Free Republic

A divided Kansas Supreme Court affirmed Lawrence Hubbard’s misdemeanor convictions in a case demonstrating police officers relying exclusively on olfactory skills to detect raw marijuana can supply probable cause to support search of a residence. The decision by the high court extended to a private residence the accepted principle in Kansas that a trained and experienced officer’s detection of the aroma of marijuana could justify the legal search of a vehicle. The ruling also resolved conflicting Kansas Court of Appeals decisions. Supreme Court justices, on a 4-3 vote, rejected arguments put forth by Hubbard’s attorney, including questions about whether Lawrence...

This week, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument in a case that may rein in abusive property seizures by state and local governments through the highly controversial legal tool known as civil asset forfeiture. The case at issue involves a man named Tyson Timbs, who sold $225 worth of heroin to undercover police officers on two occasions, as a means of raising money to support his own drug habit. Police arrested Timbs while he was driving to a third drug deal, and he ultimately pleaded guilty. He was sentenced to a year of home confinement and five years of...

The Fourth Amendment broadly guarantees that Americans should be free from government intrusion in their homes and private lives and that infringements on these rights must come with the justification of a warrant or probable cause. These guarantees and protections form the basis of property protections and a right to privacy both of which are fundamental to individual liberty. In 2015, Kavanaugh went out of his way to minimize these protections. During his tenure on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, he issued a separate concurrence in the denial of a rehearing en banc in Klayman v....

The National Security Agency said Thursday it collected more domestic call records than allowed, and as a result has been mass-deleting call records across a three-year period. The NSA said in a statement that on May 23 it "began deleting all call detail records (CDRs) acquired since 2015 under Title V of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act." Weeks before the deletions began, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence reported that the NSA acquired more than 534 million domestic call records in 2017, triple the amount collected in 2016.

The porn actress Stormy Daniels is expected to attend a court hearing in New York on Monday where a U.S. judge is hearing more arguments about President Donald Trump’s extraordinary request that he be allowed to review records seized from his personal lawyer’s office as part of a criminal investigation before they are examined by prosecutors. The raid carried out last Monday at Michael Cohen’s apartment, hotel room, office and safety deposit box sought bank records, records on Cohen’s dealing in the taxi industry, Cohen’s communications with the Trump campaign and information on payments made in 2016 to former Playboy...

The Supreme Court has ruled in favor of a police officer who shot a woman outside of her home in Tucson, Arizona in May 2010. The officer, Andrew Kisela, shot Amy Hughes after she was seen acting "erratically," hacking at a tree with a knife and arguing with her roommate.Kisela and another police officer, Alex Garcia, heard about the report on their patrol car radio and responded. A third police officer, Lindsay Kunz, arrived on the scene on her bicycle.  All three officers drew their guns. At least twice they told Hughes to drop the knife. Viewing the record in...

Clinton paid Russians for known lies that top 0bama Administration officials used to lie to the FISA Court so that they could violate Americans' 4th Amendment Rights. Let's name names in this conspiracy. Who exactly, by name and title, knew that the dossier was fake, and that it was presented to the FISA Court as if it was real? Those people need to be indicted. Let's name them, and have them start quaking in their boots.

You can expect many links to sources in this report, as I have found it difficult to get straight answers on this subject. For the most part, it has gone unreported by MSM. The only reason I found reference to it at all, is the fact I am following the Russia investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. First of all, I want to start out by listing links to information concerning a finding by a FISA Court judge on the illegal spying by the NSA,FBI, and the Obama Justice Department on the Trump Team. 1.http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/national-security/article152947909.html QUOTE The document, signed by...

President Trump is moving to revive the watchdog agency that oversees major surveillance programs, but some privacy advocates see his pick to lead it as overly deferential to the intelligence community. Adam Klein, nominated Friday to serve as chairman of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, has taken sides in one of the biggest policy debates this year: whether authorities need a warrant to search American communications collected "incidentally" under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which expires later this year unless Congress acts.

What if the federal government captures in real time the contents of every telephone call, email and text message and all the fiber-optic data generated by every person and entity in the United States 24/7/365? What if this mass surveillance was never authorized by any federal law? What if Congress has written laws that all presidents have sworn to uphold and that require a warrant issued by a judge before the NSA can spy on anyone but Mr. Bush effectively told the NSA to go through the motions of getting a warrant while spying without warrants on everyone in the...

