I really enjoyed your OP Johnny L.A. I agree with you mostly. Searches are done far to often with judges and cops patting each other on the back and winking as opposed to using any “real evidence”. The seizure of property that is “linked” to the drug trade can be done quite quickly, but it is a real bitch (time and money - nevermind being homeless) to undo if they made a mistake. I can’t carry a concealed gun, so only the criminals have them now. The whole powers of the State thing has turned out horribly, as last years election and subsequent abuse of power by the Supreme Court, proved.
We’ve got a president who thinks we should be giving tax dollars to “faith organizations”. We hold people now (some for over 6 months) without telling them what crime they are accused of or if they are accused of any at all. We’re coming up on video strip searches and being identified in public (sporting events, beaches, parks) by compurters in whose cameras may or may not be in obvious locations.
Yeah, the bill has been getting the once over lately. I can’t say that I am not real happy to have the US millitary protecting my way of life. I know when the chips are on the table (emergencies, attacks) the government is our friend. But damn if they aren’t coming into our private lives in ever increasing ways.
Legalize and regulate drugs (making it illegal to advertise), stop prosecuting victimless crimes, let us have our guns (maybe not concealed in large cities - via a city ordinance - too many people), make it harder to get search warrants, give the cops cameras mounted to their shoulders so they are accountable for their actions at all times, and for christ sake get the election process straightened out.
Good points all of em. There is alot wrong with the way things are going lately. I would love to see how giving us MORE liberties would work out for a change. Obviously, planes and other weapons of mass destruction need some serious security. Other than that - don’t be touchin’ my rights.
Granted you had good intentions, but what got you into trouble has to do with “fair housing laws” and nothing to do with the Third Amendment. The government did not quarter any troops in your house, they simply said that if you were going to rent it you had to rent it to anyone that came along (including members of the military).
In my first post on this thread, I was not being cute. I did not understand how we could discuss so many topics. This was straightened out but only after my post and that of DocCathode and then the OP stating his reason for posting the Bill of Rights as a whole.
That’s a great argument for excluding any evidence seized as a result of the search, but it does not change the fact that the police on the scene were legally entitled to execute that court-issued search warrant. Quite simply, the validity of the execution of a warrant and the validity of the fruits of that warrant are entirely separate legal inquiries. One does not suddenly become retroactivvely privileged to point a gun at the police when it later turns out that the search warrant was improperly executed.
According to witnesses, Scott did not point a gun at police (although they thought he did). Whether the warrant was properly executed, it was still improperly obtained and was invalid.
The Scott case generated a lot of headlines because it was so big. I’m sure you’ve heard of the Rampart scandal as well, where people were killed, maimed, and framed by the LAPD. There are other cases as well, some of which you can read about at the UCSF site I quoted earlier. Also from that site:
Johnny L.A. so in your response to my post, all you did was agree with my point. I used outrageous examples, but you essentially agreed that there are reasonable interpretations to those rights.
Your arguments since have been to show examples of rights violations, but nothing that suggests those are/will be legally upheld.
Your arguments on the warrant appear to be in hind-sight. Or are you suggesting the judge who issued the warrant knew that there were misstatements and omissions prior to issuing the warrant. Oh, I see Minty handled this one.
In any of your examples, are you concerned that if the case made it to the SCOTUS, the rights would not be upheld? That, after all, would be the appropriate measuring stick.
I hate those type of forfeiture laws. I just don’t understand how they fit in with the supposed “Presumption of innocence”. How can they just take your shit without proving you did anything wrong? The idea that this could happen to me, my freinds, or my family at the governments discretion (which can be guided by “anonymous tips”) makes me want to blast a few people myself.
So since I said that people should not have weapons of mass destruction, that means that I think we should give up civil rights? No. Since we are not allowed to cause a panic in a public place (yout “Fire!” example), does that mean that we should not be allowed to express an opinion that George W. Bush is an idiot? Of course not. They are entirely different things.
