Yes, I was actually surprised that that was the reasoning. I didn't believe it at first and actually read the ruling; I was astounded to learn that was the actual reasoning they went with. I think their main contention was the search being "unreasonable". They argued that the search was unreasonable because the equipment was highly specialized and rare, not something the common man had every day access to.
Nope, you misunderstand the way 4A jurisprudence works. Here's the general overview:
(1) A warrantless search of a home or residence is presumptively invalid except in certain well-defined exceptions (hot pursuit, exigent circumstances).
(2) The question of what defines a 'search' in the first instance is a little less clear. An observation that does not reveal anything that a citizen can see from the street, for instance, is not a search and therefore doesn't require a warrant. A 'search' (for the purposes of the 4A) occurs only when the government sees something in which there is a reasonable expectation of privacy. A few examples are in order:
(2A) Flying over a house and looking down at it is not a search (California v Ciraolo) because anybody can legally fly over your house and look at it, so you can't reasonably be said to have an expectation of privacy in something that everyone can see.
(2B) Visual observation of a house from a public vantage point is likewise not a search, since it does not reveal anything that anyone just walking by on the street could not observe. The Court noted (wryly): "the Fourth Amendment protection of the home has never been extended to require law enforcement officers to shield their eyes when passing by a home on public thoroughfares."
(2C) Entry into "open fields" are likewise not a search because they are not a location in which there is a REP (Hester v. United States).
(3) The argument then devolves not to whether the search was reasonable but whether it was a search at all. The government (and the 4 dissenting Justices) contended that using an IR imager from the street is no different than standing on the street and making a visual observation. They further argued that any photons (like aromas and noises) that leave your property are no longer private in any sense of the word. Just like an officer (or any civilian, for that matter) can stand on the street and listen to your music playing, so to can he stand there and read the photons you are emitting.
Finally, as a matter of realist-thinking, Scalia notes that the desire to construe a "search" narrowly has been partly motivated by a desire to minimize the number of exceptions to the warrant requirement. That is, if visual observation from the street was considered a "search" then it would have to be some exception to the warrant requirement or else we would have to accept the absurd result that an officer driving down the road would need a warrant to glance towards your house.
But in fact we have held that visual observation is no "search" at all-perhaps in order to preserve somewhat more intact our doctrine that warrantless searches are presumptively unconstitutional.
So, in a somewhat circuitous sense, those of us that want to preserve the rule that nearly all warrantless searches of a house are unlawful need to adopt a narrow definition of a 'search'. We would be much worse off carving exceptions in the warrant requirement.
I have another way -- Firefox (all versions) at 32%, Internet Explorer (all versions) at 55%. The fact that the IE market is split between 6.X, 7.X and 8.X doesn't not detract from the (regrettable) fact that Internet Explorer is the most popular browser, worldwide. Different versions do not a different browser make.
In hindsight, this distribution is rather predictable -- FF nags you to update (rightly so) whereas IE can't even update itself, let along notify you about it.
Here's a plot (thankfully, they give out the raw CSV data) with the "all versions" included. Firefox has a ways to go. http://yfrog.com/j5temptlp
Whatever I call it, it's clear that no violence has been committed where no physical interaction has taken place.
Physically standing between someone and a place they have a lawful right to be (such as their own house!) is a physical interaction. You have physically excluded them from freely moving from one place to another. By your reasoning, I could just get 4 friends and form a human "ring" around people I don't like and they would be powerless to stop me (or go anywhere) because that's not violent? And if they tried to break out of the ring, they would be assaulting me!
Bottom line: do you think it should be legal for people to disrupt businesses of which they disapprove (cough, abortion clinics, cough) by physically interposing themselves and making it functionally impossible for people to come and go?
In contrast, temporarily making it illegal for citizens to own gas masks then later removing someone's gas mask and spraying a large cannister of pepper spray into their eyes at point-blank range is violence.
No disagreement there, don't know why you think I would disagree.
I'm also in favour of individual rights. However, I draw the line at allowing a group of individuals to meet to discuss the ways in which large populations of people all around the world may have their rights removed by economic means, from a distance. This is why I support the principle of peacefully obstructing WTO/G20 delegates.
What rights could the WTO/Copenhagen/G20 possibly remove "by economic means"? That phrase makes no sense to me. The G20 and WTO is comprised of representatives from governments that are themselves (more or less) representative. If you have a problem, vote out your government. If you consistently get out-voted, you might want to accept that your countrymen disagree with you and thus you should defer to their judgment (while still retaining your opinion that they are wrong and you are right).
By the way, now that we've set this precedent, I think it's time to start "peacefully obstructing" abortion clinics (for violating the rights of the unborn), gun shops (for violating the right to live in a gun free world), gun-control folks (for violating the right to self-defense), loggers (for violating the right to a clean environment), Greenpeace (for violating the rights of loggers), PETA (for violating the right to tasty fried chicken) and just about anyone else whose political views somebody somewhere might disagree with. IMO, that's no way to run a civil society in which politics -- about which honorable and reasonable people can and do disagree -- is subject to mob-veto so long as someone can articulate a way they think someone's perfectly-lawful activity violates their rights.
To me, it seems like the last resort of people who cannot convince others of their position by force of reason (or, even worse in the case of abortion-nutcases, they believe they do not ever bear the burden of persuasion). After being convinced of their correctness but failing to convince anyone else, they decide that their judgment must carry the day.
Oh please; the very people making these laws are the target of the protests. They make laws to stifle people's ability to protest at their abuses of power. The reality is that these people are untouchable and have an indirect stranglehold on the lives of the vast majority of the world's population, using economic means to suppress the emergence of real democracy - all around the world. They have police and para-military at their disposal who seem to delight in committing barbaric acts against unarmed civilians - all to ensure that noone has the fair access to the decision-making process which one would find in an actual democracy but which would threaten their hegemony.
