tagged w/ 4th Amendment
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On, Monday January 23, 2012, in the case U.S. v. Jones, the Supreme Court Ruled that the government's action of Installing a GPS Device on a person's car, is a "Search" under the 4th amendment.
It's a very minor victory for the 4th Amendment. But the Court punts on the larger issue of electronic surveillance.
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The case involves a mildly complicated area of the law. The alignment of the Justices also left the issues unusually opaque. But the legal rules have very practical implications for ordinary Americans on a significant question of personal privacy. So describing the case correctly is important. In this post I explain how I think that the press got the case wrong.
The Court’s only holding is that the installation of a GPS monitoring device is a search. That is a different question from whether it requires a warrant and whether it requires probable cause, as opposed to a lesser standard like reasonable suspicion. The Court in Jones did not decide the government’s argument that this “search” (installing the GPS device) did not require a warrant.
Anyone who says that such a distinction is dancing on the head of a pin is wrong. That question not only determines whether the government is subject to immediate judicial oversight, but it is often also closely related to whether the search requires probable cause or instead only reasonable suspicion, which is a substantially more forgiving standard....
Continued at:
http://www.scotusblog.com/2012/01/jones-confounds-the-press/#more-137791On, Monday January 23, 2012, in the case U.S. v. Jones, the Supreme Court Ruled that... more
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Dagum
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THIS EXAMPLE VIDEO IS AN ''EXAMPLE'' OF WHAT THEY CAN DO LEGALLY NOW, READ INFO BELOW:
Many of us have wondered if directed to; would our own military turn on us? It appears that this is the plan and has been all along, yet the question remains......would they actually do it if ordered to?
S.1867, the National Defense Authorization Act bill. Senators Carl Levin (D) MI and John McCain (R) AZ, are bringing this bill to the Senate floor on Monday after having held secret committee meetings while never holding even one hearing on this bill which authorizes military action against US citizens, right here in the United States.
While the bill appears on the surface to be about authorizing defense funding for the illegal wars, the ongoing unwarranted surveillance of the US population and the continuing violations of the 4th Amendment as applied to US citizens, many of the provisions of the bill do not pertain to unidentifiable terrorists or any other villain carefully crafted to terrorize the country. The fact is, as a result of the false flag attacks on 9/11, we have massive numbers of police state "laws" on the books which created "terrorists" or redefined "terrorist activity" to include everything from political dissent and free speech, even including targeting of US citizens for mentioning or referencing the Constitution or supporting third party, non-approved candidates for public office.
When this bill passes with these police state provisions included (I believe it will) you can expect your senator who voted "yes" on the bill to maintain that they only did so because otherwise the funding for the wars would have ceased (we could only hope) and they have to continue to fight the terrorists, terrorism, or what ever lame excuse pops into their heads to explain why they voted to pass what is clearly a police state bill.
The bill itself was drafted in secret and I believe it would be to our benefit to know who actually drafted that bill.
Who were the "stakeholders" who actually wrote the bill introduced by these two traitorous senators. We know they didn't write it, they never do. All bills are written by stakeholders who blow through the doors of congress carry bags of cash to buy the support of politicians who make their living selling off our rights along with anything else that isn't nailed down.
