John's talk about home searches

[Timmy G]

John's talk about home searches

Complaints and allegations of heavy-handed actions by terror investigators are on the rise, according to data compiled by the inspector general at the Department of Justice. The office has received nearly 5,200 such complaints with increasing frequency since Sept. 11, 2001, ranging from allegations of excessive force and illegal detention to 'illegal searches of personal residences and property by FBI agents,' according to reports from the office to Congress.

Retiring Attorney General John Ashcroft has been a lightning rod of criticism over civil liberties, though no domestic terror attacks occurred on his watch.

Five government anti-terrorism agents arrived at the door of Nancy Swift's modest home in a northern Virginia suburb last August, where Swift lives and rents out some rooms. They threatened her with a subpoena. They dispatched agents to her office to ask about her. They took away her garbage in the trunks of their cars, and they questioned one of her housemates.

Swift said she has no idea if her house has been searched or her phones have been tapped. The USA Patriot Act makes it easier for agents to do both without notifying citizens. Swift said that Poole, the ATF agent, did ask her to use a regular telephone line as opposed to a cell phone when she called his office.

'With knowledge of the Patriot Act and knowing that everything can be surveyed now, I feel like I'm living in a fishbowl, even thought I may not be,' Swift said. 'I'd like to know whether I still have privacy in my life. It is a very eerie feeling.'

Timothy Lynch, director of the Project on Criminal Justice at the libertarian CATO Institute, said agents are in a tough spot. They want to act aggressively to thwart terrorists, but still be careful of civil liberties. Lynch said tactics like the ones used in Swift's case, while legal, can border on intimidation.

Complete Article Here

 

[Judge Bean]

John's talk about home searches

Originally posted by Darkwolf@Nov 20 2004, 12:54 AM


A, to detain and \"Terry search\" somone the officer must have reasonable suspicion that they are up to something. \"He just didn't look right\" won't cut it.

Wanna bet?

B Taking a gun off of somone during a contact is not confiscation. It is just putting the gun where they can't immediatly use it. Unless they are illeagally in posession of the weapon, or carrying it concealed without a permit, the officer has to give it back. In fact even if the contactee is arrested, they can get their weapon back upon their release.

Not in my County.

The case we are discussing involves officers entering somone's home, and confiscating his property beacause he is not allowed to posess it due to legal action that was not a conviction. That is a clear violation of the fourth and second ammendments.

​

Not so clear. "Not allowed to possess" = illegal. The Fourth applies to the States; the Second does not, because the federal courts are lazy and stupid. In addition, the Supreme Court has failed to make the decision whether the right to keep and bear arms is a fundamental individual right, and the majority of lower courts have decided that it is not.

Soon, the Fourth will be shot so full of holes it will resemble an Irish lace tablecloth.

 

[CaryP]

John's talk about home searches

They have SWAT guys making traffic stops?? Where do you live?

I live in south, Louisiana Darkwolf. I was just leaving my Lafayette office when I was pulled over. Yeah, I found it very weird. It's not like I was causing accidents, running lights, or speeding. He just didn't like that I changed lanes in front of him is my guess. I've been pulled over before, but I've never been asked if I had a weapon in the car, which is considered your "home" in Louisiana. I can understand an officer wanting to hold your weapon while in an interview, conversation, whatever, if the weapon is out or easily accessible. But we were standing at the back of my vehicle when he asked me about the weapon. My car was turned off and the doors were all closed. I had already produced my license, registration and proof of insurance. I was being respectful, polite and addressing the officer as "sir." I was dressed in a suit and tie. My point is, I was not looking or acting like a street thug. I was no threat, and I was not even close to where I could get to the weapon. Why go through the "weapons in your vehicle, sir?" routine? Was this just intimidation, some hot shot cop just feeling his oats, or some new SOP? Weird, very weird.

Cary

 

[Cornelia]

John's talk about home searches

><

Believe me my friends, when it comes on guns rights, Europeans are from Venus and Americans are from Mars.

:lol:

 

[Darkwolf]

John's talk about home searches

Was this just intimidation, some hot shot cop just feeling his oats, or some new SOP? Weird, very weird.

Cary

Hmm, sounds like they do things a little different in LA. I do usually ask people if they have a weapon, but don't usually pull them out of their car at all unless the contact feels hinkey, or I suspect they are drunk. (Especially in this wether)

Paul, we can't confiscate a weapon here unless it was actually used in a crime.

 

[Darkwolf]

John's talk about home searches

(Darkwolf @ Nov 20 2004, 12:54 AM)


A, to detain and \"Terry search\" somone the officer must have reasonable suspicion that they are up to something.? \"He just didn't look right\" won't cut it.?

