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The Annoyed Man wrote:

EEllis wrote: Honestly I think we have more protection and a more honest government than ever before. The only thing is that technology makes it possible to be so much more efficient than ever before in the collection and use of info. People also want to go on about policing but the thing is that I don't think they have a true picture of what it used to be like. It's more about press coverage and that we talk so much more about these things than it is about the true state of affairs.

Thank you for following up un my prompt.
just saw this today: http://www.npr.org/2014/12/15/370995815 ... ing-of-law

It's another SCOTUS 4th Amendment decision with a twist.....

Tyrants are not always elected.

The Annoyed Man wrote:just saw this today: http://www.npr.org/2014/12/15/370995815 ... ing-of-law

It's another SCOTUS 4th Amendment decision with a twist.....

I had mentioned this case in another thread about police not knowing all of the laws. I saw it was decided and it is one of the very rare occasions where I agree with Justice Sotomayor (in her lone dissent). I honestly thought the court would avoid that issue and rule on other issues than the stop itself. In my opinion, this is bad precedent for police.

In reading the actual opinion though, I found it references a much worse case, and extends it to all traffic stops. In Navarette v. California, SCOTUS decided that reasonable suspicion was all that was needed for a brief investigatory traffic stop. That case was about a DWI case and the stops in those cases are generlly for an investigation. Other traffic stops are not for investigations, such as a speeding stop. In Heien, SCOTUS now says that ALL traffic stops generally only require reasonable suspicion, not probable cause. This is also bad precedent and much worse for we citizens.

srothstein wrote:In reading the actual opinion though, I found it references a much worse case, and extends it to all traffic stops. In Navarette v. California, SCOTUS decided that reasonable suspicion was all that was needed for a brief investigatory traffic stop. That case was about a DWI case and the stops in those cases are generlly for an investigation. Other traffic stops are not for investigations, such as a speeding stop. In Heien, SCOTUS now says that ALL traffic stops generally only require reasonable suspicion, not probable cause. This is also bad precedent and much worse for we citizens.

That is my assessment too.

In fact, I'd say that since police increasingly have power to arbitrarily search and seize without having to consider any 4th amendment boundaries, then the real answer is to eliminate the object of suspicion from consideration as something requiring interdiction. If you legalize all drugs, then police no longer have drugs as an excuse to trample on your 4th Amendment right. I hate drugs and drug use, for anything other than prescribed medical use, but I'd rather see the consequences of legalization than to watch my Constitution used by the courts to light their cigars with.