First, I have no sympathy for barbaric acts committed against civilians. Ironically, most of the G77 that is highly undemocratic (China, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia
Obstruction is a form of physical violence? Are you a police officer?
If I (perhaps with a few dozen others) stand your house and prevent you from entering or leaving by physically interposing myself between you and your door, what do you call that?
I'm not a police officer, I'm a person that believes in the existence and vindication of individual rights. Those individual rights include the right to (say) convene with like minded citizens for the purpose of political association. Preventing another individual from exercising his (obviously protected) rights by means of physical obstruction is a form of violence -- it's using force instead of reason to accomplish your goal.
It doesn't help that protest groups announce in advance their (unlawful) goals. Look at Copenhagen -- the protesters announced they were going to try to force their way into the convention center of the purpose of disrupting the proceedings. It's hard to imagine how that falls under the rubric of 'non-violent protest' except insofar as the term is a catch-all defense. They were planning to disrupt a lawful assembly and the police (even in uber-liberal Denmark) cannot allow that to happen or else risk everyone's right to associate politiclaly.
Less innocent people will be going to jail. Less family will be broke up. [sic]
Any particular reason to think innocent people are more likely to use DECAF than the guilty? I fail to see why technical savvy should be correlated with innocence or guilt.
I've recently seen video of cops beating completely passive, peaceful protesters who are completely within their rights to assemble (Seattle WTO Conference 1999). There the cops were using violence to enforce their will, which went against the law - removing the legitimate right to protest, not to mention applying physical harm.
That's a joke right? Perfectly lawful?
The protesters' stated goals were to disrupt the proceedings. I respect their right to protest peacefully, I do not respect their right to obstruct the proceedings because they disagree politically. It's not that I have any love for the WTO either, but they certainly have a right to organize and conduct a meeting without physical obstruction.
Same thing during the GOP convention in St Paul -- "protesters" organized around the goal of stopping the delegates' buses from reaching the convention center. That's not legitimate, period. It's insane to think that they have the right to disrupt what is not only a lawful but supremely protected association of people for (disagreeable, surely) political ends.
TL;DR version: A large part of the protest movement is confused about what it means to protest as opposed to obstruct (which is a form of physical violence).
No one is telling them not to enforce the law. Just not to beat the suspect.
And if the suspect will not comply with the law without a beating, what then? The police have a choice -- they can enforce the law using physical coercion (colloquially, "beating") or they can let the law go unenforced. I suppose they could sit there and try to reason with the suspect until he gives up, although that might take a while (or the suspect might just walk away).
You have given the police two directives that, in rare cases (remember the selection bias here, no one reports on the vast majority of seizures that do not require physical force), cannot be simultaneously satisfied.
Dream on. Unless someone unrelated to the cops got it on videotape or you're some sort of VIP, you'll never get YOUR day in court. Oh, you'll be in court all right, for all the charges they pile on you. You might get out of them. But "take it to court" translates to "STFU" when it comes to cops.
A quick search on LexisNexis cases file reveals more than 15,000 suits under 18USC1983 in which the disposition was in favor of the plaintiff. Who is dreaming, again? Citizens take the police to court and win (well, most of the time the government settles if you have a strong case) all the time.
Well contrary to modern day practices, beating is not necessary to arrest someone. Even people that physically resist arrest should not be beaten. The amount of force required to arrest someone is what is required.
OK, you have redefined some of the words. Fine, I accept your definition -- "beating" means "using more force than necessary to achieve compliance". Now, we can get to the question of whether the suspect was "beaten", under your definition. You've just moved the debate up one level in language without resolving anything.
We are no better off than when "beat" meant "use physical force" and "excessive force" meant "more beating than necessary to achieve compliance".
Bullshit. It's the ultimate way to confine the government to the rule of law. If the state obtains a monopoly on the use of deadly force, then all the laws you can write won't amount to anything.
So the proper measure of whether a citizen is in compliance with the law is whether he wins a contest of force with the police? How is a man that successfully shoots an officer coming to arrest him any more likely to be innocent than one that surrenders peacefully? If anything, it's got to work the other way around -- murderers probably have far less compunction over committing one more murder than the next.
The result of a contest of force is entirely uncorrelated to which party has the law on their side. Better aim is not the same as a better legal position.
Allowing cops to beat on people with no punishment for them and punishment for their victims even if the cops were in the wrong -- that's what's really anathema to the rule of law. That's rule of men, men with badges.
And telling the cops not to enforce the law against a recalcitrant suspect when the cops are in the right is likewise anathema to the rule of law. It's just as foolish to say the cops are always in the wrong as to claim that they are always in the right and it's double-foolish to think that a resisting suspect is any more likely to be innocent than one than a compliant one. Somehow I imagine it works exactly the other way -- a person that is so full of themselves that they engage in acts that violate the rights of others is probably the same one that doesn't believe they have to submit to lawful authority.
Moreover, I have never said that cops should escape punishment for their actions, only that the proper venue for resolving the dispute about whether the cops were in the right or the wrong is most certainly not on the street. Wrongful arrest, excessive force and deprivation of rights (S1983) are all actions you can take in a court to vindicate any (putative) wrong. Many such cases are filed every year, a decent fraction succeed -- you are a long way for claiming that there is no punishment for unlawful actions by policing just because you don't approve of the particular method, penalties or venue.
Not possessing ID is supposedly reasonable suspicion of being involved in an illegal activity, and grounds for "detaining and questioning". I was also told this by an officer who stopped me for the suspicious activity described by most as "walking down a public street, on the sidewalk, after dark".
There's a difference between being charged with a crime for refusal to show ID and being temporarily detained while the officer investigates what's afoot. The standard for the latter is "reasonable suspicion" of criminal activity that is based on specific and articulable facts and inferences . The officer must then either develop probable cause that a crime has been committed or cut you loose.
