Showing posts with label search and seizure. Show all posts
Showing posts with label search and seizure. Show all posts

Never Consent To A Warrantless Search

from the Beaufort Observer.      Most of our regular readers know that police must have probable cause to search and seize evidence. They cannot search just because they want to and then use what they find to charge a person for a crime. Or so that is the way it is supposed to be. But as we have reported often, there are some crooked cops among   ... MORE

What Americans Need to Know About the History of Spying

Spying has always been used to crush dissent.    Americans are told that we live in a “post-9/11 reality” that requires mass surveillance. But the NSA was already conducting mass surveillance prior to 9/11 … including surveillance on the 9/11 hijackers. And top security experts – including the highest-level government officials and the     ... MORE

Get A Warrant!: John Roberts Gives The Cops A Benchslap

by Damon Root.     High Court decides police must obey the Fourth Amendment. The Fourth Amendment protects our "persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures." Today, in the case of Riley v. California, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that this constitutional protection extends to     ... MORE

Supreme Court Marches in Lockstep with the Police State

by John W. Whitehead.       The U.S. Supreme Court was intended to be an institution established to intervene and protect the people against the government and its agents when they overstep their bounds. Yet as I point out in my book A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, Americans can no longer rely on the courts to     ... MORE

NSA's Warrantless Searches On Americans

by Spencer Ackerman and James Ball.      US intelligence chiefs have confirmed that the National Security Agency has used a "back door" in surveillance law to perform warrantless searches on Americans’ communications. The NSA's collection programs are ostensibly targeted at foreigners, but in August the Guardian revealed a secret rule   ... MORE

Andrew Napolitano: Probable Cause Is Too Hard For NSA

Back to the days of general warrants.     The demise of individual liberty. Except for the definition and mechanism of proving treason, no area of the Constitution addressing the rights of all persons when the government is pursuing them is more specific than the Fourth Amendment. The linchpin of that specificity is the requirement   ... MORE

John W Whitehead: A Military Plot To Take Over America

Fifty Years Later, Was the Mission Accomplished?       Director John Frankenheimer’s 1964 political thriller Seven Days in May is a clear warning to beware of martial law packaged as a well meaning and overriding concern for the nation’s security. Yet 50 years later, we find ourselves hostages to a government run more by military     ... MORE

Damon Root: Supreme Court To Rule On Cell Phone Privacy

Will High Court say yes to warrantless searches?     The Fourth Amendment protects our “persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.” That includes the cell phones in our pockets, and the many private messages, photos, and videos those devices contain. But what happens if we get arrested for a    ... MORE

Cops Go Car To Car Conducting Warrantless Searches

Twelve lanes of traffic brought to standstill.      Thousands of motorists were brought to a standstill when police conducted a massive roadblock to find three crime suspects.  Twelve lanes of traffic were shut down and swarms of armed government agents combed through a giant traffic jam performing warrantless vehicle-to-vehicle searches.   ... MORE

Lawrence M. Ludlow: TSA = Thousands Of Sexual Assailants

The degradation of travel.     Ever since the blowback retaliation of 9/11, the government has subjected people trapped in the United States with a constant stream of propaganda, war-making tax-theft, police-state spying, and outright physical and sexual molestation at airports. Although oodles of self-deceived parrots (my apologies to that noble bird  ... MORE

VIDEO: Stephen Halbrook - The Real 2nd Amendment

TSA Reportedly Demands To Inspect Luggage For Bitcoin

by Gregory Ferenstein.        Davi Baker wasn’t quite sure how to comply with the TSA’s demands to inspect his bags for Bitcoin. Baker had found himself in a testy exchange with airport security personnel during an enhanced screening, and they wanted an additional search of his belongings. “We saw Bitcoin in your bag and need to check,”   ... MORE

Brittany Varner-Miller: TSA Introducing Police State

Acclimating Americans to an inevitable fate?     Ever since the attack on September 11, 2001, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) seems to be introducing Americans to what a police state feels like. After the terrorist attack on the twin towers, the TSA has been strengthening the security of the nation’s transportation       ... MORE

Christopher Elliott: TSA Gives Fliers A Bad Feeling

Are they starting to sense the government is not us?         If airport security is so good, why do passengers feel so bad? That's a valid question, considering how the Transportation Security Administration seems to be spinning its performance lately. The agency wants you to believe the dark days of body scans and pat-downs, of liquids,   ... MORE

Renee Lewis: LAPD Deploys Drug Detection Roadblocks

The state against citizens.         The Los Angeles police department has announced a New Year’s crackdown on intoxicated drivers – with checkpoints to be set up across the county complete with breathalyzers and cheek swab tests that can detect recent drug use, the L.A. Times reported. Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer told CBS        ... MORE

Amie Stepanovich: Fourth Amendment Eroded

Our Constitution can't enforce itself.       The Fourth Amendment protects Americans' right to be secure against unreasonable search and seizure. But government lawyers have argued repeatedly that this right should be limited, and the Supreme Court has often agreed. Amie Stepanovich, director of the domestic surveillance project at     ... MORE