Just months after President Trump complained about being spied on by the Obama administration, his administration is embracing a full permanent extension of the secret snooping powers the government used to track conversations between his campaign aides and Russian operatives. Mr. Trump’s intelligence and counterterrorism team said Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act has saved hundreds of lives by preventing terrorist attacks and insisted — despite Mr. Trump’s claimed experiences — that the law is not being abused. “Simply put, the use of this authority has helped save lives,” Thomas P. Bossert, President Trump’s top counterterrorism adviser, wrote...

The Supreme Court has accepted a challenge to the warrantless collection of historical cellphone location data in a case that could curtail U.S. government surveillance and expand American privacy rights. The case, Carpenter v. U.S., was granted certiorari Monday on appeal from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, which found that police did not need a warrant based on probable cause to collect 127 days of cellphone records from MetroPCS and Sprint. Timothy Carpenter was found guilty of participating in six Michigan robberies after the government said those cellphone records – which included calls made and geographic...

Congress shouldn’t reauthorize the government’s most potent snooping powers until it imposes stronger safeguards for Americans, a key conservative lawmaker said in response to a judge’s ruling that U.S. intelligence agencies tried to hide potential breaches of privacy rights. Rep. Raul R. Labrador, Idaho Republican, said Judge Rosemary M. Collyer’s April ruling is the latest in a string of warning signs that federal agencies need more oversight before Congress renews their broad powers under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. In particular, Mr. Labrador and several colleagues want to know how often Americans’ information is scooped up and...

Christopher Wheeler, who is awaiting trial for child abuse, was taken into custody in a Broward Court on Tuesday for not providing a working iPhone pass code to police. David Ovalle dovalle@miamiherald.com A Hollywood man must serve 180 days in jail for refusing to give up his iPhone password to police, a Broward judge ruled Tuesday — the latest salvo in intensifying legal battles over law-enforcement access to smart phones. Christopher Wheeler, 41, was taken into custody in a Broward Circuit Court, insisting he had already provided the pass code to police investigating him for child abuse, although the number...

IImagine you are in the middle of your typical day-to-day activities. Maybe you are driving, spending time with family, or working. If you are like most people, your phone is at your side on a daily basis. Little do you know that, at any time, police and law enforcement could be looking at information stored on your phone. You haven't done anything wrong. You haven't been asked for permission. You aren't suspected of any crime. The StingRay Police have the power to collect your location along with the numbers of your incoming and outgoing calls and intercept the content of...

County officials in western Colorado have regularly lambasted Planning 2.0 and this week, Garfield County joined in with five other counties in the western United States considering suing to halt the rule, which they have criticized as a central-planning measure. The BLM this month announced that the rule was final and on Monday, Garfield County agreed to spend as much as $40,000 with the Texas-based property-rights organization, the American Stewards of Liberty, to halt it. While Garfield County is taking an active role, Mesa County officials are looking to Congress and a Republican administration under President-elect Donald Trump to deal...

The Fourth Amendment is still alive and well, thanks in part to a recent ruling from the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. In a Nov. 8 opinion, the court overruled a lower court decision and held that an Iraq War veteran, 1st Sgt. Matthew Corrigan, may pursue his claim for monetary damages against the District of Columbia and certain individual police officers after those officers violated his Fourth Amendment rights by ransacking his house—twice.

U.S. Gun-Show Customers’ License Plates Come Under Scrutiny Federal agents enlisted local police to scan cars’ plates at shows’ parking lots By Devlin Barrett Oct. 2, 2016 7:35 p.m. ET Federal agents have persuaded police officers to scan license plates to gather information about gun-show customers, government emails show, raising questions about how officials monitor constitutionally protected activity. Emails reviewed by The Wall Street Journal show agents with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency crafted a plan in 2010 to use license-plate readers—devices that record the plate numbers of all passing cars—at gun shows in Southern California, including one in...

Authorities might find a way to access a dead man’s phone If you believe that securing your phone with a fingerprint makes it impossible to hack, think again. Michigan police have recently asked the Michigan State University to produce a 3D replica of a dead man’s fingers in order to access his iPhone and collect data that is believed to contain evidence linked to an ongoing murder case.Professor Anil Jain has been tasked with creating the 3D molds, and according to a report by Fusion, the project is advancing well so far, although in-lab testing is still being performed, and it’s...

Donald Trump reacts to the police shootings in Dallas in a speech on veterans issues in Virginia Beach, Virginia.