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.

Comments

What?

[Jiro]

If he's an undocumented immigrant, why don't they just deport him instead of going through all of this?

Re:What?

[heezer7]

Sadly, because america :(

Re:What?

[Tokolosh]

Because nowhere in the Constitution does the government have the authority to decide who is worthy to live here, and who is not.

Re:What?

[CanHasDIY]

FWIW, the Constitution does make a distinction between citizens and non-citizens in regards to rights, evidenced in the Amendments - some of them only apply to citizens (ie the 2nd), whereas others (5th, 6th) specifically point out that the right belongs to everyone within US borders, citizen or otherwise.

Not sure if or how that augments the argument, just making a statement of fact.

Re:What?

[Loki_1929]

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 850,000 reserves. Obviously we can't take every single one, so let's take half: 1.1 Million people. Now stick them on a 3-man rotation minus 1/3 for duty rotations and leave and spread them out across the 1,954 mile border with Mexico. That puts 125 people plus their equipment per mile of border, plus all their R&D budget going into technologies to increase protection. Those personnel aren't just idle all day; they're building fences, digging trenches, laying sensor grids, and basically doing all the stuff that completely shut down the San Diego zone for crossings and they're doing it 24/7/365 at 125 per mile or one person every 14 yards.

I think that's all way overboard for what we'd need to actually secure (~99% reduction in successful unauthorized crossings) that border, but in any event, don't try to say it's impossible to do. Say we lack the political will. Say we choose not to do it. Say we just aren't interested enough in the problem to do what's necessary to solve it. But don't say it's impossible; that's absurd. I'm not even getting terribly creative here; just sticking boots on the ground and a whole lot more boots than we'd ever actually need at that.

Re:What?

[Tokolosh]

Anything not forbidden to the Federal Government by the Constitution is allowed, assuming the appropriate laws are passed

You have this backwards. Everything is forbidden to the Federal Government, except that explicitly granted by the Constitution.

Re:What?

[ShanghaiBill]

why is that so hard to do in america???

Because there are many of us that believe that America should be a free country, and welcome anyone who wants to come here and build a better life for themselves and their families. So we are willing to throw any monkey wrench we can into the machinery of deportation.

Re:What?

[jbmartin6]

Anything not forbidden to the Federal Government by the Constitution is allowed, assuming the appropriate laws are passed

This is incorrect, anything not allowed the Federal Gov by the Constitution is forbidden. That's the opposite of what you said. The 9th and 10th amendments were added to clarify this point. This is why we have arguments about the scope of things like the general welfare clause.

Re:What?

[Tiger4]

Anything not forbidden to the Federal Government by the Constitution is allowed, assuming the appropriate laws are passed.

Uhh, no. Rather it is quite the opposite.
"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." http://www.law.cornell.edu/con...

Limited government, and explicitly so at the Federal level

Re:What?

[CrankyFool]

Not to start an argument, but are you sure about the 2nd amendment?

I'm a documented permanent legal alien here (Green Card); I own numerous guns. While as a non-citizen I have to show one extra piece of ID when purchasing a firearm, even in California (known for restrictive gun laws) I have the ability to purchase every firearm that a citizen can. I've never seen any indication of permanent residents being treated differently in terms of the ability to own firearms compared to citizens, and it feels like if the 2nd amendment (which refers to "people," not "citizens") could be construed to not include residents, someone would have already passed a law taking that particular capability out of my hands.

Re:What?

[myowntrueself]

Won't work, the US military is too busy 'securing' other countries...

Re:What?

[Shakrai]

Notably us white Northerners were not suddenly beset with swarthy skinned Southerners taking our jobs.

Which explains why David Cameron is trying to amend the freedom of movement to gain the ability to deport EU nationals that move to the UK without first securing employment. Or the borderline racism I personally observed in Sweden and Finland directed at EU nationals who moved there from the former Eastern Bloc.

You might ask why your American governments don't afford you the same freedoms.

You can freely move through the 50 States with more ease than EU nationals can establish themselves in another EU State. Common language and all, plus there's no such thing in the States as a residency permit for American citizens. But don't let the facts get in the way of your conceptions. :)

Re:What?

