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Federal Court Nixes Weeks of Warrantless Video Surveillance
An anonymous reader writes with this news from the EFF's Deep Links:
The public got an early holiday gift today when a federal court agreed with us that six weeks of continually video recording the front yard of someone's home without a search warrant violates the Fourth Amendment. In United States v. Vargas local police in rural Washington suspected Vargas of drug trafficking. In April 2013, police installed a camera on top of a utility pole overlooking his home. Even though police did not have a warrant, they nonetheless pointed the camera at his front door and driveway and began watching every day. A month later, police observed Vargas shoot some beer bottles with a gun and because Vargas was an undocumented immigrant, they had probable cause to believe he was illegally possessing a firearm. They used the video surveillance to obtain a warrant to search his home, which uncovered drugs and guns, leading to a federal indictment against Vargas.
If he's an undocumented immigrant, why don't they just deport him instead of going through all of this?
I'm all for the forth amendment and all, but having a camera pointed to the outside of his house is no different than having a cop sitting outside the house in a car.
None of this crap would have been necessary in the first place if the police actually enforced these things called "immigration laws" instead of using this type of surveillance to set a precedent where they can do it to anybody and everybody for whatever reason.
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
If you point the camera on a politician you won't have to wait a month to watch a crime to happen.
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
If the cops want to watch my front yard for a year, they are welcome to it. It is in the public view.
Why does the fourth amendment apply? If he is not a citizen of the US, our laws shouldn't protect him.
America is rapidly deciding that her guiding principles are optional, and that the law only applies if law enforcement says it does.
Wide spread warrantless wiretapping, surveillance, and parallel construction all say that the police and government will do whatever the hell they like, and your rights be damned. And if they have to lie to the court to get what they want, that's OK too.
And for all of those who claim you still have free speech and all that ... the answer is simply for now. When it becomes expedient to take away that right, they will.
Land of the free, home of the brave. If it wasn't so scary it would be hilarious.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
From a front door pointing camera they saw him shoot a gun at bottles??? I'm not from the US but is that considered ok and safe to shoot stuff in front of your house with neighbors around?
WTF?!?
I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.
This is not the Hope and Change you're looking for.
Because before you can win the war you have to win a first battle.
If I were that man I would have shot out the damn camera before doing anything at all on my front porch.
So let me get this straight, so people with visas and greencards can be deported for many reasons including petty crimes or mistakes on applications, which has happened, but this illegal immigrant is complaining that his rights have been violated? Why isn't he being deported?
I guess Obama stopped deportation for Mexicans and other latinos but when it comes to asians, europeans, africans their asses are out.
Ignorance of the law is no excuse. However, if you go to court, you will be informed that you are not qualified to defend yourself because your knowledge of the law is limited.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
I'm all for the forth amendment and all, but having a camera pointed to the outside of his house is no different than having a cop sitting outside the house in a car.
It's very different. It's incredibly expensive to have a cop watching a house 24 hours a day for 6 weeks. It's very cheap to have a camera watching one, or many houses in the same manner. Would you be OK with a camera pointed at your house like this?
There is plenty of documentation on the gentleman at this time.
If the police just followed procedure and got a warrant for the camera, this would have not been a problem. Requiring the police to have oversight and get the approval of a judge for is a good thing.
He didn't know it was there, duh.
Warrants can be a catch-22. To get a warrant one needs evidence that a crime has been or is beginning committed which is difficult to get if a warrant is needed to gather evidence that a crime has been or is beginning committed. In my opinion anything visible from the street is fair game.
like the yanks spying on anything legally is ever going to happen. they don't care about laws, they just care about bending them enough to get their own way. simple citizens pointing cameras at police and legally filming them doing their job (well or poorly) seems to get guns pointed at people and the cops taking the law into their own hands and removing data from devices etc. even when a film comes out of a copper breaking the law, they never get done for it. waaay to protectionist for that. one rule for them and another for the rest of us.
Yes, it's a good thing. You can't simultaneously use the evidence collected againts this guy but not allow the police to collect evidence this way in the future. The police knew it was illegal.
The problem with Law in the United States is that it's based not on the SPIRIT of the law but the LETTER of the law, so if some lawyer happens to get some weird ruling then it's on the books and then it's citable as law... and so the system grows on itself.
