America Has A Constitution Free Zone? WTF!!????

reply to post by MinorityReporter


That reminds me of the Farside Cartoon showing the completion of the Great Wall of China. 2 Guards are talking and one quips - this should keep that dog out.

This basically alienates and turns everyone into a suspect. So if you keep your devices locked out then you must be a terrorist. They search everything in your vehicle and person and find nothing, but since you have a laptop that is locked out you must be a terrorist. We need to search your laptop to find something to corroborate our illegal search. This is the fallacy that these clowns created.

Xcathdra
Interesting perspective.. Law Enforcement does have the ability to remove a person from a vehicle they stopped. One issue that is often ignored by civilians is when we stop someone, we are responsible for their, along with any passengers, safety. A traffic stop is a temporary seizure under the 4th amendment. Actions of people we stop are curtailed, including actions of passengers. However its not as easy to just make something up to meet Probable Cause. PC is scrutinized by not only the Prosecution, but the Defense during Discovery.

Unfortunately the economics of the situation don't work that way. When you hit up people lower on the income scale (in my town that's virtually everyone, our median income is 15k/year) they can't afford to fight these charges, they just have to pay the fine. Fighting the charge means hiring a lawyer, and more importantly time out of work/school. Admitting to your boss that you have to goto court to fight a charge equates to telling your boss you're guilty of crime x, which is a great way to lose your job. It's often times the far better economic choice to just pay the fine and move on.

Aazadan
Any chance you could provide some more info? What was the reason given for pulling you over? There are other factors we look at other than smell. As for the citation, next time look the statute up and see what the elements are to be in violation. Then challenge it from there. Some agencies require officers write basic reports for certain traffic violations (food for thought in the future). Burden of proof is on the government, not the defendant.

I was pulled over for "driving suspiciously". Technically the burden of proof is on the government, but proof in this case consists of the cops word. Which means that in reality, the burden of proof is on you to disprove what the cop says.

Generally speaking a Police Officer is considered an expert witness in general Police operations in court (varies state to state but the premise is the same). With that being said a good defense attorney will find the holes in the argument / testimony and go from there - that is there job after all.

This again gets into economics. If you have a $100 or $200 fine it's not worth your time to hire a lawyer (if you can afford one, no free lawyers for traffic tickets) and take time off work to fight it. You'll spend far more than the cost of the ticket.

Aazadan
Again I would need more info. Based on your description they possibly violated your civil rights, not to mention US Supreme Court rulings on the reasonableness of time for a standard traffic stop. The general rule of thumb is 20 minutes. The longer the officer holds a person the more he is required to articulate the reason why.

I never got a reason other than me being nervous made them suspicious. By the time all was said and done there were multiple drug dogs and 4 or 5 police cars with officers going through my car and keeping me detained, the whole thing lasted around 90 minutes. They did eventually give me a ticket for the tail light (which as it turned out, wasn't even out, the lightbulb just shifted out of it's socket because the car was old... it took 5 seconds to fix).

Again, what defense is there to this behavior? The damage is already done, no court is going to order them to pay to fix the damage to my car, infact all the officers have to do is say they never tore out the insides of my car, it was like that when they searched, and I'm left with nothing.

Valid based on furtive movements... Reason for the stop would be good to know?

I don't know the exact reason for the stop, it was a couple years ago. The friend in question knows his rights pretty well though, so I do believe him when he says they were violated.

People need to understand that the cop is not the person you argue with. The court is the setting for that and for good reason.

I do agree with this. Police enforce the laws, it's up to the courts to decide what action to take. In most cases the cop is just doing his job regardless of if he agrees with the law or not. In most cases I'm fine with that, I think the system could be improved and the police definitely shouldn't be treating peoples rights as just an inconvenient object to work around but the core principal works.

The problem is that cops are above the law these days. When you take a group that's already in a dangerous line of work, give them a bunch of military hardware, start lowering intelligence standards (no offense to you, I'm not calling you dumb but I think it's ridiculous someone can't get on the force if they're too smart), train them to treat suspects as the enemy and to view every random citizen as a criminal, and then to top it off tell them random civilians are going to kill them if given an inch, you have a recipe for disaster. Throw in concepts like the thin blue line, and the police union, and the cops that want to abuse their authority can and do, routinely.

Actually its not.. The most recent Supreme Court Ruling dealing with vehicle searches is Arizona vs. Gant. SCOTUS has ruled several times now that your vehicle is just slightly less protected than your residence when it comes to the 4th amendment.

Considering I've been the victim of a police raid (where they found nothing), my residence doesn't feel very secure, infact the experience was so traumatizing that I barricade my front door at night now in case the police come back. Saying my car is just slightly less protected than that isn't saying much.

