Tales From Your Police State: Federal Courts Slap Down DHS Claims to Right to Warrantless Searches of Electronic Devices

Tags

4th amendment, department of homeland security, dhs, immigration, ninth circuit court, police state, unlawful search and seizure

It’s not often I find much to applaud coming out of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (See an interview with one of the better justices here.), but here’s a hell of a good ruling:

U.S. customs officials must have a reasonable justification before snatching your laptop at the border and scanning through all your files for incriminating data, a federal appeals court ruled today.

The mere act of entering the country is not reasonable suspicion enough for you to not be “…secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures…” guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. Additionally, this means their ludicrous claim to be able to extend this unconstitutional policy to anyone within 100 miles of the border, are rendered null and void.

Just in case you’re confused Ms. Napolitano (and it seems likely, having some mutual acquaintances), here’s the very clear primary law regarding searches in the United States (emphasis mine):

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Tales From Your Police State: Top Border Patrol Checkpoint Refusals

Tags

4th amendment, 5th amendment, border patrol, department of homeland security, dhs, immigration checkpoints, police state

No, you are not required to answer their questions regarding your travels or your citizenship away from the borde checkpoints. No, they may not search your car without a warrant or probable cause (being a pain in the ass..? Not probable cause.) Unless they are detaining or arresting you, you are not required to pull the vehicle over to secondary or exit the craft. No, you are not required to aid a law enforcement officer in any way that might remotely implicate you in a crime (particularly one they invent.)

A big problem is that these checkpoints are 20-40 miles inside the border. Citizens, obviously, live inside that border and might have to commute through the checkpoint. They have no right to impede your free travel.

This applies to more than the immigration stops:

 

 

Tales From Your Police State: Immigration Talks Spur New Moves on National ID

Tags

bad ideas, biometric id, chuck schumer, dick durbin, e-verify, government corruption, immigration reform, jeff flake, john mccain, lindsay graham, marco rubio, national id, police state, robert menendez

Brought to you by the usual collection of Constitution-hating miscreants in the Senate — Robert “I loves me some whores” Menendez (D., N.J), Lindsay “Bring War to the Homeland” Graham (R, SC), Dick Durbin (D, IL), John “Angry Gnome” McCain (R, AZ), and Chucky “Ban Everything” Schumer (D, NY); along with newcomer Jeff “Really Tea Party, I’m one of you” Flake (R., Ariz.),  Marco “Our Last Best Hope…or not” Rubio (R., Fla.), and Michael Bennet (D., Colo.)   – comes the latest pap from the immigration talks: a National ID scheme. As usual, if the public doesn’t come around and your ideas are shot down for the unconstitutional crap it is…try again.

“This is the public’s way of contributing to solving the problem” of illegal immigration, Mr. Graham said. [Emphasis mine] So in the words of the man that loves the idea of bringing the terror war to Americans — you have to give up some freedom to “solve” the immigration problem. Not that Congress has to maybe simply create a new visa status for itinerant workers coming over for the agricultural seasons. Not that Congress has to change terrible restrictions to other visa requirements. Not that Congress needs to — if it won’t do that — do something about beefing up Border Patrol…

No, You have to do your part by letting us track you everywhere. Even the British declined to do a similar program, citing the high cost and low efficacy.

Tales From Your Police State: DHS Claims Right to Search Your Electronic Devices Up To 100 Miles From Border

Tags

border security, department of homeland security, government corruption, police state

Wired has a good story on this monstrous abuse of power by the Department of Homeland Security: Travelers along the nation’s borders (and by this DHS means up to 100 miles inside the border) are risking having their electronic seized and the contents examined without a warrant. The DHS’s ironically-named “Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties” declared that,

We also conclude that imposing a requirement that officers have reasonable suspicion in order to conduct a border search of an electronic device would be operationally harmful without concomitant civil rights/civil liberties benefits…

Really? Making officers have to reasonable suspicion of a crime is harmful to their operations and doesn’t impact our civil right against illegal search and seizure. So now DHS officers do not have to obey the central, primary law of the nation — the Constitution they swore to uphold, no less — because it would be inconvenient to them.

When police convenience and police safety (as with the recent Dorner mess) become paramount to the rights and safety of the people they are hired by to protect them what do we call this..?

Oh, yes. A police state.

The memo highlights the friction between today’s reality that electronic devices have become virtual extensions of ourselves housing everything from e-mail to instant-message chats to photos and our papers and effects — juxtaposed against the government’s stated quest for national security.

So where does this convenience end? You phone? Your bag? Your car, which in New Mexico is an extension of your house? Your body? When does police convenience end and my right to be safe in my papers and property begin?

When George W Bush stated this mess in 2008, it was a death knell for civil liberties, and Barack Obama has made these incursions into our privacy worse with his signing of the NDAA in 2012, as well as his increasingly imperial view of his powers to legislate through executie order. It is time for Americans to strongly push back on these abuses of power by the administration and the bureaucracy.

