Insanity: CISPA Just Got Way Worse, And Then Passed On Rushed Vote

Folks, this bill is worse if you can believe it can get worse, than SOPA.  Oh, and one more thing…the White House threatens veto of CIPSA cybersecurity bill  is what your hearing as well…..don’t pay any attention to that, Obama said he’s veto the NDAA too, but he didn’t and signed it into law. What is the NDAA? It is indefinite detention of US citizens…..no judge, no jury, no due process….just the word of the President and your gone.

Update: Several people have asserted that Quayle’s amendment actually made CISPA better, not worse. I’ve now posted my thoughts on that.

Up until this afternoon, the final vote on CISPA was supposed to be tomorrow. Then, abruptly, it was moved up today—and the House voted in favor of its passage with a vote of 248-168. But that’s not even the worst part.

The vote followed the debate on amendments, several of which were passed. Among them was an absolutely terrible change (pdf and embedded below—scroll to amendment #6) to the definition of what the government can do with shared information, put forth by Rep. Quayle. Astonishingly, it was described as limiting the government’s power, even though it in fact expands it by adding more items to the list of acceptable purposes for which shared information can be used. Even more astonishingly, it passed with a near-unanimous vote. The CISPA that was just approved by the House is much worse than the CISPA being discussed as recently as this morning.

Previously, CISPA allowed the government to use information for “cybersecurity” or “national security” purposes. Those purposes have not been limited or removed. Instead, three more valid uses have been added: investigation and prosecution of cybersecurity crime, protection of individuals, and protection of children. Cybersecurity crime is defined as any crime involving network disruption or hacking, plus any violation of the CFAA.

Basically this means CISPA can no longer be called a cybersecurity bill at all. The government would be able to search information it collects under CISPA for the purposes of investigating American citizens with complete immunity from all privacy protections as long as they can claim someone committed a “cybersecurity crime”. Basically it says the 4th Amendment does not apply online, at all. Moreover, the government could do whatever it wants with the data as long as it can claim that someone was in danger of bodily harm, or that children were somehow threatened—again, notwithstanding absolutely any other law that would normally limit the government’s power.

Somehow, incredibly, this was described as limiting CISPA, but it accomplishes the exact opposite. This is very, very bad.

There were some good amendments adopted too—clarifying some definitions, including the fact that merely violating a TOS does not constitute unauthorized network access—but frankly none of them matter in the light of this change. CISPA is now a completely unsupportable bill that rewrites (and effectively eliminates) all privacy laws for any situation that involves a computer. Far from the defense against malevolent foreign entities that the bill was described as by its authors, it is now an explicit attack on the freedoms of every American.

Read more

To see how your representative voted ….click here

Is the NSA in your inbox?

Folks we have a completely out of  control central government, just ignoring the Contitution, in this case the 4th amendment.

The House of Representatives is now poised to vote on the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), which would allow companies to monitor our online communications and share private information about users with the government.
CISPA would let companies bypass all existing privacy law as long as they claim a “good faith” belief that they are doing so for cybersecurity purposes. These exemptions would allow a huge trove of data to end up in the government’s hands with no judicial oversight.
House leadership is pushing for a vote on CISPA this week. Please call your Representative now and urge them not to sacrifice the civil liberties of Internet users in the name of cybersecurity legislation.
Click here to find your Representative’s phone number and a short script of suggested talking points.
Once you’ve made the call, please share this on your social networking sites and ask your friends to join you. We need to get as many calls as possible today, before the legislation can be rushed through, so please help spread the word.
Thanks for all you do to help us defend digital rights,
Rainey Reitman
Activism Team
Electronic Frontier Foundation

You may also find this interesting reading as well:

CISPA Amendment Allows DHS to Intercept Tax Returns

Drivers face drug checkpoints on highways near Flint

This is not Tennessee this time, but just goes to show what people with good intentions lead to at times….illegal 4th amendment searches.

Motorists driving on expressways around Flint, Michigan are getting surprised by a stunning tactic that the Genesee County sheriff has been using to fight the flow of illegal drugs — one that legal experts said will not withstand a court challenge.