The laws are Byzantine and increasingly unimportant, it's all about who can pay for the best representation, even basics like Civil Rights are virtually non-existent.
Watching this decline is disturbing and saddening.
A cop bought a video camera to catch an illegal alien unloading a firearm at bottles on his own porch, among other things...catches the guy, along with a significant drug operation no less...and the court "nixes weeks of warrantless video surveillance" is a GOOD THING? You'll notice they aren't nixing the YEARS of warrantless surveillance that every citizen of the U.S. has been under, nor the YEARS of collusion with friendly nations to extend that surveillance program to every citizen, worldwide. No, they're nixing the one bit of fucking video that might actually have been worth recording in the fucking first place. Footage of a criminal, committing a crime. How novel.
The EFF logo for this story was perfect, "extremely fucking foolish" was the first thought that came to mind.
It's simple enough. This was a local police department in a small rural area, so they were held to the rules. If they were a national agency with an effectively unlimited budget, ties to major military-industrial corporations, and loads of political clout, the courts would have performed some mental gymnatics and invented a bullshit reason why that inconvenient Fourth Amendment doesn't really apply. Currently "anti-terrorism" is popular.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
The ends do not necessarily justify the means. The police acted criminally in placing the video camera for the express purpose of avoiding the requirement to get a warrant - essentially waiting for him to do something illegal on tape so they could secure a warrant.
This is the legal equivalent of a cop following you around until you do something wrong, and then pulling you over. The courts have roundly rejected this tactic as a constitutional violation.
THE LAW IS THE LAW, no matter who benefits from it. That is the way it is, and if you don't like it, you should go live in Pakistan or Venezuela or some other fucking dictatorship where people have no rights.
You only need a reasonable expectation that you will find evidence that a crime has been or is being committed. A MUCH lower barrier. Looking at the process from the outside - it's pretty hard to get a request rejected.
The problem with Law in the United States is that it's based not on the SPIRIT of the law but the LETTER of the law, so if some lawyer happens to get some weird ruling then it's on the books and then it's citable as law... and so the system grows on itself.
The laws are Byzantine and increasingly unimportant, it's all about who can pay for the best representation, even basics like Civil Rights are virtually non-existent.
Watching this decline is disturbing and saddening.
Criminal law, I find, is pretty straightforward at the local and state level.
I'm amazed anyone can do their taxes, however.
The Bill of Rights is extended to state governments by the 14th amendment, which says:
No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law
So yeah, you're simply wrong. The Consitution applies only due process applies to non-citizens. The first, second, fourth, and fifth amendments, at least are protected for "citizens of the United States". People here illegally are entitled to due process, a hearing, before they are nailed or their property is taken. Other than that, they are intruders and have about the same rights as someone who broke into your home. Legal immigrants are guests in the country and you can think about the difference in rights between a guest you invite into your home versus you in your own home. Only one of two is allowed to touch the thermostat, or go upstairs.
A cop bought a video camera to catch an illegal alien unloading a firearm at bottles on his own porch, among other things...catches the guy, along with a significant drug operation no less...and the court "nixes weeks of warrantless video surveillance" is a GOOD THING? You'll notice they aren't nixing the YEARS of warrantless surveillance that every citizen of the U.S. has been under, nor the YEARS of collusion with friendly nations to extend that surveillance program to every citizen, worldwide. No, they're nixing the one bit of fucking video that might actually have been worth recording in the fucking first place. Footage of a criminal, committing a crime. How novel.
The EFF logo for this story was perfect, "extremely fucking foolish" was the first thought that came to mind.
The police can't violate people's rights in pursuit of law breakers. The ends don't justify the means.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
The word should be "jailed", of course, not nailed.
Jesus did have a hearing before Pilate before he was nailed, but in the US people get a hearing when they are jailed.
It is very rare that judges do not approve requests for warrants from police departments. The fact that they did what they did without going through the proper channels proves that they're lazy.This guy Vargas is a drug-dealing asshole, and he should hang. Police laziness means he gets to walk. That's not a Christmas gift - that's a lump of coal.
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
Warrants can be a catch-22. To get a warrant one needs evidence that a crime has been or is beginning committed which is difficult to get if a warrant is needed to gather evidence that a crime has been or is beginning committed. In my opinion anything visible from the street is fair game.