In assessing the reasonableness of such a seizure, the courts will usually weigh the evidence of wrongdoing against the amount of time the detention. Walking alone at night in a high-crime area is probably worth 30 seconds of rudimentary questions about who you are and where you are going. Walking around with a wire-hanger is worth quite a bit more.
apparently you haven't seen the video of a bart police officer shooting in the back a man who was being held face down on the ground by other officers, or the more recent case where a bart police officer grabbed someone [who did need to be taken off the train], walked the poor guy across the platform and smashed a glass barrier with the guy's face.
Nor do you see the video of the hundreds of thousands of incident-free arrests or those involving justifiable force. Ultimately, the quality of the system is determined by both the severity and frequency of it's failures. Humans might like to think in terms of individual events (kill one and it's a tragedy) but that's a very poor metric for overall quality.
BTW, the crowd was very audibly cheering the removal of the glass-face-guy, which seems to indicate they approve of the officer's actions.
So, you are pretty much admitting that we now live in tyranny? Honestly, how is it acceptable for the police to lock someone in jail simply for refusing to obey a command?
Because that command is a lawful exercise of authority. For instance, a person is standing in the middle of the road is impeding traffic, a police officer can give him a lawful command to get out of the way so the other citizens can drive on the road. If he does not comply after a few warnings, he will be removed by force -- that's not tyranny it's an orderly society.
In the instant case, the officer (probably) told Mr. Watts to get back in his car in order to preserve the orderly function of the Border Patrol station. The station is a lawful exercise of US authority to verify the identity of entrants and search for contraband. Just about everything checks out.
Sorry, absolutely nothing justifies a beating. The only two options are either A. Arrest the man or B. Let him go. "Beat him" is not acceptable under any circumstances whatsoever.
Unless you decide to arrest him and he does not submit to lawful authority. In that case, are the police just supposed to throw up their hands and say "well, I wanted to arrest him but he insisted he did nothing wrong so I let him go"? The right to make an arrest obviously entails the right to use no more physical force than necessary to overcome resistance to that arrest.
Of course, a complaint for excessive force can be justified but that's a far cry from saying that nothing every justifies beating a suspect until he ceases to resist arrest. Unfortunately, there is some (very small, actually, but there's sampling bias) fraction of suspects that will not cede until beaten or tased into submission. It's not rational, I'm sure they know there's no sense in fighting (or, worse yet, getting in a car chase) with the police but it happens.
Exactly. Or more accurately, assaulting an officer means trying to defend yourself from aggressive police.
Defend yourself in court, not on the scene. Allowing people to "defend" themselves against the police because they think they are in the right is not one compatible with the rule of law. Should the police just give up if the guy insists (very strenuously I'm sure) that he has done nothing wrong?
I read a story about a homeless mean getting beat by cops for resisting arrest. The only charge? Resisting arrest of course.
Because there's no point in leveling loitering, vagrancy or trespass charges since they carry no jail time and you obviously can't fine the guy. Of course, they shouldn't have beat him any more than necessary to effect a (seemingly) lawful arrest.
They had no reason to harass him in the first place, other than to give him a hard time for being homeless on public property.
Which can be, under some factual circumstances, a crime in some cities and States. The MA law on loitering (MGL Chapter 161 Section 95), for instance, comes to mind.
You have to agree to be monitored by the police to use a cel phone in the states?
No, you do not. In fact, my phone presents are very large NO button when first accessing location-based-services.
To me its pretty scary because the government should not be able to track you without a court ordered warrant!
(1) That's a valid opinion, but it is not the law as it currently exists. You can lobby your legislature to forbid police from tracking without a warrant, since they are the body capable of changing the law more to your liking.
(2) I disagree with that opinion. I insist that I am a free individual capable of entering into voluntary agreements. If I agree to publish my location to a third party (for instance, Google Latitude or Palringo's Location Service), then I should have the power to do so. What you've suggested is not, in my opinion, an increase in freedom but rather a decrease, since it forbids me from entering into an agreement of my choosing.
You have every right not to use Google Latitude or Sprint's Location Service if you do not want to, but I would appreciate if you would have enough respect for me to allow me to chose for myself whether I want to use those services.
If a government feels threatened by small arms contained within a ship that wants to dock then that government is a lost cause. Please explain to me how a weapons locker aboard ship containing rifles, pistols and shotguns represents a threat.
Here in MA, that locker would be in violation of State Law requiring those in possession of firearms to obtain a license -- Mass. General Law Chapter 269. It is not pleasant to violate either -- conviction requires an 18 month mandatory minimum with no chance for parole or probation. Now, I'm sure the Staties don't make a point of searching cargo ships for guns, but it's a huge legal liability that a shipping company just doesn't need.
I wouldn't say that this law exists because Massachusetts is hostile to merchant ships as a general matter, just because the drafters of the law never considered this particular application. It's a law of general applicability that just happens to have a particular negative side effect. But for the huge inertia in the legislative process, you could probably get a specific amendment for locked containers on a cargo ship docked in the harbor, but you'd have to do that for every State.
That's great that they have a web interface to service the law enforcement needs to track people by the GPS in their cell phone. How does the web site verify a valid warrant? Does the web site ask them to hold it up to the screen for verification?
A warrant is only necessary if the government wants to take something by physical force or wants to search something that is considered private against the consent of the owner. If the cops knock on your door and ask to read your copy of TV Guide, they don't need a warrant if you voluntarily give it to them. Knowing and uncoerced consent (absent any other taint of illegality such as an illegal seizure) always negates the need for a warrant.
Moreover, as far as the law is concerned, absent a particular contractual obligation (i.e. an NDA), when you convey information to a third party you are also conveying the right for them to disseminate it. For instance, absent such an agreement, if you send me a threatening legal letter, it is perfectly legal for me to post it on the internet for all to mock. I could also just print it out and give it to the police. Letters in the mail, of course, enjoy considerable fourth amendment protection from the police but the fourth amendment does not prevent disclosure by the intended recipient.
