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A Stitch in Haste

A Stitch in Time Saves Nine … But Haste Makes Waste

A collection of real-world libertarian, individualist and laissez-faire rants on law, economics, politics, culture and other current events
by an average, everyday lawyer & investment banker and part-time pop scholar.


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Entries Tagged as 'Fourth Amendment'

D.C. to Commence NYC-Inspired Worthless Subway Searches

November 2nd, 2008 · No Comments

The District of Columbia's subway bureaucracy has announced that it will commence warrantless, suspicionless searches at subway entrances:
The program is modeled after one begun three years ago in New York that has withstood legal challenges. However, experts said it is difficult to measure the effectiveness of such searches, beyond assuring the public that police are [...]

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Tags: Fourth Amendment · Law Enforcement Abuses · New York City & State · Privacy Issues · Terror v. Civil Liberties · Updates

Linkfest: Two "School as Prison" Anecdotes

October 13th, 2008 · No Comments

Students "do not shed their constitutional rights at the schoolhouse gate." Except when they do…
ITEM: When science class becomes "forensic science" class —
A science teacher at Comstock Middle School [in Dallas] is accused of trying to use a little bit of science to track down her missing belongings.
"She said some of the students [...]

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Tags: Fourth Amendment · Law Enforcement Abuses · Student Rights

Now the Taser is Killing Vicariously

October 2nd, 2008 · No Comments

This was absolutely not the kind of "reform" I was hoping for:
The NYPD lieutenant from Long Island who authorized the use of a stun gun during a fatal police confrontation with a naked Brooklyn psychiatric patient committed suicide Thursday morning, police said.
On his 46th birthday, Lt. Michael Pigott of Sayville shot himself at Floyd Bennett [...]

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Tags: Fourth Amendment · Law Enforcement Abuses · New York City & State · Updates

Taser Misconduct Reaches New Heights — Literally

September 26th, 2008 · 1 Comment

Just when you think the incidents can't get any more absurd or outrageous:

To say, "What were these cops thinking?" is too generous — they obviously weren't thinking at all. Which is the whole problem with prevailing law enforcement attitudes toward the Taser. The willingness to use the device, not as a substitute to the use [...]

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Tags: Fourth Amendment · Law Enforcement Abuses

Linkfest: Taser Roundup

September 18th, 2008 · No Comments

To review: I consider Taser use to be acceptable only as alternative to the use of deadly force, not as an alternative to mere exertion by a law enforcement officer, and certainly not as an alternative to calling for backup. The Taser is meant to save lives, not to save overtime charges and certainly not [...]

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Tags: Fourth Amendment · Law Enforcement Abuses · Updates

On Laptop Searches and Seizures at the Border

August 7th, 2008 · 2 Comments

"…it is constitutional, because the courts say it is constitutional…"
–Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, on the federal government's policy regarding search and seizure of electronic devices at border points.
Introduction
For some time now there has been a growing agitation, especially in the blawgosphere, over the increasing incidence of searches of laptops and other data storage devices [...]

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Tags: Fourth Amendment · Law Enforcement Abuses · Privacy Issues

"Comment Left Elsewhere" of the Day

July 31st, 2008 · No Comments

Reason laments the use by law enforcement of consent searches to evade the Fourth Amendment's requirement of probable cause to search or seize:
The other day, the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois issued a report on "consent searches" that sometimes accompany traffic stops. Relying on data provided by local and state law enforcement agencies, the [...]

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Tags: Fourth Amendment · Law Enforcement Abuses · Privacy Issues

On Saggy Pants and the Bill of Rights

July 22nd, 2008 · 1 Comment

Two separate jurisdictions have recently enacted "saggy pants" policies that pose fairly obvious constitutional issues.
First, the police chief of Flint, Michigan, has issued an almost comically elaborate set of guidelines regarding the practice (which, incidentally, some insist is gang-related signaling, while others dismiss it as youthful "fashion rebellion") —
A Class C offense, exposing a [...]

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Tags: Fourth Amendment · Law Enforcement Abuses · Libertarianism

Another Wonderful "Activist" Judge

July 14th, 2008 · No Comments

Unfortunately, he was the dissenter:
History tells us that it is not the fact that a constitutional right is at issue that portends the outcome of a case, but rather what specific right we are talking about. If it is free speech, freedom of religion, or the right to bear arms, we are quick to strike [...]

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Tags: Fourth Amendment · Law Enforcement Abuses · Privacy Issues

Suddenly Privacy Matters?

July 11th, 2008 · 2 Comments

Guess who wants your data records kept secret — very secret:
The New York Police Department is appealing an order to release an internal database of hundreds of thousands of street stops of pedestrians to civil rights advocates who want to analyze it for evidence of racial bias.

In a decision in May on the New York [...]

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Tags: Fourth Amendment · Law Enforcement Abuses · New York City & State · Privacy Issues