[zwede]

2nd amendment applies to all legal residents. You don't even need a green card to own a gun, a visa is enough. I had guns when I lived here on a H1B, a green card and now as a citizen. I got my concealed carry license while on the green card.

Re:What?

[lymond01]

That read like an XKCD What If? response.

Re:What?

[HBI]

This all misses the point. The way most illegal immigrants come into and stay in the US is not by sneaking through the desert. It's by passing in on a tourist visa and then just not leaving.

Figure out a way to fix that problem that doesn't involve house to house searching and random checkpoints, and you get a gold star.

Re:What?

[Loki_1929]

You have the political will to gun down/blow up kids running for the fence? That's what Eastern Germany did.

You are making a strawman argument. Never did I suggest doing any such thing.

Funny, that's what Eastern Germany said too. Fat lot of good it did them trying to keep people in.

You can attempt to draw all the offensive comparisons you want while ignoring the fact it isn't a terribly challenging problem to solve when your wall isn't right through the middle of a major city and isn't easily climbable and isn't the only line of defense. Look at what happened when they put in a complex fencing system in the San Diego zone in the mid 90s: suddenly crossing attempts dropped by over 90%. Nobody got through there, so they all went into the mountains to go around the system.

Simply extend the San Diego system across the rest of the border and have heavy patrols. Anyone damaging the system is imprisoned for a period, then deported to their country of origin. Those who manage to make it through the system are quickly rounded up by the regular patrols and immediately deported to their country of origin. Most will stop trying. The few that remain will be far more easily managed.

Re:What?

[Shakrai]

Then after 9/11, the US began to build its version of the Berlin wall.

Umm, the Berlin Wall was to meant to keep East Bloc citizens in, not to keep Westerners out. I've never had any issues whatsoever leaving the United States. In fact it's easier to exit the United States than it is to exit the Schengen Area; we don't make you wait in line to get your passport stamped on your way out of our country.

Re:What?

[msc.buff]

You were moderated Informative with this "gem" in your comment:

"Anything not forbidden to the Federal Government by the Constitution is allowed..."

It is exactly that train of thought which has lead to the utter disaster which our Government has become.

Re:What?

[wiredlogic]

He must have been reading the Chinese constitution which reserves all power and has a lengthy list of freedoms which are granted to the people.

Re:What?

[Archangel Michael]

Mexico's Immigration requirements are what we should all aim for. But if we did what Mexico does, we would be labeled "racists" by La Raza (literally "the Race") crowd who want unfettered and open boarders to America, but not the inverse where Americans could invade Mexico. BTW, poor Mexico also has VOTER ID requirements that make America's whining about having to get off their lazy asses so that they can vote. It is pathetic.

The US and Canada, have a much more polite (thanks Canadians!) relationship.

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

I appreciate your candor. I wish more on the right would have the courage to articulate what they are really thinking.

It would be easier for the rest of us to see who the fascist psycho nut-jobs truly are, and shun them accordingly.

Re:What?

[Dragonslicer]

The great wall of china is 5,500 miles long. If they could build that a thousand years ago, surely we could do better now?

Because the Great Wall was never intended to keep out people. The purpose was to keep out horses (and their riders).

Re:What?

[jamesborr]

Not sure how one could come to such an assumption. Let's take a real example: Israel with a population of 8 million people has already built a fence of 300+ miles, with a final length of 400+ miles (the project started in 2002). This fence has nearly shutdown any and all intrusion attempts from some of the most "determined" border crossers on the planet. Any you to suppose that a country of 300+ million people (nearly 40 times more people) cannot build an equally competent fence of 3000 miles (only 7 to 8 times longer) then the Israeli's have? We might not have the political will to do so -- but the task is certainly not "IMPOSSIBLE".

Re:What?

[TsuruchiBrian]

Sure it's easy to stop 90% or 99% of illegal immigration if you are willing to do at all costs. But we are not willing to do it at all costs. What is the point of spending all this money to build a giant fence, when the net harm caused by illegal immigration is no where near the cost of the fence?

This is like spending $100K on a security system that stops $5K of damage/theft over it's lifetime

All this is assuming *that* illegal immigration is harmful on average. Maybe it is, but the evidence is not convincing either way. In any case it would probably be easier to institute policies on our side of the fence in order to make illegal immigration less harmful to our society.