At least seven times this month, including Tuesday, motorists have said they have seen a pickup towing a large sign on I-69 or U.S.-23 that depicts the sheriff’s badge and warns: “Sheriff narcotics check point, 1 mile ahead — drug dog in use.”

The checkpoints are part of a broad sweep for drugs that Genesee County Sheriff Robert Pickell and his self-titled Sheriff’s Posse said are needed, calling Flint a crossroads of drug dealing because nearly a half-dozen major roads and expressways pass in and around the city. Pickell said he decided to try checkpoints when he learned that drug shipments might be passing through Flint in tractor-trailers with false compartments.

He said the dogs are used to sniff around the vehicles to check for drugs.

The practice has legal experts on searches and seizures at two law schools in Michigan, a constitutional law expert in Lansing and the American Civil Liberties Union calling the practice out of bounds and out of touch with state and U.S. Supreme Court rulings that ban such practices.

Based on a case out of Indianapolis, the U.S. Supreme Court held in 2000 that narcotics checkpoints where everyone gets stopped on a public road are not legal and violate Fourth Amendment protections against illegal searches and seizures, professor David Moran at the University of Michigan Law School said.

Wayne State University Law School professor Peter Henning said police can set up roadblocks to search all who pass by, but only if a crime has just been committed.

And Genesee County Prosecutor David Leyton, who said he was not consulted by Pickell about the checkpoints, said that after a court challenge, the Michigan Supreme Court ruled in 1990 that so-called “sobriety check lanes,” put in place to nab drunken drivers, were illegal.

The new practice of narcotics checkpoints “certainly brings up probable-cause issues,” Leyton said Thursday.

Leyton said he has no power to stop the practice, however. That, he said, would require someone arrested at a checkpoint to contest the evidence in court.

Entire article @ Detroit Free Press

Smart Meters. Don’t let your electric company install new meters

It is unconstitutional for your electric company to install the new “smart meter” electronic surveillance meters on your home WITHOUT YOUR PERMISSION! Please watch the video below for more information. You are protected under the 4th amendment: “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.” JUST SAY NO! (Sample Letter is below)

Tennessee law bans ‘distressing images,’ opens your Facebook inbox

Congratulations Tennessee! Governor Bill Haslam has put your state in the national spotlight and, for once, it has nothing to do with Bonnaroo or how bad the Titans are. The republican executive of the state signed a ban on “distressing images” into law last week that we’re sure constitutional lawyers are going to have a field day with. Anyone who sends or posts an image online (and yes, that includes TwitPics) that they “reasonably should know” would “cause emotional distress” could face several months in jail and thousands of dollars in fines. The best part? Anyone who stumbles across the image is a viable “victim” under the law and the government doesn’t even have to prove any harmful intent. So, Tennessee residents who aren’t cautious enough using Google image search could get a few people in trouble. Another, and perhaps more perturbing, part of the same bill also seeks to circumvent restrictions on obtaining private messages and information from social networking sites without a search warrant. We give it about a month before this gets struck down on obvious grounds that it’s unconstitutional.

Engadget.com

Let Us Count the Ways It’s Unconstitutional

First, the state made it a crime for people to share credentials for entertainment subscription services like Netflix and Rhapsody.

Now the governor has signed a law that says a person faces up to a year in jail (pdf) if he publishes an image that he reasonably should know will “frighten, intimidate or cause emotional distress” to a victim or “a similarly situated person of reasonable sensibilities” and doesn’t have a “legitimate” reason for doing so. While the crime requires a reasonable likelihood that the image will be viewed by the victim, criminal penalties can kick in if the “victim” doesn’t ever actually see it, but someone else finds it distressing.

The legislation — which goes into effect next week, on July 1 — will update a law already on the books that makes it illegal to send communications that the sender reasonably knows would frighten, intimidate, or cause distress to the recipient. As revised, the law will now make it a crime to publish an image on any Internet site or service if someone else finds it emotionally disturbing.