As the saying goes, "it is better for ten guilty men to go free than for one innocent man to be falsely prosecuted". In a slightly different wording this is sometimes called Blackstone's Formulation or Blackstone's Ratio. As that Wiki page explains, this is a much older concept and it's closely tied to the entire notion of a presumption of innocence.
The requirement that cops go through proper procedures, including obtaining warrants, exists to protect you and me. There is no perfect system. There will be errors. The only decision to be made is whether we try to err on the side of imprisoning the innocent, or on the side of acquitting the guilty. The former is much, much better.
If you want a real solution to most of these cases, we need to wake up and realize that nothing confined to consenting adults should ever be a crime. If you're paying attention you will notice two things: these cases are almost entirely drug cases, and that drug prohibition is failing to make drugs scarce. You simply can't tell people how to live. The financial and social costs of trying are far too high, greatly in excess of any good achieved by trying. The US has the highest proportional prison population of any industrialized nation in the world, and the vast majority of those prisoners are there because of drug charges.
Speaking of prisons, when they find a way to keep illegal drugs out of prisons, then and only then can we have a reasonable discussion about keeping them out of general society. Until then, we should recognize that the laws and rulings coming out of prohibition are a threat to the liberty of everyone. The only reason this case was remarkable, the only reason it made a headline, is because this time the court rightly favored following the Constitution over prosecuting a drug criminal. That isn't the way it usually goes. Usually they perform various mental gymnastics to justify the actions of cops, like when using a dog to search your car (using its nose as a substitute for the officer's hands and eyes) is somehow not a search and doesn't require a warrant.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
The former is much, much better.
Should have written, "the LATTER is much, much better". Heh.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
The powers of the federal government are lusted in Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution. The Constitution says:
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts ...
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
You might want to read that last part twice. Anything not explicitly allowed to the feds is reserved to the states and the people.
By 1819, Chief Justice Marshall said the meaning of that is so clear that McCulloch didn't need to spend time belaboring the point, everyone knows the feds can only do what they are specifically authorized to do. Marshall wrote:
"This government is acknowledged by all, to be one of enumerated powers. The principle, that it can exercise only the powers granted to it, would seem too apparent, to have required to be enforced by all those arguments, which its enlightened friends, while it was depending before the people, found it necessary to urge; that principle is now universally admitted."
>> because Vargas was an undocumented immigrant
Sorry but as a LEGAL immigrant myself, I think this guy gave up any rights when he illegally entered. I also think the cops/feds/whoever should have just locked him up or deported him as soon as they knew he was illegal.
>> They used the video surveillance to obtain a warrant to search his home, which uncovered drugs and guns,
So the cops suspicions were actually right all along then.
In this case and others like it, I think any ruling that supports illegal immigrants that are in posession of drugs and illegal guns is clearly a stupid one.
I find it very amusing to hear from all these one-man Supreme Courts, constitutional scholars all, willing to declare in internet chat-rooms that the President has violated some part of the law, at least in their own mind.
But please, here's your chance. Quote the relevant case law that makes you think you know more than judges who have spent their lives studying this stuff.
I should point out that citizens of Washington State have a State Constitution which specifically gives us stronger privacy rights than most Americans.
You can't even use GPS trackers on our cars without a specific court order, even though you can do this in most states.
Same goes for our cell phone data.
Same goes for our front yards.
Now turn off your cop cam you're recording my lawn illegally, copper!
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
That is, unless you are the police. Sure, they may see evidence tossed in a case they spent time on, but that is the absolute extent of it.
It doesn't matter if someones rights have been violated, lives turned upside down, the police know they will NEVER be held to account.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Told kid about nano-cam dust today. He's only 4 years old, so he didn't know about them yet, and I'm trying to teach him basic hygiene. I explained for that for nearly a a hundred years we have all lived in an environment where other peoples' cameras are always in our homes. We track them in, on our shoes. The AC intake blows them in. The servers the cameras send video too, aren't owned by people who are practicing subterfuge. It's not like they snuck "spy" dust onto our porches in the hopes we'd track them in. It just happens; it's an inevitable consequence of the stuff blowing around everywhere.