S.1867 includes these provisions highlighted by the ACLU:
If enacted, sections 1031 and 1032 of the NDAA would:
1) Explicitly authorize the federal government to indefinitely imprison without charge or trial American citizens and others picked up inside and outside theUnited States;
(2) Mandate military detention of some civilians who would otherwise be outside of military control, including civilians picked up within the United States itself; and
(3) Transfer to the Department of Defense core prosecutorial, investigative, law enforcement, penal, and custodial authority and responsibility now held by the Department of Justice.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=hG_R6U_FfesTHIS EXAMPLE VIDEO IS AN ''EXAMPLE'' OF WHAT THEY CAN DO LEGALLY... more
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One day after Jesse Ventura lost his legal challenge to airport
pat-downs and full-body scans, the former Minnesota governor declared
Friday that he will "never fly commercial again" and just might run for
president so he can change passenger security measures. Ventura
made his comments outside the federal courthouse in St. Paul, where in
January he sued to challenge the Transportation Security
Administration's (TSA) airport security procedures. The suit was thrown
out because Congress set up the law so that all such challenges must be
brought directly in Circuit Courts of Appeals, wrote U.S. District Judge
Susan Richard Nelson. After getting a titanium implant in his
hip in 2008, Ventura's suit said, he started lighting up airport
magnetometers. At first, screeners waved a magnetic hand wand over him
and sent him through. But last year, the TSA's enhanced screening
procedures meant he had to go through invasive full-body scans or
pat-downs, the suit added. The scans reveal too much and the
pat-downs require a security officer to grope his body, "including
private and sensitive areas," the suit read. "I will never fly
commercially again," Ventura said to reporters Friday, adding that he
hasn't flown since he was searched at the Minneapolis-St. Paul
International Airport nearly a year ago. He complained that the
federal courts are denying him constitutional rights, but said that he's
unsure whether he will appeal Thursday's dismissal. "I want a trial by jury. They tell me I can have a jury decide my fate!" Ventura said. "If given a jury, I will win." He
questioned whether he could trust a panel of three government-paid
appeals court judges. But he left open the door, noting that he hadn't
conferred with his attorneys yet. Ventura contended that the
TSA's procedures treat passengers as guilty until proven innocent. "I
will not, in a free country, be treated like a criminal," he said. Ventura
added that he and his wife, Terry, intend to apply for Mexican
citizenship and become dual citizens. The two have spent long stretches
of time living in Mexico since he left office. He then zeroed in
on longtime political reporter Pat Kessler. After pausing for effect,
Ventura said maybe the only way to change the rules at TSA is to become
president. Asked whether he was planning to run, Ventura
responded, "I'm thinking about it." That's something he's done in
previous election cycles, but he has never been a candidate for the
White House.One day after Jesse Ventura lost his legal challenge to airport
pat-downs and... more
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Remember when Obama undoing what Bush did and getting back to the Consitution was cool and popular? Turns out Obama has still been as bad as Bush and even worse in some cases.
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Last week, the top lawyer and 34-year-veteran of the CIA, John Rizzo, explained to PBS' Frontline that Obama has "changed virtually nothing" from Bush policies in these areas, and this week, the ACLU explains that "most [Bush] policies remain core elements of our national security strategy today."
At some point very soon, this basic truth will be impossible to deny with a straight face even for the most hardened loyalists of both parties, each of whom have been eager, for their own reasons, to deny it (and even the two differences cited there, though positive, are wildly exaggerated by Obama defenders: the torture techniques authorized by Bush were no longer in use and the CIA black sites were empty by the time Obama was inaugurated; by contrast, there is ample evidence that the Obama administration continues to use torture by proxy and rendition/CIA-black-sites by proxy as well).
The report is broken down into sections/chapters, and here are a few highlights:
The ACLU then devotes an entire chapter to the way in which immunity for America's torturers -- bestowed jointly by President Obama and a judicial branch meekly deferential to his and Bush's claims of state secrecy -- has contaminated and degraded the entire justice system and made the future reintroduction of torture a virtual inevitability:
This Surveillance State, like most other Bush/Obama Terrorism policies, is justified by a never-ending orgy of fear-mongering. But other than the enrichment of the private Security State industry (see here and here).
A separate chapter is devoted to what the ACLU calls "A Massive and Unchecked Surveillance Society." It explains: "Using Patriot Act authority, the Bush Administration started -- and the Obama Administration has continued -- to conduct wholesale 'preventive' surveillance of innocent Americans without judicial review." And "the result is a national surveillance society in which Americans’ right to privacy is under unprecedented siege." But little is known about exactly what is being done by this purely unaccountable hidden government -- what The Washington Post calls "Top Secret America" -- because of this:
Pointing to that core theory of both presidencies, the ACLU dispatches one of the most misleading claims of Obama defenders: that the President's failure to close Guantanamo is due exclusively to Congressional obstructionism; in fact, long before Congress acted at all with regard to that camp, the President announced his intention to continue its core injustice -- indefinite detention -- albeit in a different locale:
During the Bush era, the actions and condemnations of the ACLU received ample positive attention from progressives. That, of course, is no longer true, and this damning report will likely be ignored in most of those circles, just as this truly remarkable comment from the ACLU's Executive Director has been. And, as usual, anyone urging that attention be paid to these facts will be met with demands that eyes be diverted instead to how scary Sarah Palin Christine O'Donnell Michele Bachmann Rick Perry is, and then this will all blissfully fade away in a cloud of partisan electioneering even with the election more than a year away.