Currently, the ACLU is demanding FOIA access to the department’s use of this policy and The Constitutional Project has a paper detailing the dangers of this policy. Familiarize yourself with the situation, write/call/badger your congresspeople. Let them know you are free people and demand your constitutional rights.

Don’t think it can happen you you..?

Do not submit.

What Part of Illegal Immigration Don’t You Understand?

Here’s some help:

Click to enlarge. Courtesy of Reason Magazine

Obama Is All For Immigration…Unless You Have Skills We Could Use

Tags

h1 visas, immigration reform, stem act

The White House has rejected a bill that would have opened the door to educated and highly-skilled immigrants, STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) Act. No, Obama wants a more “comprehensive” immigration policy, which is code for playing Santa Claus to the millions of Mexican and Central American immigrants that couldn’t be bothered to sign the guest book, unlike those from the rest of the world.

It’s not about immigration…it’s about the right kind of immigration. We need entrepreneurs, engineers, and scientists to continue to compete; American students won’t pursue these fields because “math is hard.” No, it’s about what demographic is fond of playing the dependent to government bureaucrats…that’s not the folks STEM would bring in.

New Soft-Hearted Cause: Arizona’s Tent City Prison

Tags

joe arpaio, maricopa county, prison, tent city

“Several thousand critics of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio gathered outside “Tent City” Saturday night for a rally calling for the closure of the sheriff’s complex of canvas jail tents” calling the facility inhumane.

I’m sure I haven’t seen these people protesting the living conditions of the average American soldier in the field, which is at best on par with the tent city. But if you are a criminal, their heart swells with sympathy for you. In this case, the protest is being staged by a Unitarian group against the immigration policies of Arizona. While these caring individuals are “Standing on the side of love,” they fail to point out that the inmates aren’t all Mexican nationals arrested for immigration violations. Nor are they mistreated. To house them in a typical facility would be more expensive (you have to build the jail, first, then there’s upkeep, utilities, etc.) Also, being locked behind concrete walls is psychologically worse than being fenced in. However, that’s not their real beef; they dislike the Maricopa County sheriff (and there are things not to like…and things to respect) and they see anything of his design as tainted by their hatred for him or certain policies he supports.

But don’t let the truth stop you from complaining.

Before You Opine…

Tags

arizona, illegal immigration

…you should probably know what you’re talking about…

ICE to Refuse to Follow the Law

Immigration and Customs Enforcement is preparing to refuse to process any illegal immigrants that Arizona law enforcement should they collar.  ICE’s position is that deportation is a federal matter (hence responsibility…but they never talk about that.)  It’s simple:  ICE is refusing to do their job, the very reason that Arizona passed the law.

Federal arrogance is preparing to saddle the states with massive costs for Medicare and Obamacare.  They will not defend the borders, and will actively work against any state attempting to protect their citizens and coffers from plunder.  (Why is the Mexican government against stopping illegal immigration?  Because most of the money made is funneled into Mexico.  It isn’t spent here.)

The federal government is trying to tighten its grip on American society at a time when the poor economy and libertarian tendencies are on the upswing.  The separation between the Progressives in government and the media, and the People is so vast at this point that it won’t take much more for the federal system to break entirely.

LA Council Wants to Boycott Arizona

Tags

arizona immigration law, illegal immigration, sb1070

…but apparently is unaware that almost the exact same provisions they’re up in arms about…exist in the California penal code.  Worried about the ability of a police officer to stop you and ask for identification when you’re doing something stupid?  Have a shufty at California penal code section 834b:

(a) Every law enforcement agency in California shall fully cooperate with the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service regarding any person who is arrested if he or she is suspected of being present in the United States in violation of federal immigration laws. (b) With respect to any such person who is arrested, and suspected of being present in the United States in violation of federal immigration laws, every law enforcement agency shall do the following: (1) Attempt to verify the legal status of such person as a citizen of the United States, an alien lawfully admitted as a permanent resident, an alien lawfully admitted for a temporary period of time or as an alien who is present in the United States in violation of immigration laws. The verification process may include, but shall not be limited to, questioning the person regarding his or her date and place of birth, and entry into the United States, and demanding documentation to indicate his or her legal status. (2) Notify the person of his or her apparent status as an alien who is present in the United States in violation of federal immigration laws and inform him or her that, apart from any criminal justice proceedings, he or she must either obtain legal status or leave the United States. (3) Notify the Attorney General of California and the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service of the apparent illegal status and provide any additional information that may be requested by any other public entity. (c) Any legislative, administrative, or other action by a city, county, or other legally authorized local governmental entity with jurisdictional boundaries, or by a law enforcement agency, to prevent or limit the cooperation required by subdivision (a) is expressly prohibited.

And the Arizona law, SB1070  (It’s 16 pages, folks; read it before you shoot your mouth off.)

