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(graphic: Mike Licht-Notions Capital)
When facing endless “war,” be it a war on drugs or a war on terror, such niceties as constitutional rights always end up a causality of these nebulous conflicts. After all, when eternally battling with a generalized evil that will never cease to exist, the trampling of a few personal freedoms can be framed as an acceptable price. The latest example of this trend can be seen with this horrible new Supreme Court ruling, which basically shreds our Fourth Amendment rights. From the New York Times:
The police do not need a warrant to enter a home if they smell burning marijuana, knock loudly, announce themselves and hear what they think is the sound of evidence being destroyed, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday in an 8-to-1 decision.
The issue as framed by the majority was a narrow one. It assumed there was good reason to think evidence was being destroyed, and asked only whether the conduct of the police had impermissibly caused the destruction.
Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., writing for the majority, said police officers do not violate the Fourth Amendment’s ban on unreasonable searches by kicking down a door after the occupants of an apartment react to hearing that officers are there by seeming to destroy evidence.
The lone dissent was from Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg who realized this ruling just gave police carte blanche to routinely ignore the Fourth Amendment in drug cases. Police can use almost any noise they hear to claim they have “good reason” to believe evidence is being destroyed, and if the history of how police have bent and broken the rules to fight the war on drugs is any guide, they will.
The flushing of a toilet, running of a faucet, opening of a plastic bag, ripping of paper, turning on of a stove burner, or even the sound of foot steps if the officer can claim he “believed” the suspect was moving toward a fireplace (which may or may not exist) are all sounds the police use to say they had the suspicion that evidence might be destroyed. I can also assure that almost anytime the police start loudly knocking at the door late at night they are going to hear some noises they could label as reasonable suspicion. The Fourth Amendment is a shell of its former self.
The destruction of personal freedom is always the price of war
If our country saw drugs as simply a public health issue, it is hard to imagine such a massive erosion of our civil liberties would be tolerated, but we are at “war with drugs,” so we fight it like a war with little regard for basic freedoms. The same is true with the the “war on terror.” It is possible for those in power to justify a massive erosion of our rights to fight a war against some undefined eternal evil, but would be hard to justify if we acknowledged that, in reality, the concern is only a handful of dangerous criminals who are a real but highly limited threat, which should be dealt with through traditional police and intelligence actions.
A nation can either respect its citizens’ civil liberties or be in a state of endless war, but, in the long run, it can’t do both. This Supreme Court ruling is a tragic reminder of which of the two is likely win out.
50 Comments
The war on drugs is a failure. The war on terror is a failure. Each of these wars was initiated by the government to control the people. As Wobbly585 asks in his post, when will people stand up?
Terrible ruling. No one is now safe in their own homes. It’s going to be a wonderful way for people to get back at someone they don’t like. Turn them in and they get their door kicked. Fascism marches on.
What 4th amendment?
It was already shredded by the TSA in their searches of people with no probable cause.
How about a war on death? Or a war on war?
The supremacy of the Constitution ended when the “PATRIOT” act was passed. It replaced the Costitution by reversing most of the Bill of Rights. The shell of the Constitutional structure was retained, but the “unitary executive” is now the primary person in the land and functions as the commander in chief of us all. The congress continues to exist in order to provide the theater of passing bills wanted by the commander in chief for the “good of the country.” The scotus continues to exist to provide the legalistic facade of a Constitutional base. The results are pretty much the same no matter who’s in power (see cuomo as governor of NY).
I agree with your points, Jon. The war on drugs has always been a war on civil liberties, as all wars ultimately are.
I suspect this will not be limited just to the smell of Marijuana smoke, the small of some cleaning supplies like paint thinner is associated with meth labs. There is a lot of room for mischief
8-1? Does that mean the Puerto Rican babe from the projects and the Jewish lesbian voted to shred our Fourth-Amendments rights? It would appear that we (well some of us, anyway) voted for Change We Can Believe In(TM) and got a heaping helping of identity politics instead.
P.S.: What’s with the green cross-bars? Are we going organic?
Mr. Alito seems marvelously credulous about police behavior – as do 7 of his brethren. That the police found an illegal substance, marijuana, in this apartment and not next door or across the hall seems fortuitous. Who could have known the owner might have possessed a valid medical certificate to smoke it? Or that it was possessed in small quantities, making it, like speeding, among the most common of crimes and less dangerous. Not to mention that a majority of Americans want to legalize its use. That’s the weak foundation these brethren chose to base this new police power.