Finally, I have a Sprint device with GPS and there is a very conspicuous warning the first time you enable the location feature that it is conveying that information to the network, with a big YES and NO button. So in total, the customer voluntarily conveys their location information to Sprint, who in turn, voluntarily conveyed it to law enforcement. No warrants are necessary because disclosure by the intended recipients is never a fourth amendment concern. Once you give somebody a piece of information, they can do with it as they please (copyright notwithstanding, but GPS coordinates are hardly a creative work) -- if you don't want them to disclose it, don't tell it to them in the first place.
Ultimately, the legal system presumes that we are all intelligent adults (perhaps that's wrong) that are capable of waiving our rights by voluntarily giving others private information. This might not be the best normative choices of policies, but it underlies the entire American notion of "reasonable expectation of privacy" which almost always informs (if not decides) fourth amendment questions. The Courts have refused to sign on the notion that a Sprint customer has a reasonable expectation of privacy in information that he voluntarily gives to Sprint -- the mere act of giving information to a third party (absent contractual obligations) evinces a lack of expectation of privacy in it.
Well, yes, if you didn't do the paperwork for it. But the requirements are fairly simple [noonsite.com]
Those are the Federal requirement. The State of MA also requires all persons possessing a firearm to obtain a license from their local police department or State Police (for nonresidents). Failure to do so is criminal and (quoting directly from MGL CH269(10)(6)
shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for not less than two and one-half years nor more than five years, or for not less than 18 months nor more than two and one-half years in a jail or house of correction. The sentence imposed on such person shall not be reduced to less than 18 months, nor suspended, nor shall any person convicted under this subsection be eligible for probation, parole, work release, or furlough or receive any deduction from his sentence for good conduct until he shall have served 18 months of such sentence
If I commandeered a shipping vessel and if I had a choice between (1) some flying rope that can be shot out of an air cannon and (2) on-board artillery like a machine gun (or something that can blast a hole in an on-coming vessel), I would rather choose the artillery. The problem with this flying rope is that it might enrage the pirate, and he might aim his artillery at you and also signal for assistance. If his comrades arrive at the scene, then your flying rope will not stop the thugs from putting a bullet in your head.
I would too. Unfortunately, many countries into whose ports (and hence sovereign territory) you might with to sail might take issue with a cargo ship with a machine gun on it. They might even insist that you receive clearance as a military vessel or put other bureaucratic hurdles in the way. Remember, any delay costs you at least $50k an day in lost time, aside from the actual expense of dealing with it. It would be nice if there was a uniform agreement on the armament of cargo ships that exempted such things from local law* but there just isn't. A ship that makes multiple port calls is going to need to hire a lawyer from each country just to ensure compliance.
* For instance, if you were a crewman storing a rifle or pistol in your quarters while making a stop in the lovely Port of Boston, you would be guilty of possessing a firearm without a license. I'm sure the authorities aren't keen on enforcing that law but that such conduct is technically criminal since there is no exemption.
I personally would rather have a tyrant running my life for me to ensure a sustainable future for our species.
And how would you know that the tyrant was going to ensure sustainability? Their track record isn't particular good, as tyrants have presided over the most egregious environmental disasters in human history. See, e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aral_Sea. Even more importantly, how would you ensure that she continued to keep her promises after elevated?
Comments like these evince a fundamental misunderstanding about the reasons for freedom and representative government. It's not a tyrant might not be better in some fashion, it's that without accountability there is no way to know in advance and no way to correct it if things go wrong. I'd rather take a decidedly mediocre representative government (hey look, that's about what we've got) over a benevolent dictator because I can replace the former if they get worse but I'm stuck with the latter even if he goes senile and starts warring against the sea.
Even people who are just trying to use it to run some basic necessities.
Why does the final use of the power matter when charging for it? The power plant and grid are use agnostic. A KWH is a KWH and is just as expensive to deliver whether it powers a massage chair or a insulin pump.
I do support tiered usage -- first 500KWH for the month at one rate, the rest at a higher rate but that doesn't really correlate with usage. I use the median amount of power for my area but a huge proportion goes to technological gizmos and very little to necessities.
Who this hurts is those who have bet on Plasma technology, as plasma can effectively not meet these requirements, but plasma is dying anyway, as LCD screens keep getting bigger and faster reacting while being cheaper than plasma TVs.
You can pry my plasma from my cold dead hands, because I appreciate things like dark blacks, bright whites, color fidelity and blur free motion. LCDs are a lot better than they were at these things, but 1000:1 contrast (DNC is a lie) is still a deal breaker.
I gladly pay for every watt that my plasma draws, so if you think that I'm not paying my fair share, I invite you to find a rate that you think is more fair (of course, remember that you'll have to pay that rate for your fridge too -- a KWH is the same irrespective of what use). Moreover, my energy use is median for my area, so I'm not using more than my neighbor even if my TV uses more than his TV -- I save energy in other ways.
Finally, I have no problem driving up to Oregon (bonus: no sales tax) to buy my next TV. It's quite ironic that a measure intended to cut energy use would encourage such insanely wasteful behavior -- TV energy use pales in comparison to a few hundred miles on my (30mpg) vehicle.
Another way to think about it - you are now vulnerable to local root exploits not only in packages you installed, but also in packages you chose not to install.
Presumably, the now-vulnerable-package will have its signature revoked as soon as the exploit is known. That is, if the implementers were smart enough to have the updater check the latest package list before installing a library -- e.g. if LibFoo v0.81 has the bug, when it checked the list it should see that LibFoo v0.81.1 supersedes that version and refuse to install the older version.
As I understand things (e.g. poorly), this would not be hard to implement. You could own a machine that's not connected to the net, if those exist anymore, by manually moving the file over there, but I believe that is a corner case.
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Yes, I was actually surprised that that was the reasoning. I didn't believe it at first and actually read the ruling; I was astounded to learn that was the actual reasoning they went with. I think their main contention was the search being "unreasonable". They argued that the search was unreasonable because the equipment was highly specialized and rare, not something the common man had every day access to.