My great grandparents complained about it. They thought they had a reasonable expectation of privacy in their homes, because nanotech was new. They didn't see the dust, so they didn't know it was there. In the absence of sensual confirmation, the default expectation (at least to the layman) was that it wasn't there. That was naive, but my grandparents didn't work with nanotech or even use consumer models themselves, so perhaps their ignorance could be forgiven. (Just as my own ignorance of hyperspace can perhaps be forgiven, since I'm not a miner.)
My grandparents, though, grew up with the stuff, though it was still a bit expensive, so it wasn't totally ubiquitous yet. By their time, almost everyone at least knew about it, and if in a gathering of any five people you were to say "nobody sees me inside my home," chances were there would have been a few guffaws and someone would likely point out that the statement was likely incorrect. Sometimes the stuff got innocently tracked into your house, and sometimes it was manipulated into getting there, through subterfuge. The law and social norms lagged, though, and people debated privacy a lot.
By the time their children (my parents) grew up, though, it was all over. Everyone knew about nano-cam dust, and unless you did a rad-flash a few minutes earlier, fucking in your own bed was just as public as doing it in Times Square.
And now my kid knows too. It's just something everyone is expected to know about and deal with. If I were to write a story about it, I think I would set the story in the time of my grandparents, back when society was truly conflicted and in the midst of change. I bet those were interesting times.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
...time for me, as a private citizen, in a state where it's single-party permission to record anything, sets up cameras at stuff I think is sketchy...
then I can send in the video when I see stuff to the police.
take that court.
The Supreme Court does not interpret the constitution to be either completely restrictive of the Federal Government only to those powers and authorities granted to it by the Constitiution, nor is it completely free to do whatever it wants so long as it is not prohibited by the Constitution. An example is a federal bank. Nowhere in the Constitution does it say the Feds can have a bank, or create the Federal Reserve (try to find authority for this in the Constitution). Early on in the republic, there was a big fight over this. Eventually the Supreme Court decided that anything that was necessary and proper to effect the powers granted to the feds by the Constitution was allowed. So, a federal bank was allowed, because that was considered necessary and proper for collecting taxes, and spending the revenues collected. Many of the States Rights folks specifically raised the ninth and tenth amendment arguements, but they did not win with the Supremes. But not just anything is allowed. My guess is that if the Feds decided to open Federal Liquor Stores or have a Federal Lottery that would get struck down in the courts for being unnecessary and/or improper to effect some federal power. States can do these things, but the Feds probably can't. So, the real situation is not so black and white as either post tries to make it.
Join the IParty!
I can understand the fourth amendment violation in this case.
Playing devils advocate, what would the argument be if a police officer was driving by on the street and had observed the suspect shooting the bottles with a firearm? I do know here in Arizona, that you cannot discharge a firearm within 1/4 mile of any occupied building. If that is the case in Washington, wouldn't thus give the police probable cause to search the home?
"We're gonna need a bigger boat"
Unless you are a cop.
If you're paying attention you will notice two things: these cases are almost entirely drug cases, and that drug prohibition is failing to make drugs scarce.
So your premise is that all drug laws should be abolished/not enforced. Sorry but I only partially agree. Certain drug laws, marijuana for example, are overreaching. Other drugs do cause harm to society.
nothing confined to consenting adults should ever be a crime.
I agree but some drug consequences are not confined to consenting adults. Some drugs cause people to be unable to hold jobs, cause them to commit crimes to support their habit, etc. I realize that alcohol does similar things but to a much lesser extent. The percentage of productive crackheads is much less than the percentage of productive alcohol use. The consequences of this drug use is spread to the rest of society in welfare costs, health costs, insurance costs, policing costs, etc.
favored following the Constitution over prosecuting a drug criminal.
The problem with the US Constitution is that it is imprecise.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects,[a] against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated
The issue is around the word "unreasonable" which can be interpreted differently by different people. What is unreasonable to one person may be reasonable to another. Too many people seem to interpret this an "any search without a warrant" but that is not what the Constitution says.
The Courts have interpreted "any person" to literally mean any PERSON. Not "citizen."
YOU quoted it: No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of CITIZENS of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any PERSON of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.
Citizen in the first part, person in the second, and that's how the founders meant it.