These are human beings most of whom are willing to do whatever it takes to make a better life for their family. Sure some are criminals, but some people in our native population are criminals too.

Re:What?

[Jane Q. Public]

It should also be noted that Federal law aside, the surveillance activities of the police is clearly against Washington State privacy laws.

In general, it is illegal for law enforcement to use ANY means that is not available to a casual passerby on the sidewalk, to see what is happening on private land. Using a stepladder on the sidewalk to look over the back fence is illegal without a warrant, as is the use of a drone, or even just standing in front of a house and peering through the front window with binoculars.

In general, the activity is undertaken specifically in order to see what cannot be casually seen, or is done over a period of time ("surveilling"), it is illegal without a warrant.

Re:What?

[Loki_1929]

Thank you, I'm quite flattered by the comparison.

Re:What?

[Neil Boekend]

They are finishing things that SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN STARTED.

this is ridiculous

[hammarlund]

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.

Re:this is ridiculous

[BarbaraHudson]

Actually, it is different. For one thing, even an unmarked car sitting there 24/7 is going to raise eyebrows, as well as probably get the police some phone calls for suspicious activity.

Mounting a camera 24/7 at his house lowers the cost barrier - eventually it will be cheap enough to do this to everyone. You can be sure that, at that point, there will be selective enforcement. After all, if they enforced every law on the books on everyone, the only people who wouldn't be in jail would be???

Re:this is ridiculous

[__aaclcg7560]

If you have a cop car parked outside, most drug dealers would hightail over the back fence and take their business elsewhere. What most communities need are officers out of their comfortable police cars and walking the beat to know the neighborhood.

Re:this is ridiculous

[Gription]

There is a major difference. The wholesale government surveillance of the Internet, the ramp up of government drones, and the government "video surveillance state" comes down to one thing:

It is now cost effective for governments to micromanage EVERYONE'S life.

If you you don't recognize that this is the most dangerous thing that has happened to liberty and civilization in general you aren't awake. If they felt that this person was dangerous enough that they were willing to pay for a manned 24/7 stakeout then that has already introduced a massive self limiting level of restraint on the process. Popping something on a pole for a cost that is less then one day's wages and then letting it mop up anything is not remotely like a stakeout.

Be very clear about this: A government is a hierarchy. A hierarchy is just an organizational construct. By definition a hierarchy CANNOT HAVE A MORAL CONSCIOUS!. Only an individual can be moral. The basic drives and influences of a person in a hierarchy is not remotely focused on exercising morality. It is focused on power dynamics of having someone above you and someone below you. (Not a great way to exercise "morality" ehh?!)

Always remember: If you had a teenaged child with the same fiscal responsibility and penchant for dancing around the truth as ANY government you would ground them for life.
(And I have to listen to people who want to give up MY rights because they believe an organization chart called "government" will magically take care of things for them. Shheeeshh!!!)

Re:this is ridiculous

[Curunir_wolf]

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.

The courts are starting to recognize that using technology in ways like this is different. They've decided that placing a GPS tracker on your car is different than than following you around, and that using infrared scanning of your house is different than a visual inspection, and that searching through your smart phone when they arrest you is different than looking through your wallet.

The reason these things are looked at differently is that courts have recognized that our privacy protections, as conceived in the 18th century, still need to be enforced, and that technology makes violating privacy a lot less costly for law enforcement. That is, there were natural protections due to resource constraints - pervasive surveillance of every citizen was simply not possible. Just because a technology comes along that eliminates those resource requirements does not mean that privacy is no longer protected.

Re:this is ridiculous

[mythosaz]

You don't 24/7 videotape a petty drug dealer to catch a petty drug dealer.

You do it to catch a much bigger criminal.

Do the police need a warrant to set up shop in the building across the street? If my neighbor is already recording the street in front of his house with his home security system, and volunteers to turn over angles that cover my house, do they need special permission to look at that? If my house is next to a traffic camera, can they look at all the background photos captured when someone runs a red light without getting a warrant?

I'm asking.

