Freedom to Facism - Part II

http://gideonspeaks.com/?tag=search-and-seizure

Check Mark #2:  Massive Warrant-less Searches.

It's my belief that this particular box has been checked for a very long time.  There are, naturally, exceptions to the Fourth Amendment that allow for this.  Can't survive as a nation unless we have exceptions to our rights, now can we?....riiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

1.  Consent.  Now this is huge people.  Please, please, PLEASE remember that you are NEVER obligated to give your consent to a search without a warrant, where your home is concerned, because, "Well, it's the police!  They're gonna come in anyway whether you want them to or not, right?"....WRONG!!  If they come in anyway, and they do not have a warrant, then your rights are BEING VIOLATED!!  Here's another thing, anyone the police think have a right to be there, whether it's a roommate in your home, or a co-worker in the general area where your cubicle is, say across the aisle, and that person says "Sure, you can look, no problemmo!", then they're gonna search your area, using the Consent exception, and they will win whatever case you decide to bring against them.  BE SURE AND TELL YOUR CO-WORKERS AND ROOMMATES THAT THEY ARE NO TO GIVE CONSENT TO A WARRANT-LESS SEARCH OF YOUR HOME/APARTMENT OR OFFICE/CUBICLE SPACE!

Now, remember, if you will, that the police are sometimes very devious, and may try to pull a fast one on you when you arrive in court, armed with a complaint that they just waltzed in and looked anyway, regardless of your answer of "NO!" to a search of your home.  If you answer the door to the police, and stand at your door to talk to them with the door open, or step outside to talk to them while leaving your door open, this can be misconstrued in court as "an open invitation" and can be ruled as consent if the police decide to pull that on you, in order to get inside without a warrant.  To avoid this, if the answer to "Who is it?" then extracts an answer of "The Police", grab your house keys, step outside and pull your door shut.  There is, then, no misinterpretation of your intention where consent is concerned.

2.  Administrative Searches.  The Government (Not law enforcement, mind you) can pull out of their hat, a reason to do a search called the Administrative Search, involving, usually, a fire inspection or to search for building code violations ("All of this is for your safety, of course!").  Court authorization is required for Administrative searches, but standards governing these are considerably low, therefore, the warrants are more easily issued.  They will, however, not need a warrant for things that involve businesses that are involved in highly regulated industries, such as those that produce things like nuclear power, liquor, tobacco, etc.  Remember, AGAIN, that where your home or business office that ISN'T involved in anything government regulated, that you do not have to let inspectors into your home or office without a warrant!!

3.  Exigent circumstances.  One of my favorites, exigent circumstances are emergency situations where, if law enforcement were to wait for a warrant, they might lose key evidence or persons if they don't move quickly; and therefore are allowed to enter without one.  Examples of this can (and usually do) include drug sales or manufacturing (if they wait too long, the people involved might see the police and flush all their drugs down the toity before the warrant arrives), theft (we may decide to quickly file serial numbers off of the things we stole) or unknown fleeing criminals or fugitives (we might warn them to hide or quickly shove them out the back door and set 'em on fire so they run faster).  If a criminal is running from the police and sees your door open, then opts to go for it, then enters your home, the police can and will come in right behind him without needing a warrant to do so.  If anything you have lying about the house is in plain view, like the ounce of pot you just bought, they can grab that after they get done grabbing the fleeing felon...which of course, brings us TO:

4.  Plain View.  In the example above, when there are Exigent circumstances, and the police are looking for the drugs they busted through your door for, if they happen to come across a counterfeiting machine in "plain view" they can confiscate (seize) this as well during the same legal entry.

This doesn't mean that, if the police see drugs sitting on your kitchen table through a window, that they can enter the house without a warrant and seize it, but if they see you noticing the police, then grabbing some drugs, then running through the living room holding a bag of weed, and it looks as though you're making a mad dash for the toilet in order to flush it to get rid of the evidence, then they can burst through your door without a warrant, because these circumstances are then considered exigent.

5.  Martial Law.  The last and final exception to your Fourth Amendment Rights is one I hope we are never fortunate enough to experience, Martial Law.  I discuss Martial Law in this blog, under "The Right to Privacy (Sorry...the Expectation Thereof)", so at the risk of repeating myself, I won't go into this further.  Read the post, you won't be disappointed.  Below is the direct link to it, in case you don't feel like doing a search:

http://themightyswordamericas26deadlysins.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-right-to-privacy-sorrythe.html

OK, so what does all of this have to do with the post, you might ask?  I rattled these things off, mainly, because it was important that you know what are considered exceptions to a warrant search; in order to give you our check mark for the day.  If a knock on your door turns out any other way than what we discussed, America, your rights are being violated, and you have an equal right to bring suit against the police department, governmental or state agency at fault.  Of course, usually by the time something like this gets to court, the damage is more than done, and is, as well, irreversible.

If you Google warrant-less searches in America, there are 461,000 results, America.  Ten results are too many.  Youtube comes off with around 1700 videos relating to it.  One is entirely too many.  But the biggest offender of this, of course, is the NSA, the Federal Government agency in charge of our National Security, and their countless warrant-less searches they've performed on our private phone calls and conversations, as unveiled JUST RECENTLY in the Obama Administration.  Do...NOT...STAND FOR THIS!!  Don't roll over...AGAIN!  Don't let this one get by us kids; because if there is ever an event in our history that will accomplish more for Government Transparency, and force it and our Government into accountability, it's this one event.  If we roll over on this one, you can surely believe that a fascist nation won't be far behind. Stay tuned, there's oh so much MORE to come!!  :D