Either way, this creeping unchecked authoritarianism marches forward unabated, and is now -- rather than the province of the right-wing GOP -- fully bipartisan consensus. I really don't understand how progressives think they'll be taken seriously the next time there is a GOP President and they try to resurrect their feigned concern for these matters; they'll be every bit as credible as conservatives who pretend to be deficit-warriors and defenders of restrained government only when the other party is in power.Remember when Obama undoing what Bush did and getting back to the Consitution was cool... more
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Regarding Rand Paul's opposition to the Patriot Act he said, "I am told that because I believe a Judge should sign a warrant I am in favor of terrorists having weapons. If one argues that Judges should sign warrants before they go into the house of an alleged murderer are you in favor of murder?".
Watch this amazing speech.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zr939QII_Dc&feature=player_embeddedRegarding Rand Paul's opposition to the Patriot Act he said, "I am told that... more
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Our descent into a police state is complete, as evidenced by rulings by the Indiana and U.S. Supreme Courts which, last week, effectively and finally abolished the 4th Amendment.
No longer are American citizens “secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures,” thanks to the two rulings affirming police authority to bash down your door and enter your home without a warrant. Resisting such an incursion is now a crime. If it weren’t obvious before that we live in a fascist system under guise of Democracy, surely, it must be now.
In Indiana, the Supreme Court ruled 3-2 “that there is no right to reasonably resist unlawful entry by police officers.” The U.S. Supreme Court’s 8-1 ruling affirmed that officers can kick down a door if they smell marijuana or hear noises indicative of the destruction of evidence. (Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented, writing, “Police officers may now knock, listen, then break the door down, never mind that they had ample time to obtain a warrant.”) The fact that the door they kicked in was not the door their suspect had entered was irrelevant to the court.
Of course, we told you a couple of weeks ago about the case of Maryanne Godboldo, who had a Detroit Police SWAT team crash into her home and remove her daughter because Godboldo made the perfectly reasonable and rational choice to determine what medication her daughter should take.
And we’ve previously told you about the assault on the 4th Amendment by the Department of Homeland Security through the porn show/gropefest at the airports and, just as egregious, the home peepshow enabling the Z Backscatter Van™ that is now rolling on American streets.
But the court rulings are among the first to affirm the police state. And they open us up to a system where the police have carte blanche to do as they please.
Think this is an overreaction? Tell it to the citizens of Newton County, Ind., whose sheriff, Don Hartman Sr., told the Mike Church radio show on Thursday that random house-to-house searches are now possible because of the Indiana Supreme Court’s ruling.
“(H)e emphatically indicated that he would use random house to house (sic) checks, adding he felt people will welcome random searches if it means capturing a criminal,” according to a posting on Church’s website. By Thursday afternoon there was a Facebook page calling for Hartman’s removal from office.
The Founders are surely weeping for an America they no longer recognize.
Our country became great and prosperous because its citizens were allowed to own property. The Founders subscribed to the theory of John Locke that “if (a person) be absolute lord of his own person and possessions, equal to the greatest, and subject to no body, why will he part with his freedom? Why will he give up this empire, and subject himself to the dominion and control of any other power?”
The elites understand this as well. That is why there is an assault on property rights, like in the ruling in Kelo v. The City of New London. It’s why a system based on property taxes is so egregious, because the State forces you to pay for the right to own your own property and can take it away at the force of a gun if, through some financial hardship or error, you don’t pay the tax in a timely manner.
The fascist elites in government are winning. We have become the despotism of an oligarchy, which Thomas Jefferson warned about when he wrote: “It is a very dangerous doctrine to consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all Constitutional questions. It is one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy.”
We have told you before of the folly of expecting any of the ruling class to do anything or make any laws or rulings that would deny them more power. The President, members of Congress, the bureaucrats who occupy the offices of government, the justices, judges, lawyers, accountants and officers of the court system are employees of and for government. Their desire is to accumulate more power for government and more power and prestige for themselves. It is a desire that knows no party affiliation.
John Adams wrote: “… because we have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
That is where we are. We as a nation have rejected God and spat upon his principles. We have put in power people who see themselves as gods — elitists who think they know more than we and who think they know better than we how we should live our lives. We’ve allowed them to dictate what kind of cars we drive, what kind of light bulbs we can use, how much water our toilets flush, what foods we can eat, what doctors we see, what drugs we can — or must — take and what harmful chemicals can be placed in our water. And then we sat back as the oligarchy banned any and every mention of God in schools and public places.
We have rejected the teachings of our fathers. We have turned our backs on liberty and accepted the perceived safety net of tyranny. We slept while the Constitution burned.