What I see are actions being taken because the person does not know how the law / their rights work / apply.

But wouldn't this mean the cops are seeking to violate a persons rights as a routine matter? They only stop when someone knows their rights, can quote them, and tells them to stop. Violating the rights of the uninformed is still violating their rights.

reply to post by Xcathdra


Maybe they want to keep the dog in?

Maybe the dogs are spoiled and out of line , in need of governance?

Maybe the dogs were set up and tricked into the cage?

Maybe the dogs are indoctrinated to the cage and need its comfort?

Break the spell; kick the need for what the poison is selling ... That would take love and acceptance to the mass brainwash level.
A nice fantasy but I'm not holding my breath

The revolution will happen when it has to; not before.

Ps I do realize or hope you meant that freedom is impossible to fence in/out. Or that the threat is merely the smokescreen for the true agenda.

Imightknow
Judge reaffirms Constitution free Zone 100 miles inside U.S. Borders

www.theminorityreportblog.com...

Quite the stretch of a title here...as it always has been; since the 1970s...hardly breaking political news...but ATS is prone to this. If you so wish to delve further into the understanding here is a good starting point [PDF].

Nothing that takes away the rights of the people of this country surprise me anymore, so I'm not going to pretend that this surprises me one bit. All it says is that border officials must have probably cause LOL. This is nonsense. Will everybody getting off a flight from the Middle East be a reasonable enough reason to have their laptop or cell phone searched?

But you are going to pretend that this is some breaking news?!

Imightknow
Judge reaffirms Constitution free Zone 100 miles inside U.S. Borders

www.theminorityreportblog.com...

Nothing that takes away the rights of the people of this country surprise me anymore, so I'm not going to pretend that this surprises me one bit. All it says is that border officials must have probably cause LOL. This is nonsense. Will everybody getting off a flight from the Middle East be a reasonable enough reason to have their laptop or cell phone searched?

Utter nonsense.

Sorry to tune in so late. This came to pass with George Bush jr along with his Patriot act and rex fifty seven.

reply to post by Aazadan


That's all true, but my contention is that if your password is never written down, then there ARE no documents to turn over - they have to then compel a verbal testimony, which is more difficult.

The notion of "forgetting" your password does put the burden of proof upon them, where it rightfully belongs, but there are tools to get around even THAT hassle. Truecrypt, for example, has "plausible deniability", a steganographic method for encrypting data within data, so that when you reveal a password, it's the password to grandma's PUBLIC strudel recipe, rather than her SECRET peanut butter cookie recipe. They have then been given "encrypted data", and cannot prove that there is anything more there.

Another such tool is called "Rubber Hose", used by dissidents worldwide in places where a rubber hose is used an an interview method.

BrianFlanders

Unfortunately, if you refuse, they would probably still arrest you and you'd have to get a lawyer to sort it out. Even if they are violating your rights, there's not much you can do about it until you talk to a lawyer if they don't care about your rights.

Which I also covered in my post - I'm perfectly willing to cool my heels on the government's dime over a matter of principle.

lawyers? Pfft! they work for "the man", you know....

reply to post by Imightknow


Check out sedm.org for information on sovereignty
The constitution is a laughing stock these days, all those public servants's oaths don't mean squat if you can't hold em to it in a franchise court of law(baha)
Judges are reapers of souls, already owned by the vatican(that's their claim unrebutted)
They enforce the canons, charters, and statutes
They justify their actions calling it the law
They monopolize and restrict knowledge of the law to a privileged few licensed club members for their sole profit
They dumb us down with vaccines, tv, and misinformation
They train us in concentration camps(lol schools)
They teach us to obey authority, that state sponsored religion is GOD
and that we should worship materials and false idols(politicians)
That individuals possessing the highest moral character and duties deserve the least money
That drug dealers, prostitutes, and criminal banksters deserve the most money
They mess with our minds and intuition, instill fear and ignorance
They flaunt their evil in our faces and we don't see it
We trust them above trusting our own experiences

Sad sad sad

reply to post by MinorityReporter


To quote a person who has experience in these matters -

"The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip thru your fingers."

Yes I was saying your can't contain freedom. If you could the world would be a very different place... provided humanity would have survived up till now.

As for the agenda question.. I think we have people in power who are of the mindset that if you have nothing to hide then you will be fine and should not worry about what they are doing. Especially when they sell the coolaid as "for your own protection, to guarantee your rights, to prevent terrorism.

You won't stop terrorism.. if it was possible, again, the world would be a very different place.

For starters, the terrorist who dumped the tea in Boston, the terrorists who wanted out from under the crown, the terrorists who went to war with the UK.

Ironic really - how does the saying go..

There is no present or future.... just the past repeating itself over and over again.