Nope, you misunderstand the way 4A jurisprudence works. Here's the general overview:
(1) A warrantless search of a home or residence is presumptively invalid except in certain well-defined exceptions (hot pursuit, exigent circumstances).
(2) The question of what defines a 'search' in the first instance is a little less clear. An observation that does not reveal anything that a citizen can see from the street, for instance, is not a search and therefore doesn't require a warrant. A 'search' (for the purposes of the 4A) occurs only when the government sees something in which there is a reasonable expectation of privacy. A few examples are in order:
(2A) Flying over a house and looking down at it is not a search (California v Ciraolo) because anybody can legally fly over your house and look at it, so you can't reasonably be said to have an expectation of privacy in something that everyone can see.
(2B) Visual observation of a house from a public vantage point is likewise not a search, since it does not reveal anything that anyone just walking by on the street could not observe. The Court noted (wryly): "the Fourth Amendment protection of the home has never been extended to require law enforcement officers to shield their eyes when passing by a home on public thoroughfares."
(2C) Entry into "open fields" are likewise not a search because they are not a location in which there is a REP (Hester v. United States).
(3) The argument then devolves not to whether the search was reasonable but whether it was a search at all. The government (and the 4 dissenting Justices) contended that using an IR imager from the street is no different than standing on the street and making a visual observation. They further argued that any photons (like aromas and noises) that leave your property are no longer private in any sense of the word. Just like an officer (or any civilian, for that matter) can stand on the street and listen to your music playing, so to can he stand there and read the photons you are emitting.
Finally, as a matter of realist-thinking, Scalia notes that the desire to construe a "search" narrowly has been partly motivated by a desire to minimize the number of exceptions to the warrant requirement. That is, if visual observation from the street was considered a "search" then it would have to be some exception to the warrant requirement or else we would have to accept the absurd result that an officer driving down the road would need a warrant to glance towards your house.
But in fact we have held that visual observation is no "search" at all-perhaps in order to preserve somewhat more intact our doctrine that warrantless searches are presumptively unconstitutional.
So, in a somewhat circuitous sense, those of us that want to preserve the rule that nearly all warrantless searches of a house are unlawful need to adopt a narrow definition of a 'search'. We would be much worse off carving exceptions in the warrant requirement.
I have another way -- Firefox (all versions) at 32%, Internet Explorer (all versions) at 55%. The fact that the IE market is split between 6.X, 7.X and 8.X doesn't not detract from the (regrettable) fact that Internet Explorer is the most popular browser, worldwide. Different versions do not a different browser make.
In hindsight, this distribution is rather predictable -- FF nags you to update (rightly so) whereas IE can't even update itself, let along notify you about it.
Here's a plot (thankfully, they give out the raw CSV data) with the "all versions" included. Firefox has a ways to go. http://yfrog.com/j5temptlp
Whatever I call it, it's clear that no violence has been committed where no physical interaction has taken place.
Physically standing between someone and a place they have a lawful right to be (such as their own house!) is a physical interaction. You have physically excluded them from freely moving from one place to another. By your reasoning, I could just get 4 friends and form a human "ring" around people I don't like and they would be powerless to stop me (or go anywhere) because that's not violent? And if they tried to break out of the ring, they would be assaulting me!
Bottom line: do you think it should be legal for people to disrupt businesses of which they disapprove (cough, abortion clinics, cough) by physically interposing themselves and making it functionally impossible for people to come and go?
In contrast, temporarily making it illegal for citizens to own gas masks then later removing someone's gas mask and spraying a large cannister of pepper spray into their eyes at point-blank range is violence.
No disagreement there, don't know why you think I would disagree.
I'm also in favour of individual rights. However, I draw the line at allowing a group of individuals to meet to discuss the ways in which large populations of people all around the world may have their rights removed by economic means, from a distance. This is why I support the principle of peacefully obstructing WTO/G20 delegates.
What rights could the WTO/Copenhagen/G20 possibly remove "by economic means"? That phrase makes no sense to me. The G20 and WTO is comprised of representatives from governments that are themselves (more or less) representative. If you have a problem, vote out your government. If you consistently get out-voted, you might want to accept that your countrymen disagree with you and thus you should defer to their judgment (while still retaining your opinion that they are wrong and you are right).
By the way, now that we've set this precedent, I think it's time to start "peacefully obstructing" abortion clinics (for violating the rights of the unborn), gun shops (for violating the right to live in a gun free world), gun-control folks (for violating the right to self-defense), loggers (for violating the right to a clean environment), Greenpeace (for violating the rights of loggers), PETA (for violating the right to tasty fried chicken) and just about anyone else whose political views somebody somewhere might disagree with. IMO, that's no way to run a civil society in which politics -- about which honorable and reasonable people can and do disagree -- is subject to mob-veto so long as someone can articulate a way they think someone's perfectly-lawful activity violates their rights.
To me, it seems like the last resort of people who cannot convince others of their position by force of reason (or, even worse in the case of abortion-nutcases, they believe they do not ever bear the burden of persuasion). After being convinced of their correctness but failing to convince anyone else, they decide that their judgment must carry the day.
Oh please; the very people making these laws are the target of the protests. They make laws to stifle people's ability to protest at their abuses of power. The reality is that these people are untouchable and have an indirect stranglehold on the lives of the vast majority of the world's population, using economic means to suppress the emergence of real democracy - all around the world. They have police and para-military at their disposal who seem to delight in committing barbaric acts against unarmed civilians - all to ensure that noone has the fair access to the decision-making process which one would find in an actual democracy but which would threaten their hegemony.
First, I have no sympathy for barbaric acts committed against civilians. Ironically, most of the G77 that is highly undemocratic (China, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia
Obstruction is a form of physical violence? Are you a police officer?
If I (perhaps with a few dozen others) stand your house and prevent you from entering or leaving by physically interposing myself between you and your door, what do you call that?