The 1 percent in government controls the 99 percent. Of those 99 percent, 49.5 percent are perfectly content to be controlled as long as the “free” money comes their way. The remaining 49.5 percent is divided among those who are so unaware that they are unaware they are unaware, those who are aware but don’t know what to do, and those who know what’s coming and have been preparing.
Those who are aware but don’t know what to do scream at the top of their lungs that things are wrong. They don’t know exactly what things are wrong, or why, just that they are.
They have been blinded by the 1 percent, which controls through gross deception. They are being stolen from and lied to. They are being herded like sheep to the slaughter, and the last vestige of hope in the court system has betrayed them.
Failing regimes respond in their death throes by engaging in perpetual wars, debasing their currency and clamping down on the freedoms of their people. As the power elites try to hold on to their last vestiges of control, they enslave their subjects through the tyranny of a police state.
We live in a country that once threw off the shackles of tyranny. Our Founders chose not to tolerate a police state that allowed armed soldiers of the crown to enter homes at will, ransack, pillage and abuse. They understood such practices violated hundreds of years of law that established that a man’s home was his castle and not subject to invasion by the regime.
Full Article: http://www.personalliberty.com/conservative-politics/freedom-concerns/supreme-courts-affirm-the-police-state/?eiid&rmid=2011_05_23_PLA_P11773540&rrid=238466338Our descent into a police state is complete, as evidenced by rulings by the Indiana... more
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HR 1750 is the worst bill ever because it gives presidents the power to single-handedly launch wars and to lock people up without trial.
This legislation, Section 1034 of the worst bill ever, undoes the limitations on one-man rule put in place by the U.S. Constitution over two centuries ago. This is the biggest formal shift of power in our government since we’ve had a government.
We have military operations now in some 75 countries, and a significant war in Libya, all illegal under the U.S. Constitution and the War Powers Act. But the worst bill ever will erase the War Powers Act, and the Constitution will simply be ignored.
Meanwhile the significant withdrawal that President Obama promised to begin in Afghanistan has been scaled back to a withdrawal of 2.5 percent of U.S. forcesHR 1750 is the worst bill ever because it gives presidents the power to... more
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Tonight on Adam vs. the Man with Adam Kokesh: Your government is broke. But don't worry! Obama won't have to sell anything or even raise taxes, at least not directly, to keep government spending at current levels – HE'S JUST GOING TO STEAL YOUR RETIREMENT! Adam explains just what the President thinks is more important than NOT STEALING and Adam is joined by Political Science PhD and Professor at Occidental College, Caroline Heldman, and Stephen Skolnick, who is organizing a rally in Indiana to protest a state supreme court decision. Then, a special presentation from Luke Rudkowski about the Chicken Whisperer in Georgia. Adam knows talking about economic exploitation by the government can get tedious at times, but at some point, in trying to re-recruit American youth, the Obama campaign is going to run into, "We'd love to help, and thanks to the high unemployment, we've got plenty of time, but now that we understand a little bit about economics, we're supporting Ron Paul."
Video Here:
http://www.politicalfailblog.com/2011/05/4th-amendment-wasteful-government.htmlTonight on Adam vs. the Man with Adam Kokesh: Your government is broke. But don't... more
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Nowadays in most states, the police can just come in your home and shoot everyone on site with little or no evidence of any wrongdoing, and it's against the law to protect yourself against armed thugs with badges.
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"How have we come down to this? It did not happen overnight, and this has been the result of decades of extreme-right-wing views of the role of "law-enforcement" polices throughout this country. The very first problem with the entire concept stems from the definition of "law·en·force·ment." The term infers that there are laws that need to be enforced; but the fact is there are no longer any "laws" that govern the behavior of those in uniform.
This brings us to the latest version of lawless-behavior by a SWAT TEAM in Tucson, Arizona. This nameless and faceless "TEAM" murdered an ex-marine in his own home, with 71 shots which were fired at him without reason: and basically without warning. All the members of this TEAM should be profiled in the local papers, with their pictures and home addresses published, along with the records of their entire-service to the despicable Tucson Police Department that routinely utilizes their illegal-services (murder-for-hire). If Tucson cops were any-good at their so-called jobs then the number of home-invasions would not be the problem that they definitely are today!
Is the USA now nothing but a holding-pen for unnamed suspects that can be murdered at random; if so, then we need to know that! If this situation is not directly and publicly addressed then things like Vigilantism could well begin to make a comeback among the population. Because no people can be targeted as we have been TARGETED, for very long without producing an equal and opposite REACTION to these illegal and outrageous behaviors by those that are supposed to protect the public and not simply brutalize and murder us."
contNowadays in most states, the police can just come in your home and shoot everyone on... more
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When we are willing to give up our civil rights & freedom for security, are we really free? Do we deserve to be?
