Actually it makes perfect sense for it to be 9-0 and not just because I agree with it/it helps me.
So basically if you want to catch a deer, you have to know how a deer operates: under what system it functions. To know how how the Supreme Court operates, you have to know under what system it functions. Most of my Supreme Court legal commentary is based not upon what I think, but rather upon how it conforms with or deviates from legal process.
Here, the Supreme Court followed precedent. The closest case was one where police placed a locator beacon of sorts on someone's car. The reason this is allowed is because it doesn't really show the police anything
they couldn't see with their own eyes. <--- This is the standard traditionally. Mere technological augmentation is not disallowed, otherwise they couldn't use binoculars, logically. Rather it's a consideration of how much it enhances the police senses.
Locator tracking beacon on car: The police could've just tailed the suspect closer. They did actually tail him, but the beacon merely allowed them to do so from a greater distance where the suspect could not see. Moreover, the beacon did not tell the police anything other than the location of the car, which they could've seen with their own eyes from a lawful viewing location.
GPS tracking: Goes far beyond the locator beacon. Here, said GPS can tell the exact location of a person in any given room in a building. The difference between this and the locator beacon on the car is that the police could've seen the car with plain senses at any position. Short of technology seeing through walls and floors, the police could not have seen which room in the home the person was in. A similar ruling was found in .... I can't remember the exact name but it was a heat seeing thermal imaging device the police used to see through walls of a home. Basically it reveals too much from a position where the police aren't allowed to look from without a warrant.
Disclaimer: this is far from an exhaustive text on search law and in fact it's merely a crumb. I could write a book on it as it is very complex. This doesn't even touch the "reasonable expectation of privacy," or any other of the numerous factors in the analysis.
Moreover, the bloody warrant had expired....
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other news, the people enforcing the constitution, don't know it:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57363889-503544/rand-paul-in-tsa-showdown-after-refusing-pat-down/No, stupid officer, you literally can't fucking arrest him, at all. Go sit in the corner....
From article: "According to the Associated Press, Paul said he was "detained" in a small cubicle in the airport, which is about an hour from his Bowling Green, Kentucky home, and missed his flight to Washington for a Senate session."
From Constitution: Article 1, Sec 6
6.1 ...[Senators] shall in all cases, except treason, felony and breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest during their attendance at the session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any speech or debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other place.
He has constitutional legislative immunity. But the TSA doesn't seem to want to follow the damn rules. "We're exempt." Huh?
Much as I don't particularly like the Pauls, he has a point. Even if you try for the BS "this isn't an arrest"
it's still "question[ing] in any other place."
[sigh]
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Topic: Chill and Relaxed Progressive Irritation and Annoyance Thread (Read 879594 times)