The Bill of Rights is extended to state governments by the 14th amendment, which says:
No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law
So yeah, you're simply wrong. The Consitution applies only due process applies to non-citizens. The first, second, fourth, and fifth amendments, at least are protected for "citizens of the United States". People here illegally are entitled to due process, a hearing, before they are nailed or their property is taken. Other than that, they are intruders and have about the same rights as someone who broke into your home. Legal immigrants are guests in the country and you can think about the difference in rights between a guest you invite into your home versus you in your own home. Only one of two is allowed to touch the thermostat, or go upstairs.
it says any PERSON, not any CITIZEN.. So he is correct, you are wrong.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
Your quote contradicts you. "nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law" means that non citizens get due process of law.
This has been my argument since my first exposure to the American "Free Movement" propaganda in the 4th grade. Teachers didn't like that. Especially when I made statements on the order of "the U.S.S.R doesn't have checks on their people moving from providence to providence either." Hell, even to go into Canada, I remember having to pass through a checkpoint where they reviewed my dad's license before permitting access (passport wasn't required back then).
If you made that statement, you were idiotically wrong, since there were checks in place to move to certain "special" regions, not to mention the wholesome deportation of ethnic groups within the USSR during and post WWII from their homelands to the other side of the union (without permission until many decades later to return, or even move from their new "homelands".)
Even though police did not have a warrant,
And that deserves a Darwin award. Seriously, couldn't they have gotten one in the first place? I seriously doubt, if they had well documented reasons to believe something was up, that they wouldn't have been able to find one.
This case was in the bag (or would have been in the bag), but authorities dropped the ball. I've been on jury duty, and I've seen this before. Cops drop the technical ball, and we in jury duty have to say "not guilty" even though we know deep in our guts that the guy on the stand did it.
It is annoying, but this is how the law is meant to operate in a civilized country. This just stresses the point that authorities need to do their shit better, all the time.
Since you utterly failed to read the first time, I'll try very short, Dr. Sues sentences for you this time.
Citizens have rights and privileges. ...
Citizens have 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th amendments
Non-citizens get a hearing before they go to jail.
It's two sentences. Really not that complicated.
Since you utterly failed to read the first time, I'll try very short, Dr. Sues sentences for you this time.
Citizens have rights and privileges. ...
Citizens have 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th amendments
Non-citizens get a hearing before they go to jail.
It's two sentences. Really not that complicated.
So your premise is that all drug laws should be abolished/not enforced. Sorry but I only partially agree. Certain drug laws, marijuana for example, are overreaching. Other drugs do cause harm to society.
If the laws prohibiting those drugs actually made them unavailable to would-be users, then and only then would I see your point. They're failing to do so, have always failed, and will continue to fail for the foreseeable future. These are simply facts and these facts are not controversial at all. As I said, even in the highly secured, scrutinized, searched, regimented environment of a prison, where all the variables favor the people trying to prevent drug use, not even in those places can we keep drugs out. One way or another, they continue to be smuggled in.
What these drug laws are accomplishing is the enrichment of violent gangs/cartels, for whom the illicit status of drugs means far greater profits. Even the occasional large drug bust just amounts to less competition, and it's generally not the big kingpins who are bearing the risk. What the prohibition laws also accomplished is the steady buildup of a police state and the erosion of the 4th Amendment. The asset forfeiture laws alone are an abomination in any country that even pretends to be a free society. All of this is caused by trying to enforce an unenforcable law. It's the only outcome that can be expected from trying to do so.
I agree but some drug consequences are not confined to consenting adults. Some drugs cause people to be unable to hold jobs, cause them to commit crimes to support their habit, etc. I realize that alcohol does similar things but to a much lesser extent. The percentage of productive crackheads is much less than the percentage of productive alcohol use. The consequences of this drug use is spread to the rest of society in welfare costs, health costs, insurance costs, policing costs, etc.
Again if the prohibition were actually capable of stopping the drug use, this would be a legitimate concern. The policing costs could be eliminated entirely. Legal drugs would cost far less per dose, removing much of the incentive for addicts to rob and steal from others, reducing crime. Hell, state governments could give away free drugs to addicts and it would cost less than what we're doing now, both monetarily and socially. The reason productive crackheads are less common than productive alcoholics is that the alcoholic can easily purchase his drug anywhere and can afford it since it's legal and cheap. The other costs you mention like welfare, health, and insurance are effectively fixed costs, because right now anyone who really wants drugs can get them.
The best way to reduce the harm caused by irresponsible drug use is to treat it as a public health issue, not a law-enforcement issue.