This post is a response to a comment on our post: Brave student with the 4th Amendment Written on his Chest Sues TSA for $250,000
Antonio said...
Perhaps he can go through the X-ray machines like most reasonable citizens that understand security is there for everyone benefit, and stop the selfish behavior.
Who is terrorizing who? You can't turn the TV on without hearing the word terrorist or terrorism over and over.This is government propaganda plain and simple. The sad and angering thing is that it worked. But now more people have access to the internet where, at least for now, they have the opportunity to talk directly with people from all over the Earth. The internet is a border-less place where all humans can come together and realize we are the same. Something the media tries to distort.
Continue reading:
http://www.politicalfailblog.com/2011/03/who-is-terrorizing-who-are-we-winning.html#moreWhen we are willing to give up our civil rights & freedom for security, are we... more
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Posted March 15th, 2011*
A brave college student from Virgina who wrote a short version of the Fourth Amendment on his chest and stripped to his underwear at an airport security screening area is suing for $250,000 in damages for being detained on a false disorderly conduct charge.
Read more:
http://www.politicalfailblog.com/2011/03/man-with-4th-amendment-written-on-chest.htmlPosted March 15th, 2011*
A brave college student from Virgina who wrote a short... more
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The Obama administration is urging Congress not to adopt legislation that would impose constitutional safeguards on Americans’ e-mail stored in the cloud.
As the law stands now, the authorities may obtain cloud e-mail without a warrant if it is older than 180 days, thanks to the Electronic Communications Privacy Act adopted in 1986. At that time, e-mail left on a third-party server for six months was considered to be abandoned, and thus enjoyed less privacy protections. However, the law demands warrants for the authorities to seize e-mail from a person’s hard drive.
A collection of internet service providers and other groups known as the “Digital Due Process” coalition have lobbied for an update to the law to treat both cloud and home-stored e-mail the same, and thus require a probable-cause warrant for access. The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on that topic Tuesday.
The companies, including Google, AOL, AT&T, maintain that the law should be changed to reflect that consumers increasingly access their e-mail on servers, instead of downloading it to their hard drives, as a matter of course. But the Obama administration testified that imposing constitutional safeguards on e-mail stored in the cloud would be an unnecessary burden on the government. Probable-cause warrants would only get in the government’s way.
James A. Baker, associate deputy attorney general, testified:
Congress should recognize the collateral consequences to criminal law enforcement and the national security of the United States if ECPA were to provide only one means — a probable cause warrant — for compelling disclosure of all stored content. For example, in order to obtain a search warrant for a particular e-mail account, law enforcement has to establish probable cause to believe that evidence will be found in that particular account. In some cases, this link can be hard to establish. In one recent case, for example, law enforcement officers knew that a child exploitation subject had used one account to send and receive child pornography, and officers discovered that he had another email account, but they lacked evidence about his use of the second account.
Baker invoked the usual parade of horribles in his argument.
“The government’s ability to access, review, analyze, and act promptly upon the communications of criminals that we acquire lawfully, as well as data pertaining to such communications, is vital to our mission to protect the public from terrorists, spies, organized criminals, kidnappers, and other malicious actors,” (.pdf) Baker testified.
Don’t expect Congress to come out in favor of expanding Americans’ civil liberties in the post September 11 world. CNET reported that Sen. Chuck Grassley, (R-Iowa) said demanding warrants would be a burden to law enforcement in addition to “the court system.”
Congress has held countless hearings about reforming the Patriot Act, too. In the end, however, lawmakers have repeatedly punted on that issue, and we suspect they will embark on the same course when it comes to reforming EPCA.However, the judiciary has taken a different course. The federal appeals court in December ruled that e-mails were protected by the warrant requirement.
http://bit.ly/dVB7yOThe Obama administration is urging Congress not to adopt legislation that would impose... more
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A 21-year-old Virginia man who wrote an abbreviated version of the Fourth Amendment on his body and stripped to his shorts at an airport security screening area is demanding $250,000 in damages for being detained on a disorderly conduct charge.
Aaron Tobey claims in a civil rights lawsuit (.pdf) that in December he was handcuffed and held for about 90 minutes by the Transportation Security Administration at the Richmond International Airport after he began removing his clothing to display on his chest a magic-marker protest of airport security measures.
