Free Republic

Not long ago, Americans feared and ridiculed the police states cursing too many parts of the world. We worried that they might one day conquer us despite their poverty and general misery even as we mocked their totalitarian tactics — especially their “Papers, please” mentality.  Indeed, being forced to prove one’s identity to a bureaucrat on demand, having to carry and produce documents with personal information for his approval — or condemnation — seemed especially horrifying. One of our classic films, Casablanca, revolved around the deadly hassles of obtaining or forging such papers under the Nazis; episodes of Mission Impossible...

So as it turns out, even the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service has its own SWAT team. You don’t need to know. You can’t know.” That’s what Kathy Norris, a 60-year-old grandmother of eight, was told when she tried to ask court officials why, the day before, federal agents had subjected her home to a furious search. The agents who spent half a day ransacking Mrs. Norris’ longtime home in Spring, Texas, answered no questions while they emptied file cabinets, pulled books off shelves, rifled through drawers and closets, and threw the contents on the floor. The six agents, wearing...

Sara was late for work. The alarm clock didn't alarm, the kids were unusually slow getting ready for school, and nothing went right. She finally got to her car -- a brand new 2020 Chevy Adventure. She touched the finger-print secured start button. Nothing. It wouldn't start. She touched it again. Nothing. Furious, she banged the steering wheel with her fist. Then she noticed the paper hanging from the receipt printer on the dash. "Your designated visa account rejected your Road Use Tax in the amount of $87.32 for the month of June, 2020. You must insert a valid account...

The US Supreme Court has ruled that school staff broke the law when they ordered a 13-year-old girl to strip while searching her for painkillers. The Arizona school, which bans prescription and over-the-counter drugs, suspected Savana Redding, then 13, of carrying ibuprofen. After no drugs were found in her bag, she had to remove her clothing, and then move her bra and underwear. However, the court said individuals could not be held liable in a lawsuit. The school principal acted on a tip-off from another student that Savana was carrying ibuprofen. Justice David Souter said: "What was missing from the...

The National Security Agency is facing renewed scrutiny over the extent of its domestic surveillance program, with critics in Congress saying its recent intercepts of the private telephone calls and e-mail messages of Americans are broader than previously acknowledged, current and former officials said. Brendan Smialowski for The New York Times Representative Rush Holt Readers' Comments Readers shared their thoughts on this article. Read All Comments (170) » The agency’s monitoring of domestic e-mail messages, in particular, has posed longstanding legal and logistical difficulties, the officials said. Since April, when it was disclosed that the intercepts of some private communications...

APS police have a wealth of tips to prevent things like student fights and illegal activity—and they're getting the information from students' personal web pages. At Albuquerque High, there are three police officers on campus watching over about 1,900 students. What the officers have discovered is that patrolling in cyberspace can be as or more effective than patrolling the hallways. When Sgt. Paul Schaefer isn't in the hallways, he's at his desk checking students' MySpace and Facebook pages for any threats or hints of violence that could be around the corner. "Anytime something is going on, usually we find out...

I live in a small town in Southern Maine. Last week I encountered the local police in the process of setting up a roadblock/checkppoint on one of the more heavily-travelled county roads. It was mid-afternoon - not your usual midnight sobriety checkpoint. Apparently the reason for the checkpoint was to screen motorists/vehicles/drivers/passengers for any and all possible violations. My son later drove past the checkpoint from the other direction and saw one of his friends standing outside his vehicle while police searched it. Unknown whether that was a "probable cause" or "consent" search. Several days before that I went to...

I live in a small town in Southern Maine. Last week I encountered the local police in the process of setting up a roadblock/checkppoint on one of the more heavily-travelled county roads. It was mid-afternoon - not your usual midnight sobriety checkpoint. Apparently the reason for the checkpoint was to screen motorists/vehicles/drivers/passengers for any and all possible violations. My son later drove past the checkpoint from the other direction and saw one of his friends standing outside his vehicle while police searched it. Unknown whether that was a "probable cause" or "consent" search. Several days before that I went to...

... Military vehicles were used as the state oil company seized supply boats and two US-owned gas facilities...

It is truly amazing how much news the American news media chooses to ignore. If one wants to discover what is actually going on in the world, he or she often has to go to the foreign press. This has again been the case with a story that every American should be extremely interested in, but which has been totally ignored by the American news media. I found this story in Russia Today. According to RussiaToday.com, "The personal computer may soon be not-so-private, with the U.S. and some European nations working on laws allowing them access to search the content...

I told them I was a US citizen. I told them I was on a business trip. I told them I had no drugs or humans in the car. That wasn't enough. They wanted to search the car, and I invoked my 4th am...

