Say the President (or other VIP) is giving a speech in a public square or doing a meet & greet. The Secret Service will usually clear surrounding buildings that could provide a good spot for a sniper, right? They also put snipers of their own in strategic locations. So what happens if a tenant or property owner doesn’t what to leave their office/apartment or even let the SS in to search? Does the SS need to get a court order? Can they force someone to leave their home or place of business simply for security?
I have seen them work up close doing sniper checks and having agents posing as homeless people. They have the word “Secret” in their name for a reason. I would like to know the answer as well. Asking permission beforehand could be counterproductive. They don’t want people to know where their own snipers are. They always seem to do whatever they feel they need to.
I imagine if the property owner did not go along they would cancel the event.
As for “secret”, the brother of one of my friends was in the SS. One day he shows up at his aunt’s house dressed as a “hippy”. He pretended to want to use her phone but she wouldn’t let him in (she was a fiesty broad). Finally he let on who he was. She had no idea.
Wouldn’t that be a blatant violation of the 4th Amendment? Probable cause and whatnot? I don’t question that it happens, I just wonder at the true legality of it. The closest thing to a vaguely-reputable article on the topic I found in a quick search was about a college dorm, which is a whole other kettle of fish.
I believe the SS would first ask your permission to enter your home and set up a sniper’s nest. Failing that, they might be able to force you to rent it to them under eminent domain. I also don’t believe that the SS could get a warrant to enter your home unless they suspected you of a crime.
Of course, if they came in and you had a bunch of counterfeiting equipment on the table…
Thanks,
Rob
The Secret Service can be pretty pushy when it wants to be, esp. if seconds count and the President is in the immediate vicinity. My impression is that they have the outlook, “Security comes first, second and third, and we’ll sweat a lawsuit later if we have to.”
A few years ago, my friend Warren was on an otherwise nearly-empty city sidewalk waiting for President Bush’s motorcade to pass by. He was preemptorily told by a USSS agent to go inside, and didn’t feel himself at liberty to decline. During the 2004 campaign, there were complaints that the Service was following RNC orders and taking away protest signs and excluding protestors (where they could be ID’d) from Bush and Cheney events. IIRC, Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan gave a speech in the mid-1980s complaining about the Service’s heavy-handedness after he and several other legislators were forced to remain in one place for half an hour after President Reagan had been whisked away from a joint public appearance. I remember George Will wrote a column about it.
The Service has a very tough job to do, and the consequences of a failure could be catastrophic. Not surprising that they can be hardasses sometime.
Well, if they tried to arrest someone based up evidence of illegal activity found, then yes. But they are not.
The Fourth Amendment deals with searches and seizures made for the purpose of bringing criminal charges against somebody. Searching property for security reasons without a warrant wouldn’t violate A4 unless some type of evidence of criminal activity was discovered and the government tried to use that evidence in a criminal case.
Kicking someone out of their home, on the other hand, would involve Fifth Amendment rights. Keeping snipers in someone’s home could possibly be a violation of the Third Amendment.
I’ve been around events for the secret service. They don’t ask, they demand with the implication that they will get the local cops to arrest you and then drop charges later. When I called after an event to talk to an agent he gave some regulation section in the Code of Federal Regulations that I then looked up and it didn’t appear to give them authority to order people around. “First Amendment” zones truly suck and the secret service sucks for imposing them on protesters.
Interestingly, there have been almost no cases regarding the 3rd Ad. I can find only this:
*Engblom v. Carey, 677 F.2d 957, was a 1982 court case decided by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. It is the only significant court decision based on a direct challenge under the Third Amendment to the United States Constitution.
The case was initiated by a 1979 strike by New York State correction officers. While the officers were on strike, some of their duties were performed by National Guardsmen who were activated. At Mid-Orange Correctional Facility (and other facilities) striking employees were evicted from employee housing which was then used to house some of the National Guard. Two of the evicted officers at Mid-Orange C.F., Marianne E. Engblom and Charles E. Palmer, subsequently filed suit against the state of New York and its governor, Hugh L. Carey.
The decision, rendered on May 3, 1982, established that the National Guardsmen legally qualify as soldiers under the Third Amendment, that the amendment applies to state as well as federal authorities, and that the protection of this amendment extends beyond home owners. The majority stated that the officers’ occupancy in the rooms was covered under the legal rules of “tenancy” and was protected under the Third Amendment. There was a minority dissent which stated the officers’ occupancy was covered under the lesser protection of employee housing and held that the special circumstances of residency on prison grounds superseded Third Amendment protection. The case was remanded to district court where it was decided in the defendants’ favor, due to the principle that as agents of the state, the defendants were covered by a qualified immunity unless they were knowingly acting illegally. In the absence of previous precedents on this issue, the standard of knowing illegality was not met.*
Yeah, I just read an article discussing Third Amendment jurisprudence (or the lack thereof). Engblom was found in favor of the defendants on remand so there was no opportunity to find out what the remedy would be for a Third Amendment violation, but the article opined that it would probably be similar to a Takings analysis under the Fifth Amendment.
I think a lot of you are missing the point of the OP’s question. If the President is in the vicinity, and seconds count - yes the Secret Service is going to do what they need to do and worry about legal repercussions later. But if the President is planning a speech next month at some location, and an advance team of Secret Service agents shows up to plan security, what happens if a property owner refuses them access? They certainly can’t make a “seconds count” or “immediate threat” argument then. At the very least, they’d have to get a court order to get access to the property. And another one a month later if they want to station agents there when the President actually arrives a month later.
That truly sucks. I can totally see some homeowner with a bird’s eye view of the Inauguration stand planning on watching the ceremony from his/her balcony with binoculars and also taping the event, only to have some Secret Service person break their door down, drag them out of their home for the simple fact that their residence is a good place for a sniper; not that they’d ever let anything bad happen.
Hey, come on guys. Don’t make me be the official SDMB threadkiller this close to the holidays.
Oh, all right… 
Sorry, but the title is not up for contension right now. 