I'm not a police officer, I'm a person that believes in the existence and vindication of individual rights. Those individual rights include the right to (say) convene with like minded citizens for the purpose of political association. Preventing another individual from exercising his (obviously protected) rights by means of physical obstruction is a form of violence -- it's using force instead of reason to accomplish your goal.
It doesn't help that protest groups announce in advance their (unlawful) goals. Look at Copenhagen -- the protesters announced they were going to try to force their way into the convention center of the purpose of disrupting the proceedings. It's hard to imagine how that falls under the rubric of 'non-violent protest' except insofar as the term is a catch-all defense. They were planning to disrupt a lawful assembly and the police (even in uber-liberal Denmark) cannot allow that to happen or else risk everyone's right to associate politiclaly.
Less innocent people will be going to jail. Less family will be broke up. [sic]
Any particular reason to think innocent people are more likely to use DECAF than the guilty? I fail to see why technical savvy should be correlated with innocence or guilt.
I've recently seen video of cops beating completely passive, peaceful protesters who are completely within their rights to assemble (Seattle WTO Conference 1999). There the cops were using violence to enforce their will, which went against the law - removing the legitimate right to protest, not to mention applying physical harm.
That's a joke right? Perfectly lawful?
The protesters' stated goals were to disrupt the proceedings. I respect their right to protest peacefully, I do not respect their right to obstruct the proceedings because they disagree politically. It's not that I have any love for the WTO either, but they certainly have a right to organize and conduct a meeting without physical obstruction.
Same thing during the GOP convention in St Paul -- "protesters" organized around the goal of stopping the delegates' buses from reaching the convention center. That's not legitimate, period. It's insane to think that they have the right to disrupt what is not only a lawful but supremely protected association of people for (disagreeable, surely) political ends.
TL;DR version: A large part of the protest movement is confused about what it means to protest as opposed to obstruct (which is a form of physical violence).
No one is telling them not to enforce the law. Just not to beat the suspect.
And if the suspect will not comply with the law without a beating, what then? The police have a choice -- they can enforce the law using physical coercion (colloquially, "beating") or they can let the law go unenforced. I suppose they could sit there and try to reason with the suspect until he gives up, although that might take a while (or the suspect might just walk away).
You have given the police two directives that, in rare cases (remember the selection bias here, no one reports on the vast majority of seizures that do not require physical force), cannot be simultaneously satisfied.
Dream on. Unless someone unrelated to the cops got it on videotape or you're some sort of VIP, you'll never get YOUR day in court. Oh, you'll be in court all right, for all the charges they pile on you. You might get out of them. But "take it to court" translates to "STFU" when it comes to cops.
A quick search on LexisNexis cases file reveals more than 15,000 suits under 18USC1983 in which the disposition was in favor of the plaintiff. Who is dreaming, again? Citizens take the police to court and win (well, most of the time the government settles if you have a strong case) all the time.
Well contrary to modern day practices, beating is not necessary to arrest someone. Even people that physically resist arrest should not be beaten. The amount of force required to arrest someone is what is required.
OK, you have redefined some of the words. Fine, I accept your definition -- "beating" means "using more force than necessary to achieve compliance". Now, we can get to the question of whether the suspect was "beaten", under your definition. You've just moved the debate up one level in language without resolving anything.
We are no better off than when "beat" meant "use physical force" and "excessive force" meant "more beating than necessary to achieve compliance".
Bullshit. It's the ultimate way to confine the government to the rule of law. If the state obtains a monopoly on the use of deadly force, then all the laws you can write won't amount to anything.
So the proper measure of whether a citizen is in compliance with the law is whether he wins a contest of force with the police? How is a man that successfully shoots an officer coming to arrest him any more likely to be innocent than one that surrenders peacefully? If anything, it's got to work the other way around -- murderers probably have far less compunction over committing one more murder than the next.
The result of a contest of force is entirely uncorrelated to which party has the law on their side. Better aim is not the same as a better legal position.
Allowing cops to beat on people with no punishment for them and punishment for their victims even if the cops were in the wrong -- that's what's really anathema to the rule of law. That's rule of men, men with badges.
And telling the cops not to enforce the law against a recalcitrant suspect when the cops are in the right is likewise anathema to the rule of law. It's just as foolish to say the cops are always in the wrong as to claim that they are always in the right and it's double-foolish to think that a resisting suspect is any more likely to be innocent than one than a compliant one. Somehow I imagine it works exactly the other way -- a person that is so full of themselves that they engage in acts that violate the rights of others is probably the same one that doesn't believe they have to submit to lawful authority.
Moreover, I have never said that cops should escape punishment for their actions, only that the proper venue for resolving the dispute about whether the cops were in the right or the wrong is most certainly not on the street. Wrongful arrest, excessive force and deprivation of rights (S1983) are all actions you can take in a court to vindicate any (putative) wrong. Many such cases are filed every year, a decent fraction succeed -- you are a long way for claiming that there is no punishment for unlawful actions by policing just because you don't approve of the particular method, penalties or venue.
Not possessing ID is supposedly reasonable suspicion of being involved in an illegal activity, and grounds for "detaining and questioning". I was also told this by an officer who stopped me for the suspicious activity described by most as "walking down a public street, on the sidewalk, after dark".
There's a difference between being charged with a crime for refusal to show ID and being temporarily detained while the officer investigates what's afoot. The standard for the latter is "reasonable suspicion" of criminal activity that is based on specific and articulable facts and inferences . The officer must then either develop probable cause that a crime has been committed or cut you loose.
In assessing the reasonableness of such a seizure, the courts will usually weigh the evidence of wrongdoing against the amount of time the detention. Walking alone at night in a high-crime area is probably worth 30 seconds of rudimentary questions about who you are and where you are going. Walking around with a wire-hanger is worth quite a bit more.
apparently you haven't seen the video of a bart police officer shooting in the back a man who was being held face down on the ground by other officers, or the more recent case where a bart police officer grabbed someone [who did need to be taken off the train], walked the poor guy across the platform and smashed a glass barrier with the guy's face.