Any loud banging and shouting on a door would startle 10 out of 10 homeowners and apartment dwellers. In the increasingly less salubrious neighborhoods people are forced to dwell in – owing to poverty, illegal foreclosures, cuts in services by cities and illegal cuts in maintenance by grasping landlords – the loud banging on the door could be anyone, including those who would claim to be the police. And how often is the “knock and wait” rule already violated, giving no time for the reasonable question, “Show me some ID”, the kind of question citizens put up with often and in public?
Imagine the reactions to a surprising loud banging in the dark from Senator Vitter, former congresscritter Larry Craig, Lloyd Blankfein, Jamie Dimon or Bernie Kerik, none of whom can expect to receive such treatment. The probable suspicious rumblings, the tearing off of diapers and condoms, the tinkle of glass, the sound of running water and blowing of noses, the shuffle of paper hidden under the divan, the grabbing and dropping of cell phones might make the heart tingle.
The Court is deciding this case, to be sure. It is also setting legal policy for this and similar instances of police entrances into private spaces. Basing a profound new power on a happenstance, not persistent detective work over reasonably suspicious behavior, will further impoverish our democracy and our daily lives. It is wrong. It is bad policy.
It looks for all the world as if this court sought out such a weak case to promote this new expansion of police powers. (The court selects its few cases from among thousands carefully vetted for their “merits” and potential to illustrate policy, based on its own standards and interests.) No one will be knocking on their doors at night. Millions of innocent Americans will not be able to say the same or have any redress for the consequences.
Times ten. The phrase, “If you’ve done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear,” is even more in tatters than it ever was.
You can be sure that if the police found nothing in their initial search they’re sure to find something after a few more officers have arrived after being summoned by the fruitless searchers. And the evidence locker down at the cop shop will be missing a few grams of the evil weed.
There’s always a solution: we can lose the war on drugs (and terrorism too for that matter). I’m all for it. It’s going to happen anyway, so why fight the inevitable?
Ah, EOH, so very true, yet genuine scoundrels ALWAYS have that first and last magic refuge …
DW
This reminds me of something that happened to me during the FLQ crisis in Quebec in October, 1970, when the Federal government suspended habeas corpus and the normal civil protections. I was in my apartment working on my doctoral dissertation when I heard a loud banging, which I assumed came from the neighbors, it was so loud. But it became more and more apparent that it was coming from my door. I opened it and three heavily armed policemen with submachine guns entered, and cased the place. My first reaction was that it had all been a mistake, and I was quite calm, though more than a bit surprised. I simply assumed they had word that the ‘terrorists’ were in the building and were searching all the apartments (without a warrant). Then I saw that my name was on a policeman’s notepad, and I was no longer so calm. How did I get on that list? His response: you do your research; we have to do ours.
I suppose the main point here is that sometimes the noise is so loud you really can’t tell where it is coming from. And if you are late to the door … well, ‘mistakes were made.’
Should be a great business opportunity for builders of Black Marias.
and the drum beats on.
class action gutted to the point of uselessness.
no redress for being put away for 10 years when INNOCENT and the prosecutor’s office complicit as a whole.
corporations are people too.
and now if they “believe” something, let’s give them the benefit of the doubt instead of the ordinary citizen.
and they’re not even hiding it, or even attempting to hide it. see #12.
http://amd.elequity.com/blog1.php?p=50&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1
THE 14 DEFINING CHARACTERISTICS OF FASCISM
By Line: Dr. Lawrence Britt
Free Inquiry Magazine / Spring 2003
Dr. Lawrence Britt, a political scientist, studied the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia), and Pinochet (Chile). He found the regimes all had 14 things in common, and he calls these the identifying characteristics of fascism. The article is titled ‘Fascism Anyone?’, and appears in Free Inquiry’s Spring 2003 issue on page 20.
1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism – Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.
2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights – Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of “need.” The people tend to look the other way
or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.
3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause – The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial , ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.
4. Supremacy of the Military – Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic
agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.
5. Rampant Sexism – The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively maledominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Divorce, abortion and homo-sexuality are suppressed and the state is represented as the ultimate guardian of the familyinstitution.
6. Controlled Mass Media – Sometimes to media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.
7. Obsession with National Security – Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.
8. Religion and Government are Intertwined – Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government’s
policies or actions.
9. Corporate Power is Protected – The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutuallybeneficial business/government relationship and power elite.
10. Labor Power is Suppressed – Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are
severely suppressed.
11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts – Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and otheracademics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts
and letters is openly attacked.