ARTICLE 8. ENFORCEMENT OF IMMIGRATION LAWS

11-1051. Cooperation and assistance in enforcement of immigration laws; indemnification A. NO OFFICIAL OR AGENCY OF THIS STATE OR A COUNTY, CITY, TOWN OR OTHER POLITICAL SUBDIVISION OF THIS STATE MAY ADOPT A POLICY THAT LIMITS OR RESTRICTS THE ENFORCEMENT OF FEDERAL IMMIGRATION LAWS TO LESS THAN THE FULL EXTENT PERMITTED BY FEDERAL LAW.  B. FOR ANY LAWFUL CONTACT MADE BY A LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICIAL OR AGENCY OF THIS STATE OR A COUNTY, CITY, TOWN OR OTHER POLITICAL SUBDIVISION OF THIS STATE WHERE REASONABLE SUSPICION EXISTS THAT THE PERSON IS AN ALIEN WHO IS UNLAWFULLY PRESENT IN THE UNITED STATES, A REASONABLE ATTEMPT SHALL BE MADE, WHEN PRACTICABLE, TO DETERMINE THE IMMIGRATION STATUS OF THE PERSON. THE PERSON’S IMMIGRATION STATUS SHALL BE VERIFIED WITH THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT PURSUANT TO 8 UNITED STATES CODE SECTION 1373(c).  C. IF AN ALIEN WHO IS UNLAWFULLY PRESENT IN THE UNITED STATES IS CONVICTED OF A VIOLATION OF STATE OR LOCAL LAW, ON DISCHARGE FROM IMPRISONMENT OR ASSESSMENT OF ANY FINE THAT IS IMPOSED, THE ALIEN SHALL BE TRANSFERRED IMMEDIATELY TO THE CUSTODY OF THE UNITED STATES IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT OR THE UNITED STATES CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION.  D. NOTWITHSTANDING ANY OTHER LAW, A LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCY MAY SECURELY TRANSPORT AN ALIEN WHO IS UNLAWFULLY PRESENT IN THE UNITED STATES AND WHO IS IN THE AGENCY’S CUSTODY TO A FEDERAL FACILITY IN THIS STATE OR TO ANY OTHER POINT OF TRANSFER INTO FEDERAL CUSTODY THAT IS OUTSIDE THE JURISDICTION OF THE LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCY.  (Sorry for the caps, but that was the way it was written in the copy of the bill I pulled up.  I did, at least, pull the line numbering…)

The Washington Post interviews an Ed Reyes, a Los Angeles councilman, who is having the vapors over the law, without apparently knowing what’s in his own state’s law.  The annoying part of this whole “debate” for me is that everybody throwing a snit can’t seem to wrap their brain around the fact the Arizona law does nothing new.  It doesn’t increase existing powers.  It doesn’t contravene federal law; it’s a redundancy, essentially empowering the state officials of Arizona to do what the federal powers are not.  I suspect it will be just as well-enforced.

The central issue in this debate isn’t the law.  It’s the assumption of racism on the part of the legislators and the people of Arizona, and the expression of racism in the criticism from idiots like Reyes.  Put simply:  Mexicans are the only group of illegal immigrants who feel entitled to break US law, flaunt that illegality, and then bitch about it when the laws are to be enforced.  There is a cultural hubris in Mexicans that they are somehow special — above the laws of the nation in a way that Vietnamese, Chinese, English, Italian, Russian, Indian, or Cuban immigrants (legal or no) are not.  And their protests put that arrogance of assumption out there for all to see.  The result?  More people support the Arizona law that oppose it in poll after poll, all around the US.  Attitudes toward illegal immigrants — not “brown people”, not even Mexicans, specifically — are hardening in the American populous, and particularly in the legal immigrant community.

You know…all those people who stood in line, waited their turn, filled out the paperwork, and have obeyed the laws of this country.

You don’t see protests from these other groups of illegal immigrants.  There’s no smashing of store windows and scuffling with the police by Koreans.  Canadian actors aren’t protesting (no, American actors — they’re taking the roles you can’t, or won’t, take!)  The Greeks that are coming here come to work, not complain; they left those guys back home.  There are no Bangladeshi drug gangs committing violence in the name of cocaine or meth profits.

No, these other groups know they broke the law and have the decency to acknowledge it.  Only Mexicans feel they deserve to come across the border, do as they please here, send any profits back home (it’s called capital flight…look it up), and wrap it in Aztlan revanchist crap.  The border did not cross you.  It shifted 162 years ago — long before you were born — in 1848, after you got your asses kicked in a war.  And then on top of it, the United States paid Mexico for the Southwest.  The Mexican pride in their heritage and culture is not unusual — step into an Irish-style pub or an Italian pizzeria — and you’ll see the same shmaltzy nationalist stuff; it’s the notion that their nation and culture is superior – a demonstrably false claim, as their having hopped the border to escape the corruption in their politics and culture, the destitution of their economy,the violence of their criminals and police (often the same thing), to find opportunity and stability in the United States shows.

I would prefer to see the government get off its ass and open the immigration system so that we can start draining talent from other nations.  I think it should be easy to come in, if you have skills we need, are not a security risk, and no communicable diseases (the latter was the case when my family immigrated.)  I would like to see a short-term specialty visa for day laborers looking to do agriculture in the southwest.  I want immigrants.

But don’t bust into my house, then tell me you’re better than me because you have.