Wanna bet?

Um, yeagh, you have to be able to articulate why you were suspicious enough of the individual in a report which can be subpeonaed if the person feels his rights have been violated. If you harrass people for no reason, you risk losing everything you own, and those vidio cameras that seem to be anywhere can work for civil lawyers too.

The Fourth applies to the States; the Second does not, because the federal courts are lazy and stupid. In addition, the Supreme Court has failed to make the decision whether the right to keep and bear arms is a fundamental individual right, and the majority of lower courts have decided that it is not.

Well, the second ammendment is probably the most clearly worded ammendment that we have.?
"A well regulated militia being nessisary to the security of a free state, the right of the PEOPLE to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."?

It doesn't even say that "congress shall pass no law "to infringe it.? It says that it shall not be infringed period.? That means that the courts can't, the states can't localities can't.? Nobody can. Any law or ruling that contradicts that is not ligitimate.?
(BTW at the time the word regulated meant orginized and diciplined, not government controlled)? One of the main purposes of the ammendment was to make sure that the citizenry was as well armed as the standing army so that we can defend ourseves from a tyrannical and illigitamete government.? Has this already been violated, yes flagrently.

Believe me my friends, when it comes on guns rights, Europeans are from Venus and Americans are from Mars.

Cornelia, I'm very sorry to hear about whats happening in your country. As to the general feelings about guns there, I fear you might find out the hard way why we Americans feel the way we do. Thats not a rip on you, and I hope you make it through healthy and happy.

Edit: fixed quote tags

 

[Judge Bean]

John's talk about home searches

The Right to be Free of Government Intrusion

"Two officers? boarded a bus bound from Miami to Atlanta during a stopover? Eyeing the passengers, the officers, admittedly without articulable suspicion, picked out the? passenger and asked to inspect his ticket and identification. The ticket? matched the? identification and both were immediately returned to him as unremarkable. However, the two police officers persisted and explained their presence as narcotics agents on the lookout for illegal drugs. In pursuit of that aim, they then requested [his] consent to search his luggage??

and perhaps you know how it ended, in order for it to end up in the Supreme Court. In many cases, due to the excessive number of criminal laws, it is possible to pick out potential defendants in a busload of passengers, and push it until it bears fruit. The ?investigation? is not based on either probable cause, or its weaker cousin, reasonable suspicion, so the question devolves to whether it was an actual ?seizure,? or only a passing ?detention,? or, even more innocuous and commonplace (and thus all the more dangerous to rights) a ?consensual stop? for purposes of identification.

Depending upon the circumstances, too, at this point in the slow destruction of the Amendment occurring in the courts, an officer can stop a person on the street for no reason, depending upon the late hour and character of the neighborhood; can arrest a driver for failing to provide identification; and can search and seize at will and worry about the paperwork later.

There are, in addition to technical exemptions to the rule, a set of ?exigent circumstances,? under which an officer (e.g., in a place where he has the right to be and seeing evidence of a bad in plain view) operates completely outside of the law in order to enforce the penal code. Far more defendants are convicted on technicalities than, under the old saw, ?gotten off on technicalities? by fancy defense attorneys.

Under the present state of the law, it is possible for paramilitary units of ?police? to scramble and descend into a targeted residential block, wearing kevlar and paratroop boots, and toting machineguns and grenades, and detain and interrogate anyone found in one of the houses on the block or walking down the sidewalk. Compare this to Justice Douglas holding in an old ?loitering? case that Americans had the fundamental right to wander aimlessly.

Under an only slightly-altered state of the law, local and federal officers, in combination with U.S. military, can decide that an entire section of a city is a threat to public safety, and descend into it and arrest and transport anyone found there. If a city suffers a terrorist attack, or an attack the source of which cannot be readily determined, persons would be collected and detained without the protections of the Fourth Amendment at the discretion of the military. That may be the day that a great many people understand that the Fourth is not an amendment designed or adapted to use for the benefit of ?criminals? only.

It continues the theme of privacy initiated in the previous amendment, and is this time addressed to the civil authorities. Reflect on other regimes in history in which the civil authorities have set up their own police forces to protect the interests of the sovereign, requiring domestic spying and bullying.

Who benefits from encouraging citizens to be suspicious and wary of one another; from encouraging some to consider themselves morally superior to others, and thus better entitled to rights; from encouraging tough law enforcement as a means of correcting the problem of drugs and repeat offenders? Who benefits from turning citizens against one another? For a people preoccupied with selfdestruction and imprisonment of their neighbors will have no time or attention to devote to selfgovernance.