12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment – Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.
13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption – Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.
14. Fraudulent Elections – Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.
~ Semper Fi ~
James Madison:
“A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defence against foreign danger, have been always the instruments of tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended. Throughout all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of defending, have enslaved the people.
“Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.
“In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people…. [There is also an] inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and … degeneracy of manners and of morals…. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.”
The last 2 very informative posts are really scary.
I am so glad Obama’s supreme court picks voted with Ruth in the 8 – 1 decision
oh, wait… Obummer
:)
Here’s the opinion: http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/10pdf/09-1272.pdf
Sotomayor used to be a prosecutor. Liberals love picking prosecutors to be judges to look tough on crime, just like they like extending wars to look tough on national security.
Every state also has a constitution, each of which features a mini-4th amendment.
While the United States Supreme Court may be gutting the US Constitution, each state supreme court nevertheless can interpret its own constitution so that liberties not recognized on the federal level nevertheless can be upheld on the state level.
Beyond this, this ruling demonstrates that “Rule of Law” is no guarantee of liberty. The term was invented by the Romans, who were hardly cub scouts. “Draconian” refers to a set of laws. And arguably everything Hitler did was legal. Orwell, in Animal Farm, illustrates how high sounding principles can be twisted.
So the next time you encounter somebody advocating “Rule of Law,” grab your wallet.
We don’t have a war on drugs. It’s not even a war on civil liberties.
It’s a war on the poor and marginalized. Drugs are just the excuse. I’m still convinced that the powers that be are in bed with the drug lords in the countries of origin. They have no real interest in stopping the production and importation, because then they wouldn’t have the excuse to pursue their war on the poor and marginalized. I’ll be more blunt. Their war on Arican Americans and Latinos.
Oh sure, the DEA fights the importation of drugs. But the CIA works with the drug lords.
Now the rich? They can get all the drugs they want and no police will ever kick their doors in. Their right to privacy is still protected.
Meanwhile our television is more and more filled with police shows where all that stands between us and chaos are brave police officers fighting the creeps out there. Why one of the new successful FOX shows makes it very clear who the enemy is, a powerful and successful Black Chicagoan Politician. Oh well.
The irony is the real powerful and successful Black Chicagoan Politician has moved the Court further to the right, just as we feared.
attention all rapturing christians:
you will not be taking your precious kitty with you this saturday.
since i definitely will be left behind i am offering to care for your kitty as you sit at jesus’ side.
for the paltry sum of only $20.00 (per kitty) i will care for your precious pet in your absence.
(paid care offer good only in the event of rapture).
“Yeah, Chief, I didn’t hear ANY noise, so’s I knowed dey was destroyin’ evidence.”
from KENTUCKY v. KING
The police set up a cocaine buy, then smelled marijuana, and then forcibly entered that apartment and (forcibly?) an adjacent one.
Why all this manpower devoted to a harmless crime? Why aren’t the Lexington police working on real crime?
Lexington, KY has higher crime rates (except murder) than New York City.
Rates are based on cases per 1,000 people for all of calendar year 2009. (wiki)
Lex/NYC rates, selected categories
Total violent crime 5.94/5.52
Murder & negl. manslaughter 0.04/0.06
Aggravated assault 3.58/3.15
Total property crime 34.16/16.9
Larceny-theft 24.14/13.39
I would love to see the booming private prison system bubble burst, just like the housing bubble (but with smaller bedrooms).
Unsolved Homicides
Lexington, Kentucky
The Bureau of Investigation is asking for public assistance in the following cases:
Pamela Lynn Mansell
Misty Gwinner
Bruce Allen Price
Osbaldo Quintana-Reves
El Hajj Ray
George Calvin Hurst
James R. Sinkhorn
I thought you already heard years ago John. We basically have only one right left:
“The right to
remain silentshut the fuck up”Kentucky Inmate Sues CCA, Claims Sexual Assault
CCA = Corrections Corporation of America
LOUISVILLE (AP), Jan 6, 2011 – A German woman has filed a lawsuit against a private company that ran a Kentucky prison and some of its employees, saying she was forced to trade sex to call her ill mother.
The suit filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Louisville is the latest in a series of cases alleging sexual assault at the Otter Creek Correctional Complex in Wheelwright. Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear ordered all the female prisoners removed from the facility a year ago when a scandal involving corrections officers and inmates reached its height.
