Post by Origanalist on Jul 15, 2014 17:47:43 GMT -8
Jul 15, 2014 By Ken White
We live in an age of diminished privacy and increased law enforcement power. That's why many people were enthused last month when the Supreme Court held that police generally need a warrant to search the data on your cell phone.
But just how happy should we be, really?
We want to believe that the warrant requirement is a significant limit on police and prosecutors. We want to believe that because it's one of the very few limits we have.
But facts don't seem to bear it out.
Wiretap applications are voluminous and complex and a huge pain in the ass. But Federal judges obligingly grant wiretaps requested by the government — usually in drug cases — 99.969% of the time. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, eager to please, grants 99% of warrants — though it protests that it asks for changes to 24%. And when the United States asks for a sneak-and-peak warrant — that is, license to do a black bag job where they go into your house, search it, and leave without letting you know they've searched it — the courts grant the request around 95.95% of the time.
continued at...http://www.popehat.com/2014/07/15/warrants-bulwark-of-liberty-or-paper-shield/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Popehat+%28Popehat%29
We live in an age of diminished privacy and increased law enforcement power. That's why many people were enthused last month when the Supreme Court held that police generally need a warrant to search the data on your cell phone.
But just how happy should we be, really?
We want to believe that the warrant requirement is a significant limit on police and prosecutors. We want to believe that because it's one of the very few limits we have.
But facts don't seem to bear it out.
Wiretap applications are voluminous and complex and a huge pain in the ass. But Federal judges obligingly grant wiretaps requested by the government — usually in drug cases — 99.969% of the time. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, eager to please, grants 99% of warrants — though it protests that it asks for changes to 24%. And when the United States asks for a sneak-and-peak warrant — that is, license to do a black bag job where they go into your house, search it, and leave without letting you know they've searched it — the courts grant the request around 95.95% of the time.
continued at...http://www.popehat.com/2014/07/15/warrants-bulwark-of-liberty-or-paper-shield/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Popehat+%28Popehat%29