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/03/4th-amendment-on-chest/A 21-year-old Virginia man who wrote an abbreviated version of the Fourth Amendment on... more
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PDX TSA X-Ray / Private Part Pat-down Protest Violation of our Fourth Amendment OUR RIGHTS SHALL NOT BE VIOLATED! Controlled Protest 2 Miles from the airport, 50' above the road behind a cage, TSA permit only allowed 20 people to protest with limited number of signs. This IS INSANE! TSA = NAZI Eugenics CONTROL Freaks. Alex Jones exposed X-Ray dangers in his movie "End-Game" Scroogle "IN LIES WE TRUST" "SEPTEMBER CLUES" THIS POLICE STATE IS BASED ON LIES! Music by: Michael AdamsPDX TSA X-Ray / Private Part Pat-down Protest Violation of our Fourth Amendment OUR... more
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It is starting to look like the president who campaigned on closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay may end up doing something wholly different: signing a law that would pave the way for terrorism suspects to be held indefinitely.
Administration officials are looking at the possibility at codifying detention without trial and are awaiting legislation that is supposed to come out of Congress early next year.
Analysts say two key events have conspired to force President Obama's hand on indefinite detention legislation. Last week, a New York jury nearly acquitted Ahmed Ghailani, a young Tanzanian who was charged with more than 280 counts of murder and conspiracy for his alleged role in the 1998 embassy bombings in Africa; and Republicans regained control of the House of Representatives in midterm elections.
Case Highlights Administration's Dilemma
Obama administration officials had thought the Ghailani case would be a slam-dunk. Four other men were convicted of the same crime in the same New York federal court back in 2002.
But in this case, after five days of deliberation the jury convicted Ghailani of a single charge of conspiracy.
"The jury came within one count of acquitting him entirely," says Benjamin Wittes, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. "And had that happened that would have put the government in an enormously difficult position because if you hold a trial and somebody is acquitted, it kind of violates our sense of what a trial is to say, well, we're going to hold him anyway."
Ghailani was never going to walk out of the courtroom a free man because the Obama Justice Department, from Attorney General Eric Holder on down, has made clear that if any high-profile terrorism suspects are acquitted, they will never go free. They would be held as enemy combatants instead.
Juan Zarate, a former deputy national security adviser in the Bush administration and now a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, says that's a huge problem. When prosecutors can hold someone behind bars even without proving their case the criminal trial becomes a show trial.
The way the Obama administration has approached this has been less than clear. They have applied different legal frameworks for different problems and that has created confusion.
- Juan Zarate, a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and former deputy national security adviser in the Bush administration
"When the attorney general is asked if Khalid Sheikh Mohammed [the alleged Sept. 11 mastermind] or, in this case, Ghailani is acquitted, and the answer for all intents and purposes is he'll remain in custody regardless of the verdict, that is a problematic answer in the context of the use of the criminal legal system," Zarate says.
"Heads I win, tails you lose, is not the way our justice system is supposed to work," he adds.
Possible Alternatives
If holding someone indefinitely as a fallback position is a bad idea, there are only a couple of alternatives. One is to try suspects in a military commission — which operates under different rules of evidence, although analysts are quick to say that the evidence that was barred from the federal trial in the Ghailani case probably wouldn't have been admissible in a military commission either.
Another option is to imprison terrorism suspects without ever going to trial — to just hold them.
And that's what lawmakers are looking at now. In August, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina quietly introduced a bill that would codify indefinite detention. He wanted to answer questions such as what kind of enemy combatant could be locked up without trial? How much evidence would government need to do that?
While the idea of holding suspects indefinitely without charge is against everything the American legal system stands for, it is happening already: Mohammed was captured in March 2003 and has been in Guantanamo Bay since September 2006.
What would be new are clear rules to govern the practice. Right now, the administration says that it can hold terrorism suspects under the laws of war, a principle that has been upheld by the courts. There is also some legal cover in the resolution Congress passed in the days after the Sept. 11 attacks that provides sweeping powers to the executive to keep America safe.
"We need a framework that is legal and defensible that balances the individuals' rights with the right of the government to defend itself," says Zarate. "The way the Obama administration has approached this has been less than clear. They have applied different legal frameworks for different problems and that has created confusion."
Even if the Obama administration wanted to try low-level detainees in U.S. courts, it faces so much opposition from Congress it would be hard to do. And now, with the new Republican majority in the House, what was once very hard could become impossible.
It is un-American to hold people without charge or trial. Codifying indefinite detention will end up legitimizing it.
