedroom of his apartment watching television after a full day’s work – when he heard thumping noises coming from his living room. Believing that his residence may be being broken into, he grabbed his soft-bound Day Planner case (which also held a lawfully purchased handgun), and cracked open his bedroom door to investigate. In the center of his living room, he saw a man dressed entirely in dark clothing who had his back towards him....

This Is How We Resist *Video* Mac Slavo February 28th, 2013 It should be clear by now that the Federal government, through various agencies like the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security, is rapidly moving towards a legal model that aims to strip fundamental rights traditionally protected by the Constitution of the United States. The Second Amendment is and has been under fire for quite some time, but what many Americans fail to realize is that the attack on our right to bear arms is only part of a much broader plan, one that aims to quietly kill any semblance...

Your constitutional rights have been repealed in ten states. No, this isn't a joke. It is not exaggeration or hyperbole. If you are in ten states in the United States, your some of your rights guaranteed by the Bill of Rights have been made null and void. And it is not just those ten states. Those are just the states where everyone who lives in those states has lost some of their constitutional rights. The sad truth is that there are only fourteen states where this stripping of the rights of American citizens has not happened. What is going on?...

Lawmakers in Washington State have accidentally written a bill permitting police to invade private homes for the purpose of confiscating “illegal” guns and accessories, such as magazines which hold over 10 rounds. (1) According to Senate Bill 5737, introduced on February 13th by Democrat State Senators Murray, Kohl-Welles and Kline, no one may possess an “assault weapon” or the combination of a semi-automatic pistol or rifle capable of using a detachable magazine AND any magazine that can hold more than 10 rounds of ammo. Happily, however, you ARE allowed to possess an UNLOADED assault weapon “…for the purpose of permanently...

Tennessee police might need better instruction in botany and Buckeye football. A 65-year-old woman recently came under suspicion, she reported, for having a Buckeye leaf decal on her car. The cops mistook it for a marijuana symbol. “It’s just amazing they would be that dumb,” Bonnie Jonas-Boggioni said. She lives in Plano, Texas, but she grew up in Columbus and is known as a lifelong Buckeyes fan.

I am a certified firearms instructor who has taught CCW classes in Arizona since the beginning of the CCW program there in 1994. As we are on the border with California, I watch the developments there with some interest. Unfortunately, nearly everything that I have read and heard about the LAPD and guns has lead me to distrust them. I had numerous students who had dealings with the LAPD. I started hearing stories about how guns were seized, even if there were no crime involved. If an officer came across a gun, it was seized, and it would not be...

A key Senate panel approved legislation Thursday that would require police to obtain a search warrant from a judge before they can read a private citizen's emails, Facebook messages or other electronic communications. The revised Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) passed by the Senate Judiciary Committee will now move on to the full Senate for a vote. Passage would be a victory for privacy advocates, who say current privacy rules have been left in the dust by technological progress. Committee Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), who played a key role in drafting the original bill, has called the existing law,...

<p>The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was written in order to keep the government from invading the right to be left alone--today known as the right to privacy. The Framers who wrote the Constitution, and Jefferson and his colleagues who insisted on the Fourth amendment among others, had suffered grievously at the hands of the British king and his soldiers.</p>