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RIAA-Backed Warrantless Search Bill In California
lordvramir writes "If you run a CD or DVD duplication company and you're based in California, you may soon be subject to warrantless searches in order to 'fight piracy.' California Senate Bill 550, introduced by Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Pacoima), has slowly begun making its way through the state legislature as a way to cut down on counterfeit discs, but critics worry that it may open the door to Fourth Amendment violations." This fits in well with other recent moves to neuter the Fourth Amendment.
and water is wet, details at 11
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
than suppressing music and movie piracy? Those individual rights ideas in the constitution that we inherited from the Magna Carta just make that soooooo... difficult.
Excuse me, I have to go wipe up some of that sarcasm that's dripping on the floor here.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
That's not the most controversial part of the bill, though. SB550 also has provisions that would allow law enforcement to begin inspecting disc replication plants without a warrant in order to verify that they're complying with the law. These inspections must take place during regular business hours, but if officers find equipment that they suspect is being used for non-legit purposes, it can be seized.
I wonder how the summary somehow left out that these warrentless searches are of commercial disc replication plants.
I would assume that all commercial buildings are subject to warrentless searches to enforce various safety and workplace laws...
Anyway, I don't support any degradation of the 4th amendment, but I don't appreciate the deceptive manipulation of large numbers of people who can be counted on to not read the fucking article either.
I would assume that all commercial buildings are subject to warrentless searches to enforce various safety and workplace laws...
But that's just it - there are exceptions to warrantless searches on grounds such as public safety and worker safety... e.g., health inspections, nursing home inspections, OSHA compliance, etc.
Extending those kinds of warrantless searches to look for potential copyright infringement is not in the same vein. Where is the pressing public necessity that justifies the encroachment on the 4th Amendment? To me, it just sounds like the copyright industries want the taxpayer-funded police to act as their own private security force. What if every industry took that approach? Why not have warrantless searches of research labs in order to make sure there is no patent infringement going on?
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
Businesses are not people, they don't have any rights against warrantless search.
This is one of the few times on this type of issue where the government isn't overreaching and violating the constitution.
We also already have inspections of other industrys for illegal practices (food industrys, chemical industrys, etc.) So why should replication businesses have any special status.
Because illegal practices in those other industries can lead to mass death and loss of life. Tainted food could kill consumers, unsafe chemical plants can explode and leave a city sized crater.
Who dies if the copyright cops have to wait to get a warrant as opposed to not getting one?
More Twoson than Cupertino
For decades the Supreme Court has recognized the constitutionality of warrantless administrative inspections of closely regulated businesses with a long tradition of close government supervision. "Certain industries have such a history of government oversight that no reasonable expectation of privacy could exist for a proprietor over the stock of such an enterprise." Marshall v. Barlow's, Inc., 436 U.S. 307, 313 (1978). This has come to be called the Colonnade-Biswell doctrine, after the cases of Colonnade Corp. v. United States and United States v. Biswell. Industries in which warrantless searches have been approved include pawn shops that sell firearms (the Biswell case), liquor stores (the Colonnade case), quarries, and automobile junkyards.
However, even if warrantless searches of CD duplication businesses are allowable as a threshold matter, there are still three important limits on those searches. First, there must be a substantial government interest that informs the regulatory scheme pursuant to which the inspection is made. Second, the warrantless inspections must be necessary to further the regulatory scheme. Third, the statute's inspection program, in terms of the certainty and regularity of its application, must provide a constitutionally adequate substitute for a warrant. In other words, the regulatory statute must perform the two basic functions of a warrant: it must advise the owner of the commercial premises that the search is being made pursuant to the law and has a properly defined scope, and it must limit the discretion of the inspecting officers. See New York v. Burger, 482 US 691, 702-03 (1987).
Here, it's not clear to me that CD duplication businesses are closely regulated businesses with a tradition of close government supervision. It's possible that the copyright laws (particularly the criminal copyright laws) amount to such regulation, but in my opinion it would be a close case. In most cases there is some kind of government licensing regime, and I don't think a license is required to operate a CD duplicating business. But it's important to note the limits on those searches that would still be in place even if they are allowed.
Just google "cops warrant wrong house" for an endless flood of no-knock warrant stories where cops broke down the door of the wrong house. They often end with an innocent citizen (of course, until convicted, aren't they ALL innocent?) being shot or even killed or with a home owner defending themselves against the home invasion by shooting the police (which never works out well for the victim).
http://www.google.com/search?q=cops+warrant+wrong+house
I thought the Dems were all about personality andshit. Fuck whoever you want in the ass wherever you want using government condems.
So now they want to fuck everyone in the ass with taxes and no warrent searches.
Had enough Change yet?
This is not really a republican or democrat idea but a recent trend of infringement on American's Fourth Amendment. Indiana has recently passed a bill to have warentless searches. If a police officer suspects any "Funny business" of any sort, they can intrude without a warent. This is fine and dandy when an actual crime is happening, but they can do it at any time, and if you resist in Indiana, you can be arrested for impeding an officer's investigation. If you attack an officer while he/she barges in because you are trying to protect your property, you will be charged with Assault of an Officer (which is a federal crime). It has passed in Indiana, and it is has set forth for similar laws in Texas, California, and anyone else. If someone suspects that you are doing something bad or wrong, they can call the cops and infringe on your fourth amendment.