The issue is around the word "unreasonable" which can be interpreted differently by different people. What is unreasonable to one person may be reasonable to another. Too many people seem to interpret this an "any search without a warrant" but that is not what the Constitution says.
Indeed, unfortunately that isn't what the Constitution says, but it would be wonderful if we actually had a pro-freedom Supreme Court to make such a ruling. These days the Court is little more than a mouthpiece articulating bullshit justifications for what the police are going to do anyway in order to create the appearance of legitimacy. Also, if drugs were legal and regulated, the incentive for the vast majority of police searches would disappear, as the vast, vast majority of prisoners got there because of drug charges. Then most searches would be for important things like murder weapons, not for unimportant and futile things like trying and failing to tell adult people how to live.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
Cute. You cut that first quote off short of "general welfare". Honest mistake? I doubt it.
Why the hell could they have not gone and gotten a warrant?
Then there should be no problem.
I cut out pretty much the entire list of powers, because the exact list isn't the point.
If you want to make the argument that the "general welfare" clause essentially strikes the rest of the article, you then have to answer the question "why would the authors write out a list of allowed powers, then nullify that list by saying 'or anything else they want to do'?" There an old, old principle of law, going back thousands of years, that essentially says when interpreting law, any sentence in the law means SOMETHING. When the framers said "the federal government can only do the things in this list", that has to mean SOMETHING. What do you think it means, if not exactly what it says?
If we stop with just that article, we do have a bit of a conundrum - the list must be there for a reason, but then again the phrase "general welfare" must mean something too. That would leave room for debate.
Fortunately, the framers later came back and AMENDED the Constitution with the 10th amendment. The later amendment changes, or overrides, the earlier wording. This amendment, or change, is one simple sentence:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
Pretty clear, that. The states and the people reserve all powers not delegated to the feds. The feds have only those powers delegated to them.
The cost of reviewing video with nothing going on IS free, as even the cheapest camera will only show video where there is motion detected. I would bet the average single family residence (with no kids) probably has less then 5 minutes of motion at the front door and driveway during a day. Fast forward and your time is now down to close to nil.
Add to this the rapid development and falling cost of machine intelligence with video processing and you are looking at the beginning of a totalitarian "video state". The technology exists to use video surveillance to use facial recognition and processing of objects to automatically issue citations for j-walking or littering. I bet we could think of hundreds of other profitable invasive uses that are possible. Of course people (sheep) say, "Oh they would never do that." And a few decades ago people would never have believed that the government would have the ability to look at every purchase transaction that people make, and they certainly wouldn't have believed that "The People" would ever stand for that level of intrusion. But you have a credit/debit card with you right now and using it doesn't make you flinch.
Governments nowadays ALL coin the phrase "sources of revenue". What this means is the people working in government see the citizens that they are supposed to serve as their source of $$$. The fact is that government cannot resist getting their hands on more money (numerical unit of power).
The law used to be a framework where if someone caused a problem they could find a way to deter them from being a problem. There was no intention of enforcing all laws 100% of the time. Now when something happens the agents of the government never ask, "Should we apply this law? but instead only ask, "Can we apply this law?". Add this to the endless search for more revenue and you have a future where the video camera sees you drop a $5 bill, detects dropped paper, and the facial recognition system mails you a $1000 littering fine.
The endless creep of intrusion is headed that way and unless something huge happens it will slowly become the norm. But thank god!!! It will make you safer!!!!
But safety is a FEELING, especially when it doesn't come with a real percentage of improvement in life expectancy. And LIBERTY (all in caps!) is a RISK and it always was a risk. A risk that a lot of people died for.
I don't necessarily disagree with you as to what I'd LIKE it to say. I'm talking about what it DOES say.
The first 10 amendments say "CONGRESS shall make no law ..." etc. By themselves, prior to the 14th amendment, they (like the rest of federal Constitution) talk about what the FEDERAL government may and may not do. You seem to acknowledge this when you write "Federal law and what the federal government may do is unchanged by [the 14th]".
For 76 years, the Constitution limited only the feds, and everybody was pretty clear about that fact. 76 years later, the 14th put two limitations on the states. The 14th says, in plain English, that states may not abridge the rights of "citizens of the United States" (the Bill of Rights). It's right there, it says "citizens of the United States" get protection from state government abuses. What part of "citizens of the United States" do you not understand? It then goes on to say the one thing states must do regarding "all persons" (non-citizens) - they must have due process (a hearing, with a lawyer, etc.).