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, 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.

Summary via Slashdot: "The US Supreme Court has agreed to review a case involving the strip-searching of a 13 year-old girl who was accused of possessing prescription-strength ibuprofen on school grounds, in violation of the school's zero-tolerance drug policy. The case has gained national attention because of the defining role it will play in determining which, if any, parts of the Constitution apply on school grounds. In Morse v. Frederick, the Supreme Court has already upheld the right of school administrators to restrict students' free speech at school-sponsored events that take place off school property. The school described the strip-search...

Jangir Sultan has had enough. The native New Yorker sued the New York Police Department Thursday, accusing police of targeting him for subway bag searches 21 times because he looks like he's from the Middle East. The NYPD started what it said was a race-neutral bag search program in July 2005, after suicide bombings killed 52 people on London's subway and bus system. The New York Civil Liberties Union challenged the practice in court, calling it ineffective and an intrusion on privacy, but a federal appeals court upheld the inspections' constitutionality and called them "reasonably effective." The NYPD has said...

COMEDIAN Steve Martin once explained how to make a million dollars without paying taxes. First, you make a million dollars. Then, you don't pay taxes. If the IRS finds out, you explain: "I forgot." Then, if that's not enough, you say, "Well, excuuuse me!"  This approach was offered in jest, but these days it's looking pretty promising. Treasury Secretary nominee Timothy Geithner seems to be pulling it off in the tax arena even as I write this, and now the Supreme Court, in its just-released decision in Herring v. United States, has ruled that simple negligence by police - in...

(11-24) 16:23 PST SAN FRANCISCO -- Police who stop a car without a legal reason may be allowed to use evidence they find in the vehicle against the driver or a passenger, the state Supreme Court ruled Monday. The court unanimously reinstated the drug conviction and four-year prison sentence of a Northern California man whose previous appeal in the case led to a U.S. Supreme Court decision on passengers' rights. The case dates from Nov. 27, 2001, when a Sutter County sheriff's deputy stopped a car in Yuba City just after midnight. The car's registration had expired, but the owner...

All officers involved were fired or quit The raid on Russell's Tire Shop had the look of a successful garden-variety drug bust. Acting on an informant's tip, police stormed the building on North Galvez Street and hauled out three suspects, a bag of heroin, a quarter-ounce of crack cocaine and more than $4,000 in cash. Police say they found the evidence in plain sight. But 11 months after the August 2002 bust, prosecutors dropped the charges. And this June, attorneys for the city offered the men accused of dealing the drugs $85,000 to settle a lawsuit that alleged the four...

Government Must Get a Warrant Before Seizing Cell Phone Location Records San Francisco - In an unprecedented victory for cell phone privacy, a federal court has affirmed that cell phone location information stored by a mobile phone provider is protected by the Fourth Amendment and that the government must obtain a warrant based on probable cause before seizing such records.The Department of Justice (DOJ) had asked the federal court in the Western District of Pennsylvania to overturn a magistrate judge's decision requiring the government to obtain a warrant for stored location data, arguing that the government could obtain such information...

Folks, I'm so mad I can't see straight and I hope the smarter(than me) people here at FR can advise us on this. At school registration we got a handout informing us about a change to school policy. Starting this school year, any student who wishes to participate in any extra curricular or co-curricular activities must consent to random drug testing! Needless to say I was 'stuned' and speechless. We're not a big metropolitan school district, we're a very small, rural school. This was apparently done during a closed session of the school board's meeting over the summer. As far...

... The United States is the only country to take the position that some police misconduct must automatically result in the suppression of physical evidence. The rule applies whether the misconduct is slight or serious, and without regard to the gravity of the crime or the power of the evidence. “Foreign countries have flatly rejected our approach,” said Craig M. Bradley, an expert in comparative criminal law at Indiana University. “In every other country, it’s up to the trial judge to decide whether police misconduct has risen to the level of requiring the exclusion of evidence.” But there are signs...

A former youth pastor accused of secretly taping Bible study students changing clothes in his Ellenton home has pleaded no contest to nine counts of voyeurism. Matthew C. Porter, 31, of Ellenton, is scheduled be sentenced on the misdemeanor charges at the Manatee County Judicial Center on Aug. 21. He faces up to nine years in prison if sentenced consecutively on the charges, Assistant State Attorney Erica Arend said Friday. The maximum sentence for misdemeanor voyeurism is one year in jail. Porter resigned from Bethel Baptist Church after admitting he secretly videotaped his students ages 12-16, according to the Manatee...