So far, the forfeiture laws have not been repealed.
Again, you don’t seem to understand the situation. Please read the links. The LASD should never have tried to obtain the warrant in the first place. The judge did not know that the application for a warrant was full of omissions and misstatements, but the LASD personell certainly did. This is a case of government personell intentionally using the forfeiture laws in an attempt to illegally seize assets in violation of the Fourth Amendment.
In the Scott case, it didn’t need to go to the SCotUS. And let’s not assume that the SCotUS is always right. As an example of this, see Plessy vs. Ferguson. According to that decision, it was perfectly acceptable to segregate “races”. It was not overturned until 1954 with the Brown vs. Board of Education decision. Are you suggesting that racism is okay if the SCotUS says it is?
SCotUS has ruled that if property is used during the commission of a crime, that property can be seized even if the owner did not know that the property was being used in a crime (TINA B. BENNIS V. MICHIGAN). In the Bennis case, Bennis’s husband used their car while using the services of a prostitute. The car was seized because it was used in the commission of a crime, and it was forfeited even though Tina Bennis was the owner of the car and she did not know her husband used it to pick up prostitutes.
SCotUS says that the forfeiture was “right”. But is it really? Mrs. Bennis suffered “punishment” from her husband by finding out he was unfaithful. Adding injury to insult, her vehicle was taken from her. How can this be “right”? Why should the government punish an innocent victim who did not know that her property was being misused? If I loan a gun to someone, that is irresponsible of me because I would have a reasonable assumption that the gun might be used improperly or illegally. But if I loan a car to someone, is it reasonable to assume the same thing? I don’t think so.
You seem to have no problem with your rights being eroded. How far will you let it go? Where do you draw the line?
I have been asked for cites to illustrate how rights are being abused, and I have provided them. Can you please provide sites that illustrate that civil rights are not being eroded?
I disagree with this approach. It’s not like there’s a Coalition Against the Constitution or some such out there who are threatening the Bill of Rights as a whole. Different entities have diffferent motivations and agendas which clash with different rights.
For example, the Justice Department under John Ashcroft is threatening certain rights in the name of fighting terrorism, crime, drug use, and advancing the conservative religious agenda, but supports rolling back certain restrictions on guns. Meanwhile, liberal groups are-- to humor you–threatening gun rights while advocating drug legalization and protecting abortion rights, etc.
I also don’t think that, just because some of us percieve a movement in that direction, we’re all going to go to sleep like Rip van Winkle and wake up with a complete lack of rights. Protecting our rights and freedoms is a primary obsession in this country–be you on the left, right, or center–and anything which merely hints at a threat to rights becomes instantly controversial.
That’s not to say there aren’t any specific causes for concern, but specifics, not generalities, is where the focus ought to remain.
No, I will not dig up cites to prove that civil rights are not being eroded. It’s your OP, support your contention first.
Funny, I happen to agree with your concerns. But you haven’t made the case.
The Scott case, for example, isn’t a case of dwindling rights, it is a case of police abuse of power. THAT is a different animal altogether.
And, no, I don’t think that SCotUS is always right, but it is the final interpreter of the Bill of Rights. Right or wrong, it does seem to be the place to look to find out if our rights are eroding.
And if they are, I’m concerned about it.
But gun rights activists that claim waiting periods or concealed weapon restrictions are a violation of the second amendment don’t get much sympathy from me. Anecdotes of the abuse of police powers are definitely concerning, but again, misses the bigger point.
I don’t have a problem with random drug tests as a condition for employment in certain circumstances, but I would be outraged for random drug tests without some reasonable context.
Wrongo. The results of the Scott case - the police “annexing” his land after he was killed - is indicative of dwindling rights. Are you even reading his posts?
Ain’t asking for sympathy. Just rationality. Tell me… how much good have the waiting periods accomplished? Saved any lives? Prevented any crimes? Or just put a warm, fuzzy feeling in your heart?
Let’s see… I’d like a double cite, with a side order of specific debate. Hold the paranoia.
