Free Republic

The whistleblower who leaked details of top-secret US surveillance programmes has disappeared from sight in Hong Kong - with Russia saying it would consider granting him asylum. Edward Snowden, 29, left his hotel on Monday, ahead of a probable attempt by the US government to have him returned to face charges. Mr Snowden, who was a contractor for the National Security Agency (NSA), had admitted giving details of the monitoring of phone calls and internet data, from companies such as Google and Facebook, to The Guardian and Washington Post. He checked out of Hong Kong's Mira Hotel, where he was...

Republi-crats - The Two Parties of Tyranny Dr. David M. Berman www.smellthetruth.com There was a day when Constitutional Americans saw hope in the Republican Party. After years of liberalism, and the four years of the inept, big government administration of President Carter, Reagan was elected. Reagan brought back a sense of belief in the American system of freedom, and personal responsibility. Through the presidency of Ronald Reagan conservatives gave the President a pass on many things because we all saw this as a transition to sanity and doubled our efforts to get the House and Senate into Republican control. We...

Foes of the Transportation Security Agency's new air-screening procedures, including law enforcement-style pat-downs and what have been called "virtual strip searches," had hoped that today's Senate hearing would lead to a privacy outcry on Capitol Hill. Not quite. The hearing quickly cleaved along partisan lines, with Democratic senators applauding the Obama administration and Republicans offering only modest criticism. "Mr. Pistole, you're doing a great job," Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat and chairman of the Senate committee overseeing air travel, told TSA chief John Pistole, a former FBI agent who's had the job since July. For emphasis, Rockefeller added a...

The headline is not from the Onion. Tampa Bay Online reports:With guns drawn and flashlights cutting through darkened rooms, Polk County undercover drug investigators stormed the home of convicted drug dealer Michael Difalco near Lakeland in March.As investigators searched the home for drugs, some drug task force members found other ways to occupy their time. Within 20 minutes of entering Difalco's house, some of the investigators found a Wii video bowling game and began bowling frame after frame.While some detectives hauled out evidence such as flat screen televisions and shotguns, others threw strikes, gutter balls and worked on picking up...

Two children who attended a private Christian school in Wisconsin were illegally strip-searched and had their constitutional rights violated by a state social worker, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously ruled Monday. In Michael C. v. Gresbach, the court said state worker Dana Gresbach violated the children's Fourth Amendment rights to freedom from unreasonable search when she entered Good Hope Christian Academy in Milwaukee, Wis., had the children pulled from the classrooms and told them to remove their clothing when she suspected the parents of spanking in February 2004. Stephen Crampton, vice president of legal affairs and general counsel...

WASHINGTON -- The House rejected a liberal Democrat's bid to undercut a recent Supreme Court decision permitting evidence obtained in violation of the "knock and announce" rule to be used at trial. The vote came two weeks after the court ruled that evidence seized by police with a warrant who barge into homes even if they don't knock can be used in court. By a 310-109 vote, the House rejected an amendment by Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y., blocking the Justice Department from obtaining evidence in violation of the knock and announce rule. The vote came as the House debated a...

A Stockbridge couple whose home was mistakenly raided by Henry County Police last year as they sought a drug suspect is seeking $8 million in damages from the incident. In a lawsuit filed last month in Superior Court against county officials and police, Roy and Belinda Baker say they were roused out of bed by police who used a battering ram to knock down their door and threw concussive grenades into their home around 1 a.m. Sept. 30. “The Law Enforcement Defendants accosted the Bakers in the hallway to their bedroom, where they had been sleeping, and yelled at the...

AP) SAN FRANCISCO Police may enter Californians' homes without warrants to arrest those suspected of driving under the influence, the California Supreme Court ruled Thursday in a case testing the scope of the Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. The 6-1 decision follows similar rulings in about a dozen other states. A dissenting justice said the majority handed authorities a "free pass" to unlawfully enter private homes and arrest people without warrants. Under the Fourth Amendment, authorities are prohibited from entering a home and making an arrest without a warrant unless so-called "exigent" circumstances are...