Nor do you see the video of the hundreds of thousands of incident-free arrests or those involving justifiable force. Ultimately, the quality of the system is determined by both the severity and frequency of it's failures. Humans might like to think in terms of individual events (kill one and it's a tragedy) but that's a very poor metric for overall quality.
BTW, the crowd was very audibly cheering the removal of the glass-face-guy, which seems to indicate they approve of the officer's actions.
So, you are pretty much admitting that we now live in tyranny? Honestly, how is it acceptable for the police to lock someone in jail simply for refusing to obey a command?
Because that command is a lawful exercise of authority. For instance, a person is standing in the middle of the road is impeding traffic, a police officer can give him a lawful command to get out of the way so the other citizens can drive on the road. If he does not comply after a few warnings, he will be removed by force -- that's not tyranny it's an orderly society.
In the instant case, the officer (probably) told Mr. Watts to get back in his car in order to preserve the orderly function of the Border Patrol station. The station is a lawful exercise of US authority to verify the identity of entrants and search for contraband. Just about everything checks out.
Sorry, absolutely nothing justifies a beating. The only two options are either A. Arrest the man or B. Let him go. "Beat him" is not acceptable under any circumstances whatsoever.
Unless you decide to arrest him and he does not submit to lawful authority. In that case, are the police just supposed to throw up their hands and say "well, I wanted to arrest him but he insisted he did nothing wrong so I let him go"? The right to make an arrest obviously entails the right to use no more physical force than necessary to overcome resistance to that arrest.
Of course, a complaint for excessive force can be justified but that's a far cry from saying that nothing every justifies beating a suspect until he ceases to resist arrest. Unfortunately, there is some (very small, actually, but there's sampling bias) fraction of suspects that will not cede until beaten or tased into submission. It's not rational, I'm sure they know there's no sense in fighting (or, worse yet, getting in a car chase) with the police but it happens.
Exactly. Or more accurately, assaulting an officer means trying to defend yourself from aggressive police.
Defend yourself in court, not on the scene. Allowing people to "defend" themselves against the police because they think they are in the right is not one compatible with the rule of law. Should the police just give up if the guy insists (very strenuously I'm sure) that he has done nothing wrong?
I read a story about a homeless mean getting beat by cops for resisting arrest. The only charge? Resisting arrest of course.
Because there's no point in leveling loitering, vagrancy or trespass charges since they carry no jail time and you obviously can't fine the guy. Of course, they shouldn't have beat him any more than necessary to effect a (seemingly) lawful arrest.
They had no reason to harass him in the first place, other than to give him a hard time for being homeless on public property.
Which can be, under some factual circumstances, a crime in some cities and States. The MA law on loitering (MGL Chapter 161 Section 95), for instance, comes to mind.
You have to agree to be monitored by the police to use a cel phone in the states?
No, you do not. In fact, my phone presents are very large NO button when first accessing location-based-services.
To me its pretty scary because the government should not be able to track you without a court ordered warrant!
(1) That's a valid opinion, but it is not the law as it currently exists. You can lobby your legislature to forbid police from tracking without a warrant, since they are the body capable of changing the law more to your liking.
(2) I disagree with that opinion. I insist that I am a free individual capable of entering into voluntary agreements. If I agree to publish my location to a third party (for instance, Google Latitude or Palringo's Location Service), then I should have the power to do so. What you've suggested is not, in my opinion, an increase in freedom but rather a decrease, since it forbids me from entering into an agreement of my choosing.
You have every right not to use Google Latitude or Sprint's Location Service if you do not want to, but I would appreciate if you would have enough respect for me to allow me to chose for myself whether I want to use those services.
If a government feels threatened by small arms contained within a ship that wants to dock then that government is a lost cause. Please explain to me how a weapons locker aboard ship containing rifles, pistols and shotguns represents a threat.
Here in MA, that locker would be in violation of State Law requiring those in possession of firearms to obtain a license -- Mass. General Law Chapter 269. It is not pleasant to violate either -- conviction requires an 18 month mandatory minimum with no chance for parole or probation. Now, I'm sure the Staties don't make a point of searching cargo ships for guns, but it's a huge legal liability that a shipping company just doesn't need.
I wouldn't say that this law exists because Massachusetts is hostile to merchant ships as a general matter, just because the drafters of the law never considered this particular application. It's a law of general applicability that just happens to have a particular negative side effect. But for the huge inertia in the legislative process, you could probably get a specific amendment for locked containers on a cargo ship docked in the harbor, but you'd have to do that for every State.
That's great that they have a web interface to service the law enforcement needs to track people by the GPS in their cell phone. How does the web site verify a valid warrant? Does the web site ask them to hold it up to the screen for verification?
A warrant is only necessary if the government wants to take something by physical force or wants to search something that is considered private against the consent of the owner. If the cops knock on your door and ask to read your copy of TV Guide, they don't need a warrant if you voluntarily give it to them. Knowing and uncoerced consent (absent any other taint of illegality such as an illegal seizure) always negates the need for a warrant.
Moreover, as far as the law is concerned, absent a particular contractual obligation (i.e. an NDA), when you convey information to a third party you are also conveying the right for them to disseminate it. For instance, absent such an agreement, if you send me a threatening legal letter, it is perfectly legal for me to post it on the internet for all to mock. I could also just print it out and give it to the police. Letters in the mail, of course, enjoy considerable fourth amendment protection from the police but the fourth amendment does not prevent disclosure by the intended recipient.
Finally, I have a Sprint device with GPS and there is a very conspicuous warning the first time you enable the location feature that it is conveying that information to the network, with a big YES and NO button. So in total, the customer voluntarily conveys their location information to Sprint, who in turn, voluntarily conveyed it to law enforcement. No warrants are necessary because disclosure by the intended recipients is never a fourth amendment concern. Once you give somebody a piece of information, they can do with it as they please (copyright notwithstanding, but GPS coordinates are hardly a creative work) -- if you don't want them to disclose it, don't tell it to them in the first place.