- Laura Murphy of the ACLU's Washington office.
That's why analysts say that Obama, rather than close Guantanamo, will end up having to support a law that holds suspects indefinitely. As one administration official who is privy to the deliberations told NPR, "I can’t see a way around that outcome right now."
Zarate says the mixed verdict in the Ghailani case shows that the administration needs to define detention better than it has. "The decision on signing legislation on indefinite detention may be crystallizing in certain ways, especially in the post-election environment," he says. "They are going to begin to speak about it more publicly and more directly. I think in many ways they have already made this decision."
Civil Liberties Groups Cry Foul
"It is un-American to hold people without charge or trial," says Laura Murphy of the American Civil Liberties Union's Washington office. "Codifying indefinite detention will end up legitimizing it."
What, she asks, if the detainees suspected of terrorism are actually innocent? What kind of system would there be to determine that? Would there be any kind of judicial review? If this applies to terrorism now, she asks, how long before it applies to drug lords or human traffickers or organized crime?
Wittes of the Brookings Institution sees it differently. He says indefinite detention without rules, which essentially is what is happening now, should concern people more. Individual judges, U.S. attorneys and civil liberties lawyers are handling this on a case-by-case basis. And that is making the process murky.
"If your concern is not legitimizing it, lying about it is a very strange way to do that," says Wittes. "And what we are doing is lying to ourselves about the detention which we engage in."
Incoming House Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith of Texas is working on a companion bill to Graham's effort. His aides declined to provide any detail about legislation that is in the works.
And administration officials told NPR that they didn't want to discuss the legislation before they actually see what's in it.
What seems clear at this point, however, is that one of the things to come out of the new Congress is going to be something that deals squarely with detainee detention.
http://www.infowars.com/obama-administration-weighs-killing-fourth-amendment/It is starting to look like the president who campaigned on closing the prison at... more
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As we warned all along, airport tyranny is coming to your door...
As we warned at the beginning of the year, X-ray body scanners currently being used and abused in airports across the world are set to hit the streets as American Science & Engineering reveals that “more than 500 backscatter x-ray scanners mounted in vans that can be driven past neighboring vehicles to see their contents” have been sold to government agencies.
In January, we divulged how the ultimate end use of the body scanners would not be limited to airports, and that they were going to be rolled out on the streets as mobile units that would scan vehicles at checkpoints as well as individuals and crowds attending public events.
Dutch police announced that they were developing a mobile scanner that would “see through people’s clothing and look for concealed weapons” and that it would be used “as an alternative to random body searches in high risk areas”.
The device would also be used from a distance on groups of people “and mass scans on crowds at events such as football matches.”
The plans mirrored leaked documents out of the UK Home Office three years prior, which revealed that authorities in the UK were working on proposals to fit lamp posts with CCTV cameras that would X-ray scan passers-by and “undress them” in order to “trap terror suspects”.
Now, according to a Forbes report, backscatter x-ray vision devices mounted on trucks are already being deployed inside the United States to scan passing individuals and vehicles in complete violation of the Fourth Amendment.
American Science & Engineering, a company based in Billerica, Massachusetts, has sold many of the devices to U.S. law enforcement agencies, who are already using them on the streets for “security” purposes.
“Without a warrant, the government doesn’t have a right to peer beneath your clothes without probable cause,” points out Marc Rotenberg, executive director of EPIC. “Even airport scans are typically used only as a secondary security measure. If the scans can only be used in exceptional cases in airports, the idea that they can be used routinely on city streets is a very hard argument to make.”
Watch a video demonstration of the device below.
“The TSA’s official policy dictates that full-body scans must be viewed in a separate room from any guards dealing directly with subjects of the scans, and that the scanners won’t save any images,” states the report. “Just what sort of safeguards might be in place for AS&E’s scanning vans isn’t clear, given that the company won’t reveal just which law enforcement agencies, organizations within the DHS, or foreign governments have purchased the equipment.”
However, as we reported right from the start and as was confirmed earlier this month, federal authorities have been storing checkpoint body scan images all along, proving that their claim that no images could be stored or transmitted was an act of mass public deception in order to grease the skids for the rapid introduction of the devices after the botched and highly suspicious underwear bomber incident.
As we have constantly reiterated, everything that we see unfolding in the airports is eventually designed to be used on the streets. People who had a blasé attitude about the privacy-busting body scanners, behavioral interrogations, and intrusive pat-downs occurring in airports on the basis that they could avoid them by not flying face a rude awakening once all this is in their face on a daily basis.
ody and vehicle scanners are just one tool authorities plan to implement on a widespread basis as part of our deepening decline into a hi-tech militarized police state.
