Slashdot Mirror
Local Police Increasingly Rely On Secret Surveillance
v3rgEz writes: 'The Wall Street Journal reports on how local law enforcement is increasingly requesting (and receiving) sealed wiretap requests and surveillance that doesn't require a warrant for cellular data, a move that is making some courts uneasy — but not uneasy enough to stop the practice. "Across the U.S., thousands of similar law-enforcement requests for electronic monitoring are likewise locked away from public view, even after the investigations that spawned them have ended. In most cases, they stay sealed indefinitely—unlike nearly all other aspects of American judicial proceedings. Courts long have presumed that search warrants, for example, eventually should be made public." One group has set up a crowdfunding campaign to research how far the practice has spread, hoping to raise money to file and follow up on public records requests across the country for policies, invoices, and other "surveillance metadata."'
This is a travesty.
If the federal government doesn't need a warrant, why should local law enforcement? OTOH, the federal government uses "national security" as an excuse to violate the constitution. What's local law enforcement's excuse?
a move that is making some courts uneasy
The judicial branch is obsolete, a relic from some past time when The Constitution of the United States was the highest law of the land.
Tempting to blame law enforcement for their increasingly-Orwellian tactics, but -- in my opinion -- that's their job: to do everything they are legally allowed to do to put the baddies away. The thing is, "legally allowed to do" should stop somewhat short 1984; the fact that it doesn't isn't their fault per se, but the fault of the courts for allowing this.
They aren't legally allowed to this. It's entirely illegal.
On top of that, they take an oath to uphold the constitution when they get their badge and this clearly violates the constitution.
For far too long in this country we've decide that "criminals" are somehow non-citizens. We've declared them as an "Other" and not of us. This has allowed some people to rationalize their illegal behavior as somehow just. It's not. Violating even a criminals constitutional rights is wrong, and it wont be long before YOU are considered a criminal that no longer deserves his rights either.
How is this even a question?
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
That's not even remotely vague. It's clear as day. You need a warrant and that warrant should be public. Period. Any Judge that didn't see this as a violation of the 4th amendment should be strung up without a trial, since they don't feel the constitution is important.
The police everywhere seem to be given to a general trend of militarization. Assault rifles, military-style clothing and accessories, armored vehicles, intelligence gathering operations, air power (helicopters, drones, etc).
They no longer resemble the "beat cop" who managed to keep order with a whistle and a truncheon in a uniform with shiny brass buttons. They resemble a military assault force.
The practice has been abused, and innocent people have been harmed in some way by this abuse.
Where there is no accountability or visibility, there is abuse. It is guaranteed.
Any attempt at seeing the old data will be fiercely resisted by those who abused this practice, and they will have lots of political clout to keep their corruption secret.