Sheriff's detectives conducted a proper search of the home of a youth pastor even without a warrant, a Manatee County judge ruled Thursday. The ruling shot down a defense challenge and now means prosecutors can use videotapes and hidden cameras seized in the voyeurism investigation last year. Authorities did not need a warrant to search the home of Bethel Baptist Church youth pastor Matthew C. Porter because a friend who had been house-sitting agreed to let detectives inspect Porter's home in Ellenton, Manatee County Judge George K. Brown Jr. determined. The detectives, the judge said, acted reasonably. Investigators say Porter,...

Holiday DUI suspects risk forced blood test Court's OK likely if breath exam is refused Wednesday, July 2, 2008 9:35 PM By Kathy Lynn Gray THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH Suspected drunken drivers won't be able to "just say no" to blood-alcohol tests in Columbus over the Fourth of July holiday weekend. Police have set up a "no-refusal weekend," meaning that anyone who refuses to take a breath-analysis test will face a blood test instead, courtesy of two local judges on call to sign warrants. Officers will take suspects to a local hospital to await the warrant and the blood draw. Ohio...

HT: TradenCheese This is an excellent commentary by Judge Andrew Napolitano, who appears on FOXNews regularly. Please note the audio is a little lacking but you’ll have little problem hearing the words of truth. I do not know when this was first aired. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvu12z832Xc

STAPLES HUGHES, a North Carolina lawyer, was on the witness stand and about to disclose a secret he believed would free an innocent man from prison. But the judge told Mr. Hughes to stop. "If you testify," Judge Jack A. Thompson said at a hearing last year on the prisoner’s request for a new trial, "I will be compelled to report you to the state bar. Do you understand that?" But Mr. Hughes continued. Twenty-two years before, he said, a client, now dead, confessed that he had acted alone in committing a double murder for which another man was also...

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Monday that border control agents who found child porn on a traveler's laptop didn't violate the man's right to be free from unreasonable searches. "We are satisfied that reasonable suspicion is not needed for customs officials to search a laptop or other personal electronic storage devices at the border," Judge Diarmuid O'Scannlain wrote. O'Scannlain went on to say that the defendant "has failed to distinguish how the search of his laptop and its electronic contents is logically any different from the suspicionless border searches of travelers' luggage that the Supreme Court and...

At about 9:30 a.m. agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms attempt to execute arrest and search warrants against David KORESH and the Branch Davidian compound. Gunfire erupts. Four ATF agents are killed and 16 are wounded. An undetermined number of Davidians are killed and injured. Within a few hours, the FBI becomes the lead agency for resolving the standoff. Jeff JAMAR is named the on-site commander. By the afternoon, advance units of the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team (HRT) arrive, and telephone conversations are under way between KORESH, Steve SCHNEIDER, and Wayne MARTIN on one side and the...

Spychief Mike McConnell is drafting a plan to protect America’s cyberspace that will raise privacy issues and make the current debate over surveillance law look like “a walk in the park,” McConnell tells The New Yorker in the issue set to hit newsstands Monday. “This is going to be a goat rope on the Hill. My prediction is that we’re going to screw around with this until something horrendous happens.” ....in order to accomplish his plan, the government must have the ability to read all the information crossing the Internet in the United States in order to protect it from...

STAPLES — Dennis Elam knew he wasn’t cut out to be a city dweller during the one month he lived in San Marcos with his new wife, Brenda, after they were married in 1963. “I’ve got to have my horse. They won’t let me keep him in an apartment,” Elam said. The problem for Elam and his family is that the State Highway 130 construction contractor and the property acquisition firm has tapped the 57 acres they live and work cattle on and it is smack in the middle of the path of the highway where it will connect with...

Some readers have asked me to re-visit a few of my concerns regarding the Trans-Texas Corridor or TTC, because I have mentioned the project in my last two columns. Recently, I introduced what I like to call Nosygate. I think that is an appropriate name for the advertising campaign and subsequent information gathering effort, by a private company, on behalf of the Texas Department of Transportation or TxDOT. A brief re-cap is probably in order. Unsuspecting motorists had their license tag numbers photographed while traveling and minding their own business. Their tag numbers were then traced to their home address.Their...

There have been an increasing number of police departments allowing their officers to draw blood samples from motorists under suspicion of a DUI/DWI. This takes place on the roadside as opposed to a hospital where there are trained medical professionals. It seems like a recipe for disaster to allow officers to do blood draws when they do not have adequate medical training. This has proven true in Arizona recently where a lawsuit has been filed to stop this practice. According to Scripps News, a man developed a persistent infection at the site of a blood draw administered by a Pima...