As law professor Eugene Volokh points out, this criminalizes a wide swath of expression protected by the First Amendment. It’s next to impossible for a publisher to know whether an image might offend someone and therefore potentially violate the law, which will chill online expression. This ban will also give law enforcement a tool to selectively punish speech it doesn’t like.

That’s bad enough. But it doesn’t stop there.

The new law also says that social networking services must disclose communications and images to the government if it shows a court specific and articulable facts that there are “reasonable grounds to believe that the contents of an electronic communication, or the records or other information sought, are relevant and material in an ongoing criminal investigation.” This requirement contradicts the federal Electronic Communications Privacy Act, which requires law enforcement — including state and local law enforcement in Tennessee — to get a warrant before seizing stored communications that are less than six months old.

Even worse, Tennessee is in the Sixth Circuit, which held just a few months ago in United States v. Warshak that the government must have a probable cause warrant to seize and search messages stored by communications service providers. Which means that the new law violates the Fourth Amendment, too.

In short, Tennessee’s ban on posting distressing images is unconstitutional in more ways than one, and we hope to see the courts strike it down at the first opportunity.

EFF.org

Constitutional Powers the States have, and the Feds do not

Here’s something for the readers that would like to learn more about the Constitution, State’s Rights and the Federal Government’s powers granted to them in the Constitution.

The Constitution enumerates the power of the federal government—but are there authoritative lists of those powers reserved to the states with which the federal government may not interfere?

Yes—many.

During the period 1787-1790, while the public was debating whether to adopt the Constitution, the document’s opponents (“Anti-Federalists”) argued that the Constitution would grant the federal government powers so broad that there would be little left for the states.

Supporters of the Constitution responded that, actually, the powers granted the federal government were “few and defined” (Madison), but the states would retain exclusively all other prerogatives of government.  Some added that the states’ sphere was so vast, that enumeration of all exclusive state powers was impossible.

Nevertheless, Anti-Federalists continued to insist on knowing the sorts of things that federal officials would not be able to touch.  In response, leading spokesmen for the Constitution began to list such items.

Although some of those spokesmen simply provided a few examples, others offered considerable lists.  The lists complemented rather than contradicted each other.  Some of the longest lists came from the pen of Tench Coxe, a Philadelphia businessman who had served in the Confederation Congress and, in subsequent years, was to become the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury.

Coxe is little-known today, but his essays were among the most  influential with the general public, if not the most influential, of all the pro-Constitution writers.  His writings were not as extensive as, say, Hamilton, Madison & Jay’s Federalist, but they were much easier to read and may have been more widely distributed.  His representations, and similar ones from other pro-Constitution writers, were central to the entire constitutional bargain.

Coxe wrote under several pen names.  The excerpts below from two of his “Freeman” essays illustrate the powers constitutionally denied to the federal government.

For more complete treatment of this subject, see my article, The Enumerated Powers of States.  (Since writing that article, I’ve found even more Founding-Era enumerations.)

Here are Coxe’s lists:

From Freeman No. 1:
“It will be found, on a careful examination, that many things, which are indispensibly necessary to the existence and good order of society, cannot be performed by the fœderal government, but will require the agency and powers of the state legislatures or sovereignties, with their various appurtenances and appendages.

“1st. Congress, under all the powers of the proposed constitution, can neither train the militia, nor appoint the officers thereof.

“2dly. They cannot fix the qualifications of electors of representatives, or of the electors of the electors of the President or Vice-President.

“3dly. In case of a vacancy in the senate or the house of representatives, they cannot issue a writ for a new election, nor take any of the measures necessary to obtain one.

“4thly. They cannot appoint a judge, constitute a court, or in any other way interfere in determining offences against the criminal law of the states, nor can they in any way interfere in the determinations of civil causes between citizens of the same state, which will be innumerable and highly important.

“5thly. They cannot elect a President, a Vice-President, a Senator, or a fœderal representative, without all of which their own government must remain suspended, and universal Anarchy must ensue.