Ultimately, the legal system presumes that we are all intelligent adults (perhaps that's wrong) that are capable of waiving our rights by voluntarily giving others private information. This might not be the best normative choices of policies, but it underlies the entire American notion of "reasonable expectation of privacy" which almost always informs (if not decides) fourth amendment questions. The Courts have refused to sign on the notion that a Sprint customer has a reasonable expectation of privacy in information that he voluntarily gives to Sprint -- the mere act of giving information to a third party (absent contractual obligations) evinces a lack of expectation of privacy in it.
Well, yes, if you didn't do the paperwork for it. But the requirements are fairly simple [noonsite.com]
Those are the Federal requirement. The State of MA also requires all persons possessing a firearm to obtain a license from their local police department or State Police (for nonresidents). Failure to do so is criminal and (quoting directly from MGL CH269(10)(6)
shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for not less than two and one-half years nor more than five years, or for not less than 18 months nor more than two and one-half years in a jail or house of correction. The sentence imposed on such person shall not be reduced to less than 18 months, nor suspended, nor shall any person convicted under this subsection be eligible for probation, parole, work release, or furlough or receive any deduction from his sentence for good conduct until he shall have served 18 months of such sentence
http://crime.about.com/od/gunlawsbystate/a/gunlaws_ma.htm
http://www.mass.gov/?pageID=eopssubtopic&L=3&L0=Home&L1=Firearms+Registration+%26+Laws&L2=Gun+Laws&sid=Eeops
http://www.mass.gov/legis/laws/mgl/269-10.htm
If I commandeered a shipping vessel and if I had a choice between (1) some flying rope that can be shot out of an air cannon and (2) on-board artillery like a machine gun (or something that can blast a hole in an on-coming vessel), I would rather choose the artillery. The problem with this flying rope is that it might enrage the pirate, and he might aim his artillery at you and also signal for assistance. If his comrades arrive at the scene, then your flying rope will not stop the thugs from putting a bullet in your head.
I would too. Unfortunately, many countries into whose ports (and hence sovereign territory) you might with to sail might take issue with a cargo ship with a machine gun on it. They might even insist that you receive clearance as a military vessel or put other bureaucratic hurdles in the way. Remember, any delay costs you at least $50k an day in lost time, aside from the actual expense of dealing with it. It would be nice if there was a uniform agreement on the armament of cargo ships that exempted such things from local law* but there just isn't. A ship that makes multiple port calls is going to need to hire a lawyer from each country just to ensure compliance.
* For instance, if you were a crewman storing a rifle or pistol in your quarters while making a stop in the lovely Port of Boston, you would be guilty of possessing a firearm without a license. I'm sure the authorities aren't keen on enforcing that law but that such conduct is technically criminal since there is no exemption.
I personally would rather have a tyrant running my life for me to ensure a sustainable future for our species.
And how would you know that the tyrant was going to ensure sustainability? Their track record isn't particular good, as tyrants have presided over the most egregious environmental disasters in human history. See, e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aral_Sea. Even more importantly, how would you ensure that she continued to keep her promises after elevated?
Comments like these evince a fundamental misunderstanding about the reasons for freedom and representative government. It's not a tyrant might not be better in some fashion, it's that without accountability there is no way to know in advance and no way to correct it if things go wrong. I'd rather take a decidedly mediocre representative government (hey look, that's about what we've got) over a benevolent dictator because I can replace the former if they get worse but I'm stuck with the latter even if he goes senile and starts warring against the sea.
Even people who are just trying to use it to run some basic necessities.
Why does the final use of the power matter when charging for it? The power plant and grid are use agnostic. A KWH is a KWH and is just as expensive to deliver whether it powers a massage chair or a insulin pump.
I do support tiered usage -- first 500KWH for the month at one rate, the rest at a higher rate but that doesn't really correlate with usage. I use the median amount of power for my area but a huge proportion goes to technological gizmos and very little to necessities.
After all, the pigs already use infrared sensors to search homes without a warrant looking to bust up harmless pot farms.
Not since 2001 (better late than never) -- http://www4.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/99-8508.ZS.html
Who this hurts is those who have bet on Plasma technology, as plasma can effectively not meet these requirements, but plasma is dying anyway, as LCD screens keep getting bigger and faster reacting while being cheaper than plasma TVs.
You can pry my plasma from my cold dead hands, because I appreciate things like dark blacks, bright whites, color fidelity and blur free motion. LCDs are a lot better than they were at these things, but 1000:1 contrast (DNC is a lie) is still a deal breaker.
I gladly pay for every watt that my plasma draws, so if you think that I'm not paying my fair share, I invite you to find a rate that you think is more fair (of course, remember that you'll have to pay that rate for your fridge too -- a KWH is the same irrespective of what use). Moreover, my energy use is median for my area, so I'm not using more than my neighbor even if my TV uses more than his TV -- I save energy in other ways.
Finally, I have no problem driving up to Oregon (bonus: no sales tax) to buy my next TV. It's quite ironic that a measure intended to cut energy use would encourage such insanely wasteful behavior -- TV energy use pales in comparison to a few hundred miles on my (30mpg) vehicle.
Another way to think about it - you are now vulnerable to local root exploits not only in packages you installed, but also in packages you chose not to install.
Presumably, the now-vulnerable-package will have its signature revoked as soon as the exploit is known. That is, if the implementers were smart enough to have the updater check the latest package list before installing a library -- e.g. if LibFoo v0.81 has the bug, when it checked the list it should see that LibFoo v0.81.1 supersedes that version and refuse to install the older version.
As I understand things (e.g. poorly), this would not be hard to implement. You could own a machine that's not connected to the net, if those exist anymore, by manually moving the file over there, but I believe that is a corner case.