Galt's Gulch

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  • Posted by term2 7 years, 2 months ago
    The 4th amendment is pretty much dead at this point. Our government simply obtains whatever it wants in the way of paperwork and then just goes in and does it.

    There are also "administrative" warrants that dont seem to be subject to the 4th amendment. I had one of those served on me one morning and my lawyer said there was nothing that could be done about it. They tore down a gate, broke into a door, and captured my dog- and sent in 20 people to "search" for anything. I was asleep at the time and awoke to the sound of my alarm system. Taught me how ugly the local government can be, and I completely lost respect for them at that point. BTW, nothing came of their 'search' as there was nothing to find.
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    • Posted by $ jdg 7 years, 2 months ago
      To me this is the important part of search warrant law -- not how far a single warrant can extend physically, but the fact that they can tear everything you own to bits, and afterwards when they've found nothing, you don't even get an apology, much less compensation. I would have the Constitution require compensation for all searches and seizures -- including detention of a person -- unless they convict you, within a reasonable time afterward, of something serious enough so that the search or seizure wasn't out of proportion.

      This is important to me because it would at least slightly deter a police officer who doesn't like someone from engaging in arbitrary vendettas. Most of the controversy around police today comes from the fact that they have effectively unlimited power to do that without ever answering to their victims for it.
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      • Posted by term2 7 years, 2 months ago
        The arbitrary vendettas are a real problem. In my case it was the mormon church that went after me, and used the local government to hassle me for having "too many parties" at my house. In the end they made me tear out my "approved" septic system and replacing it with one with 10% more capacity at a cost of $20k. Their warrant didnt cover building issues, but they uncovered ta way to "get" me while searching.
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        • Posted by term2 7 years, 2 months ago
          mormons actually settled las vegas way back, and have since gotten ensconced in local political leadership positions here (unfortunately)
          One would think they would be more tolerant of others, given the distinct physical intolerance shown towards them in the past on the subject of polygamy. I guess they chose to use governmental power to protect them going forward
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        • Posted by $ nickursis 7 years, 2 months ago
          How can that happen, do you live in Utah?
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          • Posted by term2 7 years, 2 months ago
            I live in vegas, a very intellectually conflicted state founded and secretly run by powerful mormons intent on imposing their morality on others. It was a real eye opener to feel the open hatred of a religious group against me for the first time in my life- and just because I didn’t subscribe to their belief structure. Somehow separation of church and state got lost in las vegad. I am pretty tolerant of other people’s cultures until they try to enforce them on me. Now I would be labeled some sort of “-ist”, but I definitely discriminate against Mormons now. Under the thin skin of civility lurks a very evil morality. I just try to have nothing to do now with any religions that are not accepting of non believers- Mormons and Muslims unfortunately fit into that category by their own choosing. You just never know when their god will tell them to destroy you in whatever way they can get away with
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            • Posted by $ nickursis 7 years, 2 months ago
              yes, I have had some rather negative incidents with them as well, and a friend of mine explained the religion in detail, and it is not exactly "sound". But that explains it, I would have thought SLC or somewhere in that area.
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    • Posted by ewv 7 years, 2 months ago
      This is characteristic of paranoid, suspicious, vindictive bureaucrats. They don't care what is right. They use their power for their own abusive ends. Maybe a better lawyer could help, but who has the resources for that? It continues to devour your life for years. The bottom of your septic system would be a good place for them.
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  • Posted by CircuitGuy 7 years, 2 months ago
    To me it clearly says what OlduglyCarl and edweaver say: It's trying to avoid any broad fishing expedition. It doesn't have to specify a specific drawer, for example, but if the warrant is to search a house for a muder weapon, it does not give them the right to seach financial records. It's a specific search.
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    • Posted by term2 7 years, 2 months ago
      Good luck on that one. They will search for anything their little black hearts desire, and have no problem destroying property to get anywhere they want. Its sick. Lesson is to NOT keep anything which could possibly be incriminating around.
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      • Posted by DrZarkov99 7 years, 2 months ago
        The interesting factor is what the government seeker chooses to declare "incriminating." We are seeing a dangerous drift, best characterized by the intent to impeach President Trump, mostly because the left just doesn't like him, that implies criminality is malleable. What you may consider harmless, someone in authority may decide is very dangerous. In my library I have a copy of "Mein Kampf." My rationale in acquiring and reading it was to explore the mind of a very dangerous man, but with the current hysteria over white supremacy and neo-nazis, I could easily see the possession of the volume declared a criminal hate crime.
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        • Posted by $ nickursis 7 years, 2 months ago
          Agreed Doc, but note that all of the current and past 10-20 years "subjects" of protest, riot or mobulation, have been purely manufactured. Ferguson, clearly a case where a cop did his job, yet the manufacuted abgst over everything and anything was ramped up in 30 seconds, yet in the end, the guy was proven to be a criminal, and did criminal things, and got criminal results. Yet go to Irma, and there are looters all over (and all were black, that I saw), and yet not a word said, not a voice raised, as it would stir the dragon and the cries of "they are porr etc would rise. Let alone a few million people are in the same boat as them, but did NOT go out and loot (and a lot of black people in that group too). There has bee a manufacturing operation going on for a long time, and now it has gotten to the point you have no idea where truth is. We already have seen the mob mentality becoming the law, the "they are guilty now" screaming riot, which then just happily loots a bunch of stores and go home. It is a huge amount of competeing interests, politics, class envy, pure sloth, and fantasies of power, all mixing in. Even the cops do it now, many departments are still doing the civil forfeiture game to provide them money and still run in innocent people to just take their cars, possessions and livelihoods. Yet the AG "like civil forfeiture" and yet can't seem to figure out how to indict Hillary, investigate the herds of Obama gangsters who preyed on us (Holder, Lynch, Comey, IRS, Justice) in the name of "fairness". In a not to distant future I see a total breakdown, because you cannot continue to have the 2 diametric forces pulling each way, and a lot of us will be in the middle, but the radicals on each side will be in shocked surprise when it happens. All the laws today are negotiable, depending on the judge, court, politics, public pressure. The facts and truth have nothing to do with it. Mein Kampf is probably safe, because no one involved in this mess is educated enough to have heard of it or read it.
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          • Posted by DrZarkov99 7 years, 2 months ago
            What I am disheartened by are the distinct signs that our government, at all levels, is rotting from the inside. The collapse of a republic usually comes from the inside, rather than conquest from the outside.