“6thly. They cannot determine the place of chusing senators, because that would be derogatory to the sovereignty of the state legislatures, who are to elect them.

“7thly. They cannot enact laws for the inspection of the produce of the country, a matter of the utmost importance to the commerce of the several states, and the honor of the whole.

“8thly. They cannot appoint or commission any state officer, legislative, executive or judicial.

“9thly. They cannot interfere with the opening of rivers and canals; the making or regulation of roads, except post roads; building bridges; erecting ferries; establishment of state seminaries of learning; libraries; literary, religious, trading or manufacturing societies; erecting or regulating the police of cities, towns or boroughs; creating new state offices; building light houses, public wharves, county gaols, markets, or other public buildings; making sale of state lands, and other state property; receiving or appropriating the incomes of state buildings and property; executing the state laws; altering the criminal law; nor can they do any other matter or thing appertaining to the internal affairs of any state, whether legislative, executive or judicial, civil or ecclesiastical.

“10thly. They cannot interfere with, alter or amend the constitution of any state, which, it is admitted, now is, and, from time to time, will be more or less necessary in most of them.”

From Freeman No. 2:
“First, then, each state can appoint every officer of its own militia, and can train the same, by which it will be sure of a powerful military support attached to, and even part of itself, wherein no citizen of any other state can be a private centinel, much less have influence or command.

“2dly. Every regulation relating to religion, or the property of religious bodies, must be made by the state governments, since no powers affecting those points are contained in the constitution.

“3dly. The state legislatures and constitutions must determine the qualifications of the electors for both branches of the fœderal government; and here let us remember to adhere firmly within our respective commonwealths to genuine republican principles. Wisdom, on this point which lies entirely in our hands, will pervade the whole system, and will be a never failing antidote to aristocracy, oligarchy and monarchy.

“4thly. Regulating the law of descents [inheritance], and forbidding the entail of landed estates, are exclusively in the power of the state legislatures. . . .

“5thly. The elections of the President, Vice President, Senators and Representatives, are exclusively in the hands of the states, even as to filling vacancies. The smallest interference of Congress is not permitted, either in prescribing the qualifications of electors, or in determining what persons may or may not be elected.

“The clause which enables the fœderal legislature to make regulations on this head, permits them only to say at what time in the two years the house of representatives shall be chosen, at what time in the six years the Senate shall be chosen, and at what time in the four years the President shall be elected; but these elections, by other provisions in the constitution, must take place every two, four and six years, as is declared in the several cases respectively.

“6thly. The states elect, appoint and commission all their own officers, without any possible interference of the fœderal government.

“7thly. The states can alter and amend their several constitutions, provided they do not make them aristocratical, oligarchic or monarchical—for the fœderal constitution restrains them from any alterations that are not really republican. That is, the sovereignty of the people is never to be infringed or destroyed.

“8thly. The states have the power to erect corporations for literary, religious, commercial, or other purposes, which the fœderal government cannot prevent.

“9thly. Every state can always give its dissent to fœderal bills, as each has a vote in the Senate secured by the constitution. Hence it appears, that the state governments are not only intended to remain in force within their respective jurisdictions, but they are always to be known to, and have their voices, as states, in the fœderal councils.

“10thly. The states not only elect all their own officers, but they have a check, by their delegates to the Senate, on the appointment of all fœderal officers.

“11thly. The states are to hold separate territorial rights, and the domestic jurisdiction thereof, exclusively of any interference of the fœderal government.

“12thly. The states will regulate and administer the criminal law, exclusively of Congress, so far as it regards mala in se, or real crimes; such as murder, robbery, &c. They will also have a certain and large part of the jurisdiction, with respect to mala prohibita, or matters which are forbidden from political considerations, though not in themselves immoral; such as unlicenced public houses, nuisances, and many other things of the like nature.

“13thly. The states are to determine all the innumerable disputes about property lying within their respective territories between their own citizens, such as titles and boundaries of lands, debts by assumption, note, bond, or account, mercantile contracts, &c. none of which can ever be cognizable by any department of the fœderal government.