Without drug money, the stock market would collapse. And consider all those hard working ‘real’ Americans in the DEA, ICE, Metro DTF across the US that would all be panhandling on the street with out the gubmit tit doling out billions upon billions. And I forgot about all those poor prison guards, public and private that would be out of work! Besides, what the fuck would that cunt Clinton do for irony?
Knut, that’s very glib and completely meaningless.
Please define “win” on the war on drugs.
That’s exactly what it means! Obama’s two “plants” on the court voted with the asshole contingent, leaving Ruth Bader Ginsburg as the only member of the court concerned with freedom and the rights of the individual.
What you expected “Change”?
Pigs love power most of all, so the USG gives them what they love to keep them happy and useful.
“What collapses a regime is when insiders turn against it. So long as police, army and senior officials think they have more to lose by revolution than by defending a regime, then even mass protests can be defied and crushed. Remember Tiananmen Square.
But if insiders and the men with guns begin to question the wisdom of backing a regime – or can be bought off – then it implodes quickly.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12431231
Genetic engineering so MJ doesn’t smell?
I am a retired federal law enforcement officer and I can tell you that this ruling by the Supreme Court has opened a Pandora’s box that will never close. I can tell you from past experience that this ruling will be abused with regularity and it will only get worse. This will be like a legal version of when the police used to put fake evidence on a perp to get a easy conviction. This will be a hundred times worse. Prepare for the end of America as you know it.
I would like to try to word this in a way that would be inoffensive to the many police who do their jobs honestly, and I have personally not been a target.
But I have not had a high opinion of police (or other authoritarian bodies) work. First principles, i.e. too much power over helpless people.
So, I agree with you. Giving even more power will make current problems much worse.
One more of the many ways that the PTB are taking over the country. Way down the slippery slope.
earlofhuntingdon,
But in the era of rendition and torture, the new paradigm is: “If you’ve done something wrong, you have nothing to fear.” At least, for some; the power of the unitary executive will grind down others. It is a state of lawlessness, no?
On the public (interior) highways now there are Border Patrol checkpoints where they arbitrarily direct vehicles to “secondary,” question the operators and ask them to open the vehicle trunks for inspection. As with this case, it’s just a slight escalation to home searches.
Nixon’s war on drugs proved that the government could trample our civil liberties and nobody would say anything about it. It has been used to militarize our police and build the prison gulag. The war on drugs was training wheels for the war on terror.
Many Americans, perhaps a majority, still approve of both wars. This is reason for despair. This is why America sucks. It’s because Americans suck.
Please stand aside Justice Ginsburg while I piss on the Roberts Court.
I guess this is what some folks mean when they insist that “freedom isn’t free.” Nope. You have to pay for it with your freedom.
Surprise, surprise and both of Obama s appointments voted with the majority.
Well that
did not workout, I guess. Seems like it did work for or is that against, the Constitution s fourth amendment.
When you hear that knock, remember the words of the famous Elmer Fudd,
:-)
Since the American government has now stripped us Americans of our freedoms, I guess this means that the “terrorists” don’t have any reason to hate us any more or longer.
I keep going back to those idealistic Federalist essays and Constitutional Amendments to see what America might have become in the absence of contrived permanent “war” on someone, something, someplace, all the time, etc. Then I open George Orwell’s prophetic 1984 to read what in so many ways America actually has become: for all intents and purposes, a Crony Corporate Collective Oligarchy. And I rue the day that I ever gave that quisling impostor Barack Obama one minute’s benefit of the doubt.
And to be sure we are the first to experience this new RULE OF LAW. I am going to burn all my old address books and all old letters i have, so as not to link to anyone i know. My current address book will be in the ground. This is how folks should be thinking. I first heard this on NPR and never saw it on main stream TV. How long for we see it put into action.
I just hope when election time comes around, including the primaries, people dont start the
But what I expect is for this to be the
of the left blogs. It has already has started over @
http://www.americablog.com/2011/05/is-obama-adult-in-room.html
Agreed. You make a VERY important point because the last bastion of the Obamabots is the claim that we must protect Supreme Court appointments. After Obama’s Administration argued in full support of this decision and his two SCOTUS appointees voted to gut what was left of the Fourth Amendment they have no fig leaf left!
They aren’t going to declare the war on drugs lost. Ever. Too many people make a living from it. Tens of thousands. They don’t get rich from it, mind you, but they make a decent (sic) living. And some people get very rich. Same with the “war on terror.” They’re never going to admit it’s already been lost. Even Robert Gates admitted that we’re never going to leave Afghanistan. Hundreds of thousands of people eke out a living from it, and a few people get very rich.