Circuit Boards + Soldering Iron == Terrorist?

Search and Seizure asks: "This week, the local police contacted one of my co-workers and informed him that they had been contacted by the FBI who requested that they investigate his apartment. According to the police, while his apartment repair staff were checking his smoke alarm, they had noticed suspicious looking items in his kitchen and had called the FBI because they suspected that he might be a terrorist. What do you do when your landlord suspects that you might be a terrorist and reports you to the FBI?" If the law comes a-knocking, always remember that you can politely ask for a warrant. "The police officer went on to explain that my co-worker had two choices:

1) Let the local police take a look and explain what the 'suspicious' items were for.
2) Don't let the local police in. The police will let the FBI know, and they will use 'Homeland Security' to come in and do a full search.

He opted for the less drastic choice, and showed the officer the digital camera guts, his in-progress circuitry to take automatic pictures, the tethered balloon that he was going to hook them up to so he could take overhead pictures, and the beer keg that he used to store his beer.

The police officer accepted his explanations and it appears to have turned out okay, but the whole situation is a little disturbing.

What rights do we have to experiment and create in this age of paranoia?"

Comments

Re:This is the problem

[Fjandr]

Welcome to American jurisprudence.

The reason it works that way is because laws as written are not really complete. Mostly, they modify existing laws, and as such, do not make sense when taken out of the context of the original law they were written to modify.

More than likely, the section of the PATRIOT Act that would be used would actually be a modification of an existing portion of US law. Ergo, the court would only declare that modification made by the PATRIOT Act to that specific section of law unconstitutional (or possibly even the entire law that was modified, though that occurs much less often).

This is because the courts do not (there are exceptions) consider questions that are not put in front of them. Since you would not be fighting the use of other sections of the PATRIOT Act, they would not review them. This is not always the case (sometimes they review further than they are asked to), but rarely do courts act outside of this guideline.

I think a good extension of your question would be: Instead of cutting the good parts out and using them, they cut bad sections out as people complain about them?

People need to tell Congress to RTFM! (Constitution :)

Re:This is odd

[sadler121]

uh actually the authorities, still need a warrent, the problem is they can get that warrent in secret and not even tell you about it till way after you have been searched/had things seized. So to the outside observer, AKA YOU, it appears that they do not need a warrent when in fact they have gone in seceret to a judge and gotten a warrent, and that warrent is held in seceret because of "national security"

Re:The first time I had a fully automatic rifle

[cbelt3]

The first time I had a fully automatic rifle pointed at me was at Orly airport in Paris, France. By a very LARGE french Para. Whose buddy then went through the suitcase of a very frightened 13 year old American boy, and confiscated the very dangerous aftershave (for the possibly one time a year I had to shave). Probably because he liked it.
That was shortly after some friendly, suffering, oppressed Palestinians decided to kill a whole shitload of unspecting French citizens.
The first time I had an automatic rifle FIRED at me was in Pakistan, when the "Democratic" government happily took over the country after the Dictator's airplane "Crashed" (amazing what a Stinger missle up the ass will do to a C-130).
People who complain that we're 'going too far' are people who haven't had fucking terrorist assholes screw with them recently. Everyone else understands, and tends to laugh at the people in this country who are bitching.
You (citizens) can still say what you want here. You can still vote here. You can still bear arms here (except in NY NY where only all the criminals bear arms).
Are some people over-reacting and seeing terrorist everywhere ? Sure.
Are some cops over-reacting ? Sure.
Is the Constitution coming to an end because Bush is President ?
No.

Re:Rights?

[pyrrhonist]

Can you show me a documented case of where the FBI just walked in without a warrant?

No, I can't. You can probably thank the 1969 case of Chimel v. California for helping everyone out there. This case placed more control over what the law enforcement could search following an arrest.

There was a case that went to the Supreme court in which it was argued that an IR heat detector was a violation of the 4th ammendment. You can read about it on the FBI's page, in Kyllo v. United States.

I think the issue at hand here is the potential that Section 213 of the PATRIOT Act has of being abused by law enforcement.

Looking for a fascist mass movement?

[alizard]

You're well behind the times. You've been looking so deeply into legal theory that you haven't been looking at reality around you.

Look up Christian Reconstructionism. Look up Rushdoony. Google is your friend. Christian Reconstrutionism is the core of the mass movement you couldn't find. The exoteric term for this is "the Religious Right". I presume you've heard of them? How far have they gotten in the past 20 years?

"All these atrocities continue in spite of the fact that we now have the 'right' people in places of power. Indeed, the occupant of the White House is a professing Christian. The U.S. Attorney General is believed to be a devout Christian. 'Conservatives' control both Houses of Congress, and Republican presidents appointed seven of the nine Supreme Court justices. Christian activists placed the right party in power, but are we now witnessing the return to moral and constitutional government that we have demanded for so long?"

This is from Christian Exodus explaining why they want to take over a state because they've effectively taken over the national government and the New Millenium hasn't started yet, i.e. the nation hasn't converted to an Old Testament legal regime comparable to sharia law quite yet. Their problem of their political leadership is that little things like the Constitution and the Bill of Rights have been standing in their way, though the work of dismantling is in progress. In the above, "conservative" and Christian mean "Religious Right"... those are the only people the Christian Reconstructionists recognize as real fellow Christians. Every one of the last several Presidents, Democratic and Republican have been "professing Christians". But except for George W Bush, not their kind of Christian.

For more information:

• Here are some interesting quotes that explain why some people are very concerned. You wouldn't think that responsible citizens would seriously discuss the return of slavery, would you? Don't bother with the TOC at the top, just scroll down the page.
• Here's a pretty good historical document on Christian Reconstructionis
• You've probably heard of at least some of these people.
• Where tax-exempt right-wing foundation money is going. Look towards the bottom of the list of people they've been funding. There are some very interesting Europeans on that list. More about these interesting people.