Four men who say Portland police ran roughshod over their constitutional rights are taking their cases to court. Monday their attorneys called for independent investigators to review complaints against police and for the mayor and chief to curb what they called officers' "dirty tactics." Portland Police Bureau spokesman Sgt. Brian Schmautz said he couldn't comment on pending litigation. One of the four cases is documented by the videotape which is at the heart of the complaint: Frank Waterhouse is suing for unlawful seizure with excessive force, alleging that police fired a Taser and bean bag rounds at him on May...

Cameras tucked into orange barrels videotaped the license plates of thousands of drivers on Interstate 35 as part of a Texas Department of Transportation study of the busy highway, officials said. The 21 camera points scattered along the I-35 corridor between Dallas and Mexico included two in Central Texas, one north of Round Rock and the other in Kyle. The cameras caught both north- and southbound cars, agency spokeswoman Gaby Garcia said. Critics of last month's study questioned whether it invaded motorists' privacy. But Garcia said the study and others planned for the future are vital to transportation planning and...

Right before Giuliani took his "impromptu" call during the NRA speech, he was discussing the second amendment. However, when discussing the second amendment's language, he mistakenly began to paraphrase the fourth amendment instead! Then he answered the phone and changed the subject. Here's the transcript, followed by the video: "After all the second amendment is a freedom every bit as important as the other freedoms in the first ten amendments. Just think of the language of it -- 'the people shall be secure' --let's see, this is my wife calling..." (talks to and about his wife) (then he resumes with...

It's now leaking out that there was more going on than met the eye at the Security and Prosperity Partnership Summit in Montebello, Canada, in August. The three amigos - President George W. Bush, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Mexican President Felipe Calderon - finalized and released the "North American Plan for Avian & Pandemic Influenza." The "Plan" - that's what they call it, with a capital P - is to use the excuse of a major flu epidemic to shift powers from U.S. legislatures to unelected, unaccountable "North American" bureaucrats. This idea was launched on Sept. 14, 2005,...

Former "blogging pedophile" Jack McClellan has been released from jail, following his arrest last week for violating a restraining order in California. His release follows the prediction of observers in law enforcement, child advocacy, and the judicial system who think it will be difficult to take effective or even constitutional steps against McClellan to protect children. The 45-year-old self-professed pedophile was arrested August 13 for violating a three-year restraining order that required him to stay 30 feet away from all children. He was being held in jail with a $150,000 bail bond. But according to Associated Press, he was released...

California Supreme Court Overturns Car Seizure Ordinance The California Supreme Court says cities may no longer seize automobiles from people merely accused of a crime. In a 4-3 opinion yesterday, the California Supreme Court ruled illegal the city of Stockton's program to seize automobiles from motorists not convicted of any crime. Under the city's ordinance, police could impound the vehicle of anyone accused of using it "to solicit an act of prostitution, or to acquire or attempt to acquire any controlled substance." The city could then hold the car for up to a year without hearing, trial or any finding...

The federal government can no longer seize and read e-mail without a search warrant, a federal appeals court ruled Monday. Americans, the court said, have the same reasonable expectation of privacy for e-mail as they do telephone calls and snail mail. The unanimous decision of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upholds a district court ruling that the government cannot use the federal Stored Communications Act (SCA) to secretly obtain stored e-mail without a warrant or prior notice to the e-mail account holder. "We have little difficulty agreeing with the district court that individuals maintain a reasonable expectation of...

Even as Fourth Amendment guarantees against unreasonable searches and seizures erode in this post-9/11 era, sometimes the courts still protect the rights of ordinary citizens. A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Court of Appeals last Monday unanimously upheld a $138,000 jury verdict in federal court against three Tacoma, Wash., police officers for reckless or malicious violation of a homeowner's rights. They broke down the back door of Susan Frunz's home with no warrant and no announcement of their presence, pointed a gun within inches of her forehead, slammed her and two guests to the floor, handcuffed them and held...

Once more into the Fourth Amendment breach, dear friends! In the pending case of Florida v. Rabb , the Supreme Court has a splendid opportunity to affirm the maxim that a man's house is his home -- and that he has a right to grow a passel of pot in his attic. Well, not exactly. By taking the case -- or better yet, by not taking it -- the high court could strike a blow for strict enforcement of a constitutional freedom as old as Magna Carta. These are the facts: In April 2002, an anonymous informant advised the Broward...