Re:this is ridiculous

[njnnja]

tl;dr: Many functions are non-linear

Once upon a time, I owned a VCR and could have time-shifted shows whenever I wanted. All I had to do was set up the timer once, then when it was time to record a show, make sure there was a tape in there, and push a couple of buttons to define the start time, end time, and channel. I could watch the show just by finding the right tape (which took all of 5 seconds to label properly), inserting, spending less than a minute or so to rewind to the proper place, and watch the show.

Now I have a DVR and I can still time-shift, although it is a bit easier. Instead of finding the correct time and station in the TV Guide magazine, I use the on-screen guide to find it, push the appropriate button, then (generally) click straight through the defaults and it will record the show. To watch, I press the "DVR" button, scroll around until I find the show, and press play. It's probably a total difference of 2 minutes to program the VCR vs 30 seconds to record on a DVR.

But when I had a VCR, I almost never time-shifted, but with a DVR, I almost never watch live tv. Sometimes what appears to be a slight change in the quantitative cost of something can lead to a large qualitative change in behavior. And the difference between surveillance by squad car and having cameras everywhere is like the difference between a 4000 lb VCR versus a DVR that records every station all the time.

Re:this is ridiculous

[macsforme]

The legal meaning of terms like "stalking" are significant in this context. Generally, stalking refers to behavior like surveilling, threatening, or harassing which makes the victim feel that they are in danger. In some states, a stalking charge is a felony. Law enforcement conducting surveillance on a suspect's property to verify the credibility of a tip and to obtain probable cause for a search warrant is hardly "stalking."

Re:this is ridiculous

[darkain]

Interesting on this point.

One of the clients that I manage, the cops came to their house. They asked the resident to allow the cops to setup security video cameras in my client's back yard. The client's back yard faced the back yard on the next street over of a suspect of a crime (not sure if drugs or something else). The cops came in and installed all their own video equipment to point at this other house to monitor them 24/7, from my client's property, NOT from a public location.

So, this is like your scenario of someone turning over security footage from their own cameras, only taking it one step further because the cops installed security cameras on private property (with permission of course... but what did they DO get get that permission, I don't know)

If you point the camera on a politician..

[denis-The-menace]

If you point the camera on a politician you won't have to wait a month to watch a crime to happen.

Re:If you point the camera on a politician..

[TheGratefulNet]

if you point a camera or mic at any of us, sooner or later we'll all be guilty of some crime on the books.

its by-design, too. have so many laws that, if 'the man' wants to come after you, there is always a reason he can find.

THIS is why it should not be allowed. plus, well, its NOT the kind of world we would want to live in. we get the world we want, and do we (as a people, human beings) want to live in a world where this is allowed to happen?

we better stop this invasive spying shit. its already gone on more than it should. will we, as a people, have the wisdom and forsight to stop this before we truly become an orwellian society, in every literal sense of the word?

Re:If you point the camera on a politician..

[BarbaraHudson]

If you point the camera on a politician you won't have to wait a month to watch a crime to happen.

If you point a camera at a politician, you won't have to wait a month to see the camera removed.

Re:If you point the camera on a politician..

[gstoddart]

If you point a camera at a politician, you won't have to wait a month to see the camera removed.

And if you pointed a camera at a police station ... you are not going to last very long at all.

Because to the police, they can point a camera at you, but if you do it to them you've committed a crime. Just look at how many police try to confiscate/delete video taken of them, despite being repeatedly told they have no legal authority to do that.

Because apparently the police neither know nor care what the law says.

Which is why I say mandatory body cameras on police. Because otherwise they're just thugs with guns and badges when nobody is looking.

I think it's high time police were charged with crimes when they do shit like this. Send a few of these bastards into prison with the rest of the crooks.

Re:If you point the camera on a politician..

[dgatwood]

If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged.
—Cardinal Richelieu (allegedly)

Re:If you point the camera on a politician..

[mrchaotica]

We could also fix it by simply making a rule that "malfunctioning" camera + complaint of misconduct = bullet between the cop's eyes.

Papers please, comrade ...

[gstoddart]

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.

Re:So if I've got this right...

[Applehu Akbar]

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.