This is a recent bill passed in indy, so it can be overturned if it is taken to to the feds, but hasn't yet.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110518/17015914326/what-4th-amendment-indiana-sheriff-says-random-warrantless-house-to-house-searches-are-okay.shtml
The Indiana Supreme Court wrote "We believe however that a right to resist an unlawful police entry into a home is against public policy and is incompatible with modern Fourth Amendment jurisprudence."
It is abundantly clear that modern Fourth Amendment jurisprudence is incompatible with the Fourth Amendment.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Where is this list of politicians who don't feel that their constituency is just a power pool to fuel their own personal selfish motivations and goals?
Also, where is the statement in the Constitution that says rights are granted by this "God" fellow? The closest I'm aware of is all men being created equal, endowed by their creator (where creator is clearly intentionally open and vague to be interpreted by each individual as is appropriate to them - including sensibly metaphorically).
Also, it is false to say that our "rights" are somehow granted by a mythological sky-person. The fact is that they ARE granted by the government. In the days when Kings owned all the land and you were allowed to live and toil on their land, you were subject to their whims. Today, you are subject to the government's whims. Ostensibly, that means the whims of your fellow man, but in practice it's more of a limited control by aristocracy than "fellow man". At any rate, if you have some inherent right to speak freely and posses a weapon, I suggest you think again. Any right that I feel is a basic right of a human being and that I currently enjoy the freedom to exercise is done so only because the government hasn't taken it away from me. They could come in tomorrow and shut me up and take my gun or even take my life and there isn't a fucking thing I could do about it, because I'm one person and I don't own nukes or tanks or bombs or assault rifles or have a military or an entire court and legal team on my payroll.
Quoting from the inset document in one of the articles, "In the 1920s, legal scholarship began criticizing the right [to resist unlawful entry by a police officer] as valuing individual liberty over physical security of the officers."
At what point in the history of the United States did "legal scholarship" become an authoritative source of law capable of destroying inherent natural rights not granted by the US Constitution but specifically called out as examples of existing rights such as those expressed in the 4th amendment such as "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures..." To say that there is no right to resist an unlawful entry (and arrest) because there are now "after the fact" remedies available that may not have been available to those in the 18th century misses the point that unlawful entry and arrest can be just as effectively used to suppress and intimidate now as it was then. Exercising remedies to get out of jail after an unlawful arrest takes time and money, time spent in jail and fighting an unlawful arrest takes away from time required to earn a living (try missing 2 weeks of work and income - see what happens to your bills and your job), and the stain of the arrest may take a long time to fade, if in fact it ever does.
Without *some* possibility of a negative consequence to an unlawful entry and/or arrest, what is left to hold police back from engaging in whatever related conduct they so choose, so long as they know that their superior officers (who aren't elected officials) won't hold them at fault or punish them?
You're right; this is not Democrat vs Republican. It is statist vs libertarian.
If there was EVER any definable difference between Democrat and Republican, it has been gone for a LONG time. To SOME degree there is a remnant of liberal (D) vs conservative (R) difference, but even that is obsolete thinking. It is about the other orthogonal axis. It is about the lure of power vs a willingness to LEAVE THE HELL ALONE. It is about caving in to faceless demonic corporations vs seeing to the rights of the people. It is about tilting at windmills: war on drugs, war on terrorism, war on copyright "infringement."
Posting anonymously for reasons that should be obvious.
When I heard about that bill my first thought was its time to get violent. That is so fucking outrageous, so blatant, so "fuck you citizens" that I have to believe the only way to save this country is through violence. Supreme Court rulings where you are criminally responsible for any self defense during a SWAT raid on the wrong address, court rulings saying the smell of marijuana is enough to bust down somebody's door, the whole war on drugs, the TSA, prosecuting people taping their traffic stops under wire tapping laws when the government itself performs warrantless wiretaps. They're all ridiculous, they're not getting better, and it doesn't matter who we vote in. Never forget that the citizens are the highest authority, and these disgusting pieces of filth are the real criminals. Kill them before they kill you.
Businesses are not people, they don't have any rights against warrantless search.
This is completely false. "The Court long has recognized that the Fourth Amendment's prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures is applicable to commercial premises, as well as to private homes. An owner or operator of a business thus has an expectation of privacy in commercial property, which society is prepared to consider to be reasonable." New York v. Burger, 482 US 691, 699 (1987).
Seriously? Kill them before they kill you? You don't have the balls. I'll eat my words when you and your militia storm the capitol and start executing lawmakers. Me, I prefer not to act like a terrorist and go for more non violent methods. You have many options. How about you and several million other people refuse to pay taxes? That would get the attention of an already cash starved govt. How about you stage massive non violent protests? Certainly worked for Gandhi. This isn't the dark ages; we don't have to cut off the king's head to make change. But we DO need people who are actually willing to act instead of just talk, something I doubt you're capable of. If you are, then I'll be sure to say I'm sorry by visiting you in federal prison.