ThichHeaded
I bet this was never talked about before.. ever.. You know like the fbi able to track and listen to you via cellphone... There is no way these stories were ever reported back in say 07 or earlier? Who woulda thunk..... Not I, surely not I...

10/22/08, 10/30/08, and 10/24/08

Well we crazy CT people never ever talked about this AT ALL!!!!!

edit on 1/2/2014 by ThichHeaded because: (no reason given)

www.wired.com...

Duplicate post.

Forefathers: Damn we are sure glad somebody finally fixed that part for us. We really meant to put that in there from the start. No really. Forefather to judge thanks man!

Illegal unlawful decision by a rogue judge. Is this Supreme Court? Also the citizens should target him/her until that is overturned, with assertive campaign to have it overturned and the judge removed, if they don't cooperate.

nenothtu
That's all true, but my contention is that if your password is never written down, then there ARE no documents to turn over - they have to then compel a verbal testimony, which is more difficult.

The notion of "forgetting" your password does put the burden of proof upon them, where it rightfully belongs, but there are tools to get around even THAT hassle. Truecrypt, for example, has "plausible deniability", a steganographic method for encrypting data within data, so that when you reveal a password, it's the password to grandma's PUBLIC strudel recipe, rather than her SECRET peanut butter cookie recipe. They have then been given "encrypted data", and cannot prove that there is anything more there.

The problem with a hidden truecrypt partition is that writing data to the outer drive can corrupt the inner contents. As a result, if you see an outer drive where the files aren't accessed very often it's pretty easy to suspect there's another layer to it. I would argue that it's best to use truecrypt but don't give them a password, just say you forgot. You might get a little bit of jailtime out of it (particularly if you're in a country like England at the time) but they can't hold you forever. If it's something you actually want to keep secret, there's no sense in giving them 1 of the 2 passswords they need.

Sorry guys but I have to be the Devil's advocate here. People scream that their freedoms are being taken away in exchange for security without any clue to what they're being protected from. I work the graveyard shift, I live in the ghetto. I have to walk home in the dark through the "hood", where people don't give a flying flip about your college degree, what good things you've done for the world, or your future moment. There are times I wish a surveillance drone was circling around me, because I'm doing nothing more than walking home from work and an obvious troublemaker saw me and wants to conversate. This happens in a place that isn't near the border, but trust me, this nightmare happens all across the states and the world itself. I know the madness that happens at our borders, especially our southern one. People volunteer to have their head cut off on camera while claiming to be a captive of a drug cartel that they aren't even a part of just to spare their family and loved ones of the torture they would go through before a very shameful death if said captive didn't comply.

I'm not saying that stomping out our constitional rights is a good thing, but what has to realized is that as a nation we are under attack. Not everything that is a threat to us is a declaration of all out war. The fact that I have to walk through a couple different gang neighbourhoods, as if one isn't bad enough, and have to answer to a slick hothead block after block, that doesn't mean the good ol' U.S.A. will go to war for for me.

So what ends up happening is law enforcement is given the power to do things they couldn't do before. This comes from complaints and pleas of everyday citizens demanding protection from those appointed to protect them. Where I live isn't as so bad as the borders, but if you've never been there and never known about how much an individual law abiding citizen needs the 5 0 then in my book you're just talking out of your bottom backside.

And the point is? We live in a country were a 4 yr old child can travel on foot for days, and enter these united states easy-peasy! So, they want to search a lap-top without a warrant? Fine. They search people every day getting on airplanes, by physically abusing them, and the country is fine with that, so why worry about your smartphone? The country you used to know is never coming back. and the constitution died the day DHS was created. welcome to the new normal. thanks Saudi Arabia !

This is really, really old news. It has been going on for many years now. I can't believe anyone is surprised anymore. There is zero justification for it, no excuse, total corruption. Yet it has been going on for YEARS. Just like everything else nightmarish that's been happening nothing will be done. Nobody can do anything but vent on the internet anymore. Some anxiety meds from the doctor or a few beers then it's off to sleep to get ready to work tomorrow to keep the machine running.

reply to post by Imightknow


This is really bad. But it got me to thinking about government employees traveling on orders. For instance, I once worked for DoD and traveled documents/equipment that couldn't be x rayed etc. I now work for another government organization that requires a lot of travel with my issued laptop containing sensitive information and programs. Could they force me to open it up and view this information? I'm going to have to elevate these questions so there's clear guidance for my travel.

If they look at my government issued laptop, there are then 2 security violations happening (me showing them, and them looking without the need to know). Overall, I think I'd simply refuse and have them to call my boss. Knowing how that works however, I'd be locked up and considered AWOL from my job because they never notified anyone.

This is crazy... not only due to my curcumstance, but in general.

I cant explain the feeling i got looking at this.... but it was bad.