Are you implying that using a DNA profile obtained from body fluids from the scene of a crime to link a suspect to said crime is a form of compelling the witness to tesitfy against himself?
I don’t think you have a lucid inderstanding of how forensic biology works.
I disagree. If police are abusing their power (and they are, accoring to the cites I have provided), then they are violating civil rights. If rights can be violated and the environment in which they are violated remains the same, then the protection of our rights is dwindling.
What is your “bigger point”? As far as there being “anecdotes”, I think that my cites have pointed out that this sort of thing is happening all over the country. When do actions cease being anecdotal and begin to be a trend?
Thank you for the quote on the Bennis case. It shows that property rights have been subject to revocation for some time. This isn’t fair, and it should be addressed.
Be that as it may, what about people who lose their property after no criminal act has taken place? For example, the man who lost $9,000 (later returned after legal wrangling and adverse publicity) simply because he was a Black man with money? Why should a police agency falsely accuse someone of a crime, take his property, and then offer to give only some of it back?
A case was recently heard by SCotUS concerning a high-achieving student who objected to drug testing being required to participate in non-athletic activities? (The courts have previously ruled that drug use by athletes poses a risk of injury.) Of 505 students tested, only three tested positive for drugs. All of the persons who tested positive were athletes. That seems to be a very small percentage to require drug testing for, say, the Chess Team. The lawyer for the school district said that if she had her way, all students would be tested before they could attend school. Do you support that?
I’m coming from the position that people should be considered innocent until proven guilty. Why should people have to prove their innocence?
(Oh – FTR, I have not been affected bny any of the situations I’ve mentioned. It’s just that I see a trend in the “anecdotes”.)
It wasn’t meant to be a cheap shot and I’m sorry you took it that way. Being in the field, and seeing blood and semen (the two most common body fluids we work with) in your argument, I looked at that part of your OP along the lines of forensic biology.
There are a lot of common misconceptions of how DNA profiles are obtained from suspects and used in criminal cases. It wasn’t an attack on your mental state, I was just stating that a clear understanding of the legal minefields forensic biology would be more crucial in debating whether or not consitutional violations are taking place.
While various groups may be attacking various rights, there is no shadowy conspiracy targetting the entire BoR. Ascroft wants to be able and search and sieze. Billy Graham wants a crucifix in every public school class room. Etc.
In addition, I don’t see the attacks on our rights as new. You want examples of civil rights violations? Senator McCarthy. Internment Camps for Japanese Americans. And let’s not forget slavery-the complete denial of human rights to all humans of a certain color.
The documents that our the foundation of America, are not static . There have always been questions as to where our freedoms end.
I’ve given this issue a little thought, and I have to agree with the posters who’ve already chimed in to say that this topic is just way too broad for any reasonable debate. Although it seems at first blush to be reasonable to discuss whether “our rights” are being shredded, the problem is that there are just too many “rights” out there that may or may not be getting strangled. It doesn’t do the discussion much good to bring up any examples at all, since the first person to dispute any of them may still be safely ignored because other examples are apparently still valid.
OP: Our rights are being trampled! Here are ten examples.
Poster 1: Examples 4 and 5 are either overblown or illusionary.
OP: So what? Our rights are still being trampled! Examples 4 and 5 may or may not be wrong, but you haven’t touched any of the other examples, plus here is another example.
Poster 2: Actually, I think several of your examples have never been recognized as rights. Plus your example 2 really shows that right x has been expanded, not that right y has been abrogated.
Poster 1: Well, I can see we don’t see eye to eye on 4 and 5. How about issue z, then? Oh, and I agree with you that example 10 is really not the way I’d like to have things work in an ideal world.
OP: Our rights are being trampled!
So I’m sorry, Johnny. While I’d be pleased to discuss any of these issues on their own merits, it seems rather fruitless for me to contest or support any single point when your hypothesis is essentially immune from any serious review. Y’all have fun now, m’kay?