Re:undocumented immigrant

[TWX]

The wording of the natural rights in the Constitution's Bill of Rights don't mention citizenship as a requirement for those rights applying. Court rulings have allowed for narrower interpretations (ie, firearms potentially) but otherwise, the same rules governing the treatment of citizens govern the treatment of everyone else.

This is part of the reason why so many peopel got upset by the 'black sites' used to hold those grabbed in 'extraordinary rendition' protocols and held, and likely tortured, it was an attempt to get around the Contitution's rules regarding the treatment of people by keeping them off of US soil. What was argued and is still argued, is that those engaging in the business of the United States of America, whether on American soil or abroad, should still be bound by the Constitution and laws when working in their official capacity. This is also why rules of war matter, as those rules are what are supposed to allow for different treatment.

But we haven't declared war since WWII if memory serves, so I guess in practice, those conditions have been eroding since the Korean War.

Re:undocumented immigrant

[mean pun]

Why does the fourth amendment apply? If he is not a citizen of the US, our laws shouldn't protect him.

Did you think about the consequences of what you are saying even for a second?

Ignorance of the law is no excuse.

[Dareth]

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.

Re:Presidential Oath of Office - how quaint

[mc6809e]

"...he shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed..."

Re:So if I've got this right...

[DocSavage64109]

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.

Re:undocumented immigrant

[__aaclcg7560]

My parents would disagreed. I was constantly reminded as a child that they brought me into the world and could take me out of the world.

Re:undocumented immigrant

[causality]

Why does the fourth amendment apply? If he is not a citizen of the US, our laws shouldn't protect him.

Because the Constitution is a document describing what powers the government has and how these powers may be used. It's like a default-deny firewall: the government has no powers whatsoever, except these enumerated powers. The Constitution is emphatically not a document describing what rights a person (citizen or not) has and when they will be honored.

The document was written based on the idea of "natural rights". You have certain rights simply because you are a human being; the government either recognizes that or it becomes dysfunctional and fails to fulfill its major purpose, which is to protect your natural rights. The Founders (mostly Deists) explained it in terms of us having been "endowed by our Creator" with such rights. You could also remove the Creator-concept entirely and argue that such a system simply works better and does the greatest good for all involved, and thus is inherently superior to systems that reject the concept of natural rights.

You don't have rights merely because the government deigned to let you have them, or decided that depriving you of them wasn't worth the trouble. A system where that's the foundational principle has lost even the pretense of human dignity. That kind of system wouldn't even have to bother with the incremental "hey we have an excuse that sells (protect the children! stop the terrorists!)" encroachment of liberty that we're seeing now. It could just go straight into open tyranny without having all those little baby steps for naive people to ignore.

You may wish to brush up on a little American history, specifically why the Tenth Amendment was written. It affirms that the federal government has only those powers which are delegated to it, with the rest being reserved by the states and the people. I'm all for deporting this guy, by the way. We should either enforce our immigration laws (like Mexico and every other sovereign nation) or repeal them, but if we're going to arrest this man, there's a process that must (and should) be followed.

Re:undocumented immigrant

[Russ1642]

I hear it's open season on tourists. I'm going to Vegas to hunt me some Brits.

Re:So if I've got this right...

[causality]

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.

Re:undocumented immigrant

[gstoddart]

I would love to see a judge who ruled US protections do not apply have someone use that logic on them.

You want to know something scary?

Alberto Gonzales, the moron who was Bush the 2nd's Attorney General ... he once said that habeus corpus wasn't a right. So the legal advice he was giving Shrub? Entirely based on a complete lack of understanding of the law and the Constitution.

Government has reached the point that if they can get a lawyer to craft an opinion about what is legal, it's valid.

Which is how you ended up with police and governments increasingly doing shit which isn't legal. Because they no longer give a damn about what is legal, or follows a set of principles, it's what you can get some sleaze bag of a lawyer to argue in court.

Re:Presidential Oath of Office - how quaint

[smooth wombat]

Do you let random people walk into your home any time of the day or night without knowing who they are?

If not, why should the United States?

Re:Ignorance of the law is no excuse.

[mythosaz]

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.

Re:Presidential Oath of Office - how quaint

[TechyImmigrant]

Do you let random people walk into your home any time of the day or night without knowing who they are?

If not, why should the United States?

