Free Republic

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...