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety" - Benjamin FranklinThe response was predictable. After sending our alert last Thursday regarding the passing of the Military Commissions Act, we received a flood of email. Many were supportive, but others took exception: "Don't you care that terrorists want to kill us?" "Olbermann's obviously a left-wing nut who wants conservatives out of power." "The act isn't that bad..." It is bemusing to watch certain conservatives -- conservatives who once screamed that Bill Clinton was going to suspend the Constitution, establish martial law,...

The Fourth Amendment to our Constitution protects Americans against "unreasonable searches and seizures" and against warrants being issued without "probable cause" that they have done something wrong. While most Americans who might be familiar with this portion of our Bill of Rights probably consider its protections to apply only to criminals and therefore of little consequence to them, the Fourth Amendment actually provides vital protection to all Americans, not just "criminals." In fact, its prefatory language makes this clear, explicitly providing that its goal is to assure that the "right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses,...

They are meant to reduce crime by helping police spot problems. By the end of the year, 40 cameras will cover 31 locations in the area. It's part of a plan first announced in January by Dallas Police. Grant money will cover the 840-thousand dollar price tag for the cameras. Police will monitor the cameras from their headquarters and City Hall. Some residents feel apprehensive about the surveillance, seeing it as an invasion of privacy. But others say the cameras could help curb petty crime and random violence.

(New Haven-WTNH, Sept. 19, 2006 10:45 PM) _ A student's refusal to walk through a safety detector earns him a trip home. For some the installation of metal detectors in schools is to better protect those inside. One New Haven student is refusing to walk the walk, questioning whether his rights are being violated. The district says it is like the right to enter a courtroom or get on a plane. It's new policy to keep young people safe. For this New Haven student it's all about his fourth amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. Nick...

In New Jersey, one's home is not one's castle after all. The real castle, it turns out, is the car. The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled 4-3 yesterday that police do not need a reason to ask permission to search someone's home. The same court four years ago issued rules saying police must have a good reason before asking motorists if they can search their cars. Yesterday the court said the rules for cars -- which prohibit police from asking motorists if they can conduct a search unless they have "a reasonable and articulable suspicion" of criminal activity -- are...

Hundreds of drivers who ran red lights while making turns at intersections newly monitored by cameras have not been issued tickets because of a loophole in the photo-enforcement ordinance. "The way the current city ordinance is written, turns are excluded, even if they are illegal turns," said Houston police Sgt. Michael Muench. Traffic officers reviewed more than 1,000 violations caught on camera during the first two weeks of the program, the police department reported. A third were thrown out, many because the driver was making a right or left turn while running the light, Muench said. Muench was unable to...

Based on reading the USDA’s draft proposal for the National Animal Identification System some people are wondering how the USDA is going to tag all the wild animals that fall within the working species groups that must be tracked. The USDA says we don’t have to tag the wild animals. That is good to know... It is the year 2009, February 22nd, the birthday of General George Washington. Today it is a bit windy and the cold is biting here on the eastern slope of Sugar Mountain in northern Vermont. The USDA shows up at my doorstep demanding to know...

TAMPA, Fla. -- Security "pat-downs" of fans at Tampa Bay Buccaneers games are unconstitutional and unreasonable, a federal judge ruled Friday, throwing into question the practice at NFL games nationwide. U.S. District Judge James D. Whittemore issued an order siding with a Bucs season-ticket holder who had sued to stop the fan searches that began last season after the NFL implemented enhanced security measures. High school civics teacher Gordon Johnson sued the Tampa Sports Authority, which operates the stadium, to stop officials from conducting the "suspicionless" searches. A state judge agreed with Johnston that the searches are likely unconstitutional and...

U.S. Senate Bids to Ban Emergency Gun Confiscation But one prominent Democrat, among others, is opposed Updated: July 24th, 2006 05:07 PM PDT Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA) charges a Republican-backed amendment that prohibits the confiscation of guns during an emergency puts police officers and first responders in danger. The amendment, sponsored by Sen. David Vitter (R-LA), was added to the Homeland Security appropriations bill during a July 13 Senate vote. During the rescue and response after Hurricane Katrina police officers and first responders had to pull back from rescuing victims because they were being shot at by snipers. The amendment...

“Settled law� is a term that liberal jurists reserve mostly for their own use, a seal of finality best left for them to fix on any principle. Ages of precedents are casually disregarded to obtain precedents to their liking, but from that moment on stare decisis is everything, the new doctrine enshrined in law and never again to be doubted. Somehow, though, the doubts keep coming, and most recently centered on the Supreme Court case of Hudson v. Michigan and the settled matter of the exclusionary rule. Acting on a warrant, Detroit police in 1998 arrived at the door of...