Because a free market in labour is as important as a free market in goods.

lazy cops

[jsepeta]

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.

Re:undocumented immigrant

[Shadow IT Ninja]

In fact, the Fourteenth Amendment says "... All persons within the jurisdiction of the United States are entitled to equal protection under the laws..." This amendment was passed after the US Civil War since slave owners had argued that slaves had no rights because they were not citizens. In Boumediene v. Bush, the Supreme Court ruled that Guantanamo Bay is within the jurisdiction of the US and therefore, detainees there have consittutional rights, particularly Habeus Corpus defined in the Ninth Amendment. Even though GTMO is legally part of Cuba's soverign territory, the US has full control.

Re:Presidential Oath of Office - how quaint

[magarity]

But the children are American citizens because of the Constitution. You can't deport American citizens

You can give passports to american citizens, regardless of age, so they can have a choice to stay or go to the other country to stay with their parents.

"powers not delegated reserved to States, people"

[raymorris]

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."

Re:hum

[causality]

I think you are missing the point of the story. Nobody really gives a flying fuck whether this one guy happens to get deported or not, because he's no longer an interesting or important part of it. What happened is that the government Got Caught, yet again, doing illegal shit. Whoever they were investigating during the commissions of their own infractions, is irrelevant. It doesn't have anything to do with Latin-vs-other, or even presidents. It was a local PD that got caught acting like criminals. That's bad, because we want PDs to be fighting crime, not being the crime.

It will also continue as long as there is no real penalty for getting caught. If a cop breaks the rules in this manner, the worst that happens is the case gets thrown out and the defendant goes free. Start throwing these cops in state penitentiaries for a year or two, making sure they go in the general population and get no special treatment, and you will see an immediate and drastic decline in this kind of abuse. And why shouldn't we do this? Cops who engage in this behavior are violating the very highest law of the land. That should carry a penalty.

The way I see it, when a cop breaks the law it's much worse than when an ordinary citizen breaks the law, because the cop is entrusted with special powers and has sworn to uphold the law. It follows that cops should be punished much more harshly when they break the law than a citizen who does the same thing. There is no other way you're going to return to being a free nation.

Talk to old people sometime about what cops used to be like. They were once genuine public servants. If you had a problem, you could find a cop and he'd help you. Average people didn't fear the police the way they do now. That's what we should return to.

I should point out that WA has stronger privacy

[WillAffleckUW]

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!

No, You are All Misinformed

[Strangely Familiar]

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.

Re:Presidential Oath of Office - how quaint

[smooth wombat]

Which has nothing to do with the question I asked.

No one is saying people from other countries shouldn't be allowed to work in the U.S. (I'm not), what is being asked is they do it legally and with proper documentation.

So again, I ask the question, do you let random people walk in and out of your place without knowing who they are?

Re:undocumented immigrant

[bmo]

Oh look at the poor persecuted "christian" that is so bent out of shape because his publicly funded school or courthouse doesn't have a monument to the 10 commandments. Paying 5 or 6 figures for a monument, as has happened in the past, is an endorsement.

Look, numbnuts, it's not "your" school or courthouse, it's our school and our courthouse, and "us" includes atheists, hindi, buddhists, jews, etc., as well as christians, or so-called "christians" that have completely forgotten the Sermon on the Mount.

--
BMO

They Dropped The Ball

[luis_a_espinal]

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.

Huge difference...

[Gription]

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.

Re:Presidential Oath of Office - how quaint

[ShanghaiBill]

Mexicans come here to bring a piece of Mexico with them, wanting bilingual schools and lots of other accommodations

This is complete nonsense. Bilingual education is deeply unpopular among Latinos, who overwhelmingly prefer English immersion for their kids. Latinos are transitioning to English just as quickly as other waves of immigrants in the past, such as Italians, Germans, etc. You should read some history books on the Italian speaking tenements in Brooklyn a century ago. People then were spouting the same xenophobic nonsense that you are today.

 

Re:Presidential Oath of Office - how quaint

[LordWabbit2]

I used to back in my party days, woke up one afternoon and found someone sleeping in my cupboard. Left him there and went to find something to eat. Once after a serious night out I woke up and someone had cleaned my lounge, still don't know who it was.