Homeland Security is already implementing technology to be enforced at “security events” which purportedly reads “malintent” on behalf of an individual who passes through a checkpoint. The video below explains how “Future Attribute Screening Technology” (FAST) checkpoints will conduct “physiological” and “behavioral” tests in order to weed out suspected terrorists and criminals.
The clip shows individuals who attend “security events” being led into trailers before they are interrogated as to whether they are terrorists while lie detector-style computer programs analyze their physiological responses. The subjects are asked about their whereabouts, and if they are attempting to smuggle bombs or recording devices into the “expo,” proving that the technology is intended to be used at public events and not just airports. Individuals who do not satisfy the first lie detector-style test are then asked “additional questions”.As we warned all along, airport tyranny is coming to your door...
As we warned at the... more
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In the name of "fighting terrorism," President Obama wants to give the FBI more powers to monitor Internet activities without a judge's approval.
You may think this wouldn't apply to you because you're not a terrorist. You would be wrong. It could apply to anyone and anything that the FBI deems "related" to a terrorism investigation. FBI agents don't even have to go before a court to explain themselves. The FBI alone gets to decide.
Obama wants this new power even though the FBI has abused the powers it already has!
Do you want Big Brother knowing the people you email or the sites you visit?
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Obama is quickly passing Bush on the assault against our civil liberties. The NSA has already continued its illegal spying and now Obama wants to allow the FBI to do the same. Sad.In the name of "fighting terrorism," President Obama wants to give the FBI... more
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As long as the public remains largely ignorant about 4th Amendment rights, police will continue to rely on coercive tactics that treat people as guilty until proven innocent:
Dallas police began a new initiative today to combat drugs. Citywide, officers are headed to suspected drug houses to "knock and talk" with the occupants.
The technique involves knocking on the door of a suspected drug house and trying to talk the people inside into inviting officers in to search without a warrant. Police can enter without a search warrant if they see illegal activity happening.
Dallas police have long used the technique, but its use will be widened during the next few months to include more officers and more areas within the city. [Dallas Morning News]
If this sounds to anyone like a program that only affects drug offenders, it's not. Police tactics like these are always framed as an effort to "get weapons and drugs off the street," but they are so much more than that. By definition, the people targeted under such policies are innocent citizens against whom police have no actionable evidence of criminal activity. After all, when police have credible facts indicating that drug crimes are taking place at a specific location, they may obtain a search warrant and enter lawfully.
The "knock and talk" approach is used exclusively to enter private residences in the absence of probable cause. Vague and unfounded suspicions, or even prejudices, could ultimately determine which locations are singled out for investigation. In the process, innocent people living in high-crime neighborhoods are placed at great risk of arrest in the event that a guest, neighbor or former tenant left something illegal on their property.
As misguided as these tactics are, there is one simple option available to concerned citizens who don't want police digging through their drawers: just don’t let them in. Unless you give them permission to enter, police need a warrant to search your home. You may simply decline the search and tell the officers that you'll gladly cooperate if they return with a warrant. If that makes you uncomfortable, another option is not to answer the door at all, which also reduces the likelihood of police claiming that they saw or smelled something illegal when you opened the door for them.
The bottom line is that invasive "knock and talk" programs don't work if everyone knows their rights, which is why the D.C. police simply canceled theirs after we started doing this
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle_blog/2010/feb/18/dallas_police_plan_widespread_waAs long as the public remains largely ignorant about 4th Amendment rights, police will... more
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This can't possibly be the official position of the Obama Administration. A Constitutional scholar should know better...
"...Meanwhile, modern cellular communications networks have enabled police to track suspects through back-end APIs, showing real time Global Positioning System (GPS) data on demand and over the Internet. Sprint, the nation's third largest carrier, said recently that it has received over 8 million tracking requests from law enforcement officials. The company employs a team of 110 people to handle law enforcement requests on its roughly 47 million customers.
Sprint spokesman Matt Sullivan noted after the revelations that "every wireless carrier has a team and a system' through which police can access GPS data."
"An individual has no Fourth Amendment-protected privacy interest in business records, such as cell-site usage information, that are kept, maintained and used by a cell phone company," Obama administration attorney Eckenwiler argued in his legal brief."
http://rawstory.com/2010/02/obama-attorneys-argue-warrantless-cell-phone-tracking/This can't possibly be the official position of the Obama Administration. A... more
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