> And Federal law trumps any State ones, so the first ten stand as the ultimate law of the land.
Since you were just talking about "the first ten", read the tenth amendment. It's a sentence or two, easy to read. That's one of several places in the Constitution where it makes clear that the states delegate specific powers to the feds - it's the states who have the power, and they allow the feds to act under a grant of power from the states, not the other way around.
> the 14th somehow takes away rights enumerated in the first ten ...
> You also seem to entirely miss the framing of the document, what "natural", "inalienable", and "all men" fundamentally mean, and the part where the people grant the power to the government, which presupposes that the natural rights are inherent before any governmental construct is created
See the problem there? You're supposing that the Bill of Rights grants rights, in order to argue that the 14th can't take them away. As you correctly state, the rights existed before the Constitution. The first 10 amendments bar the feds from VIOLATING those (pre-existing) rights. Seventy-six years later, the 14th amendment barred the STATES from violating the rights "of citizens of the United States". Neither CREATES rights. The first ten say the feds can't legally violate rights, the 14th says the sates can't legally violate the rights _of_citizens_. Lest anyone think that the authors merely forgot to mention non-citizens, the second sentence of the 14th then says that all people get DUE PROCESS (only).
If you think about it in certain practical terms, this makes perfect sense. Citizens have the right to bear arms (5th amendment). Guests who are Syrian nationals don't necessarily need the right to bear arms while they are visiting here. The revolution was fought, in part, about "taxation without representation". Does that mean foreign visitors don't have to pay any taxes, no sales taxes, no income taxes for H1-B visitors? Nope, visitors to a place don't have exactly the same rights.
I don't understand, why... They didn't enter his house — they recorded his front door — and front yard. That ought to be Ok — whatever can be legally seen, can be legally recorded is the general principle.
A camera is just an extension for a policeman's eyes. Would it have been illegal for the department to post an officer in front of the man's house? No. So the camera standing there instead should be just as legal...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Which rules are those, that prohibit police from looking at one's front yard? They didn't enter any premises and whatever can be legally observed, can be recorded...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
...my first exposure to the American "Free Movement" propaganda in the 4th grade
did you not get?
This is already the norm. I think you missed it. It is one of the primary mechanisms of corruption of law enforcement. In Canada at least, this is the norm. Law enforcement is completely corrupt, has no standards and is accountable to no one, especially the people they are supposed to protect, not exploit.
> Of the people. The others are the same.
"The right of the people to keep and bear arms". Do you think that visitors from Syria have the right to keep and bear arms? Do you think SCOTUS ruled that way?
> So unless you are claiming better qualifications than the SCOTUS, you are definitely wrong.
Let's have a look at what the court has ruled:
Demore v. Kim - the 8th amendment (bail) doesn't apply to foreign nationals
Yamataya v. Fisher - Racial discrimination okay in respect to foreign nationals
Porterfield v. Webb, - States may bar foreign nationals from owning land
Foley v. Connelie - States may require citizenship for hiring
Would you like a dozen more? They've been pretty consistent in following the plain language of the 14th amendment - everyone gets due process - a hearing with a lawyer, etc. Citizens have the various rights listed in the bill of rights and elsewhere.
Did you notice the one part of the 5th you quoted regarding "no person" is - surprise - the due process part, that "no person shall .. unless under indictment of a grand jury ... without due process of law"? Like I said, several times now, the 14th applies due process (right to a fair trial) to all persons. It does not give the right to vote, bear arms, etc. to visitors.
A legal resident is considered a US Person and has the same rights (and obligations) of a Citizen minus:
- The ability to vote in elections
- Working at some jobs that require citizenship (many federal/state)
- Certain benefits like social security (although they have to pay into it regardless)
More info here.
Also ironically, if the legal immigrant in between 18-25 and male he would have to register with the selective service and could be drafted into war should congress and the president authorize it.
Garbage. The word "citizen" doesn't occur once in the Bill of Rights: all of its provisions apply to all "persons", regardless of legal status.
And the 14th Amendment also goes on to "... nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws". Exactly how much more plainly can it say that "citizenship is irrelevant"?