            As you point out, corruption is now unashamedly publicly evident. What's tragic is that the honest, objective, intelligent political figures are the exception. The rot is so embedded that just replacing the top levels is like pouring pure water on sewage sludge. Nothing is accomplished, as you point out with the AG, where the will may be there in the top figure, but the action is mired in holdover bureaucrats who have had decades to dig in and insure the festering base of corruption is protected.

            The only encouraging thing I've seen so far is the desire of the American people to clean the mess up. Trump seemed to be the only person really aware of the awakening spirit of rebellion, and rode it into office. He has a limited time to attempt to steer the ship of state to a navigable course, and has little support except from a public hoping he has some measure of success. We've spun the roulette wheel, betting on 00, and sadly that's about the last chance we have.
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            • Posted by $ nickursis 7 years, 2 months ago
              Well put. That is why I think the Convention of States may be the last real hope, although with a public that is 40-45% mindwiped by their leaders, then we may not have enough rational people left to ratify the changes. The left side seems much more vociferous in their manipulation, accusations and outright fabrications than I see on the other side, although the right seems to be more "error of omission" types.
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  • Posted by ewv 7 years, 2 months ago
    So far 'place' is still restricted to the planet. In the Justice Department's case against Microsoft it seems to be anywhere in the world.

    https://blogs.microsoft.com/eupolicy/...

    "A few weeks ago, we won a major victory for our European customers in a lawsuit we brought against the US Department of Justice. A US court of appeals ruled that US search warrants do not reach our customers’ data stored abroad."

    "Armed with extensive legal research, we challenged a criminal search warrant for an email stored in our Irish data center issued by a US court pursuant to the US Electronic Communications and Privacy Act, and its Stored Communications Act provisions. We lost in the federal court that issued the search warrant, and in fact Microsoft was held in contempt of court. We appealed to the decision to the federal appeals court, and on July 14 we prevailed. The court ruling provides a robust legal analysis that relies strongly on a recent ruling by the US Supreme Court on the extraterritorial reach of US laws."

    Microsoft wins landmark Irish data slurp warrant case against the US: Uncle Sam's data hoovering must stop at its borders, court rules https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/07...

    Microsoft wins landmark appeal over seizure of foreign emails http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mic...

    But no mention in these articles of Constitutional limitations.
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    • Posted by term2 7 years, 2 months ago
      So that means any information that could help the government to "get you" should be kept outside the country.
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      • Posted by ewv 7 years, 2 months ago
        For now, until they can grab that too. All international internet transfers and communication are monitored and stored. NSA redefined "collection" of information to not include what they store until they look at it. That was after lying to Congress denying the collection.
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  • Posted by CaptainKirk 7 years, 2 months ago
    Simply Put. we must ASSUME the specific words were NEVER chosen by random in our constitution.

    For had they been, you would have seen, in writing, lazy wording... And furthermore a reference as to HOW to bend/twist and torture those definitions.

    The latter have ONLY been supplied by the Activist Judges of the Modern Era...

    FWIW: We should have the death penalty for Activist Judges! (They are, after all, killing our country!)
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  • Posted by $ Abaco 7 years, 2 months ago
    Oh, this reminds me! The other day I was going through the airport in St Louis and saw a desk/podium setup with a big sign over it saying something like "Free Speech Zone". I was blown away. What kind of sheeple need that? So, I had my buddy take a picture of me standing at it looking like I'm having a rant. That photo won't be available on public media... Very 1984ish...LOL
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  • Posted by $ Olduglycarl 7 years, 2 months ago
    More than just your address I would venture. Like: Under the Floor Boards, Dresser Draws, the wood shed or today, computer hard drive?..is it as simple as that?
    Oh...I left out the TSA...they revised it to mean: All places to be searched!
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  • Posted by chad 7 years, 2 months ago
    By being specific and limiting it controls the government from stating 'where ever we might be looking to find something we don't like'.
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  • Posted by Herb7734 7 years, 2 months ago
    This is the realm of scholars. I don't think that anyone else cares very much. The addition or lack of an S or the reason something is singular or plural in a document in use for over 200 years doesn't excite me. So....what happens if the founders had some certain intent that isn't very clear, if they had a point, you'd think they'd be very clear in order to make it. Or do you think it's just a typo?
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