In the 1990's as California, where I live, and other states greatly expanded the Prison Industrial Complex, Calif. built a lot of prisons. I assume other states did too. I put out the idea that they should all be built in a line along the US Mexico border. Heck, you could even skip building a wall or fence on the south side!
I do have a serious objection to this, and plans to build a moat or really big and long walls and fences, and that is environmental. There a lot of non-human critters that live out there, and the conservation status of a lot them is threatened or near threatened. The gila monster is one, jaguar is another. Putting a big barrier in the midst of their habitat will probably doom some species. I think it was shortly after 9/11 some building boom occurred along the border, (walls, not malls) and the Bush II administration ignored environmental law in doing so.
So, I am not making this up.
If the stupid cops waited until there was an actual crime, with an actual victim they would have no trouble getting a warrant.
Did they perhaps have OTHER illegal evidence that they couldn't bring to a judge to get a warrant, like a tip from the NSA perhaps?
Exactly this... Our judicial system started going down hill once we started using the system we call "case law", in which each judicial decision is put into the books and used as an argument for all the next cases down the road. This creates a wavering, or gentle slope away from the actual "Spirit of the Law" that was originally put forth in all aspects.
I have wondered if it is even possible to know all of the laws and government regulations that one has to abide by. There is the United States Code, all of the various federal regulations, laws and regulations for the state you are a resident in, and various local laws and regulations. Is it even reasonable to assume that someone could read them all in a year? When you have congress passing massive bill like the ~2400 page Affordable Care Act, or how ever many are in the US patriot act, or even the annual federal budget which gets all sorts of other random crap stuffed in it, that all makes changes to existing law or create new laws it seems like it is an impossible task. Given that even the federal government can't state how many federal crimes there are it seems that it should entirely be a reasonable defense to be ignorant of the law given that even the government is.
Time to offend someone
It's "practically impossible short of turning the border into a DMZ" like North/South Korea's border?
If that's too strong, how about "It clear with anyone with eyes to see that it's so far from being economically cost-effective that sealing the border for the purposes of immigration control might as well be considered practically (albeit not literally) impossible."
Note that both statements leave open the fact that if the need became great enough, as it is in the North/South Korea situation, sealing the border may become cost-effective. It will still be extremely expensive but if the benefits of sealing it (preventing another country from making a credible effort to over-run ours - the threat South Koreans currently face) it might become cost-effective.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
But when I had a VCR, I almost never time-shifted
I did. So did many others.
For them though, the "slight change in the quantitative cost" was the up-front price of a VCR that allowed more than 1 or 2 pre-programmed, recurring (i.e. "weekly" or "daily") events dropping below a certain price and/or the slight upward change in their income making a previously-too-expensive device suddenly affordable.
Trivia: You can now get bring-your-own-USB-storage DVR set-top-box from certain major American electronics stores for well under $50. These have been available online for awhile but it's nice to see them in stores. The one I've seen is not as good (or expensive) as a Slingbox or $299+ ChannelMaster and it's not as fun as building your own MythTV box but it gets the job done and you don't have to be a geek to set one up or use it.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Step 1: If they thought he might have a gun they could've blanketed the whole town with gunshot-activated cameras (yes, they exist) or at least gunshot-activated alarms that automatically request police to investigate. To be fair maybe the gun use was a surprise.
Step 2: Thankfully they either don't know how to use parallel construction or they are honest enough (!) to not even try.
----->Because it's impossible to secure 3,000 miles of border, and he would just sneak back in if that's all we did.
-----> Pardon me, but that's bullshit. -- Let's just take the forces we already have today. We have 1.4 Million in active duty military personnel and etc...
Reality: Boarder- Smorder. If upstanding U.S. American citizens did not hire illegal workers all of the workers would be gone by next Thursday. You know that is true. All the boarder stuff is because we don't want to prosecute U.S. citizens who do illegal things. You better believe it is hard for a U.S. citizen or Mexican or any non-Canadian to get a job illegally in Canada. They will throw the book at a fellow Canadian if he hires an illegal. Here? Blame it on the boarder.
unfortunetly any department will ( on rare occation ) have , a wrong person in a possition of power ! and how will we protect our children from A STOP AND GROPE !! i strongly feel this problem should get more attention . i also sadly include female officers . who watches the guards ?
the power of men in charge of words over men in charge of machines surpasses all wondering S WEIL