“14thly. The several states can create corporations civil and religious; prohibit or impose duties on the importation of slaves into their own ports; establish seminaries of learning; erect boroughs, cities and counties; promote and establish manufactures; open roads; clear rivers; cut canals; regulate descents and marriages; licence taverns; alter the criminal law; constitute new courts and offices; establish ferries; erect public buildings; sell, lease and appropriate the proceeds and rents of their lands, and of every other species of state property; establish poor houses, hospitals, and houses of employment; regulate the police; and many other things of the utmost importance to the happiness of their respective citizens. In short, besides the particulars enumerated, every thing of a domestic nature must or can be done by them.

“In addition to this enumeration of the powers and duties of the state governments, we shall find many other instances under the constitution, which require or imply the existence or continuance of the sovereignty and severalty of the states.—The following are some of them:—

“All process against criminals and many other law proceedings will be brought by and run in the name of that commonwealth, in which the offence or event has taken place.

“The senate will be representatives of the several state sovereignties.

“Every state must send its own citizens to the senate and to the house of representatives. No man can go thither, but from the state of which he is a complete citizen, and to which, if they choose, he shall be sworn to be faithful.

“No state shall on any pretence be without an equal voice in the senate.

“Any state may repel invasions or commence a war under emergent circumstances, without waiting for the consent of Congress.

“The electors of the President and Vice-President must not nominate more than one person of the state to which they belong: so careful is the fœderal constitution to preserve the rights of the states.

“In case of an equality of votes in the election of the President or Vice-President, a casting voice is given to the states from a due attention to their sovereignty in appointing the ostensible head of the fœderal government.

….

“Two thirds of the states in the proposed confederacy can call a convention.

“Three fourths of those states can alter the constitution.

“From this examination of the proposed constitution for the United States, I trust it will appear, that though there are some parts of it, which, taken separately, look a little like consolidation, yet there are very many others of a nature, which proves, that no such thing was intended, and that it cannot ever take place.”

In private life, Rob Natelson is a long-time conservative/free market activist, but professionally he is a constitutional scholar whose meticulous studies of the Constitution’s original meaning have been published or cited by many top law journals. (See http://constitution.i2i.org/about/.) Most recently, he co-authored The Origins of the Necessary and Proper Clause (Cambridge University Press) and The Original Constitution (Tenth Amendment Center). After a quarter of a century as Professor of Law at the University of Montana, he recently retired to work full time at Colorado’s Independence Institute. Visit his blog there at http://constitution.i2i.org/

 

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DOJ Threatens to Turn Texas Into a “No Fly Zone”

Folks, this is what happens when you give the central government too much power and let the courts interpret the “commerce clause”, “supremacy clause” and “necessary and proper clause” wayyy too broadly. At first something like the FAA in this case looks logical and harmless, BUT, then you let them get waayyy too big and powerful and then the central government is dictating to the States and threatening them, ignoring the 9th and 10th amendments. Along with in this case violating the 4th amendment big time! Too bad Texas blinked and gave in to the threat.

In a development which may be the first constitutional crisis to come out of the growing state sovereignty movement, the federal Department of Justice has threatened to shut down air travel in Texas if the Texas legislature follows through with passage of a popular bill limiting the power of the Transportation Security Administration within the state.

HB1937 is one of two bills authored by Rep. David Simpson (RLC-Tyler) designed to prevent the TSA from implementing unpopular security measures within the state of Texas. It would make it a felony for TSA agents to engage in certain forms of intimate touching during the course of an “enhanced pat down” of an airline passenger. If a complaint were made against TSA personnel they could be arrested and charged by local law enforcement.

Simpson’s other bill (HB1938) addressed high-intensity scanners and stalled in the Texas House of Representatives, but the anti-groping bill passed the House unanimously, was approved unanimously by a Senate committee and was expected to pass unanimously in the Texas Senate Tuesday or Wednesday.

This is the point at which the federal government intervened. Reports began circulating on Tuesday of TSA bureaucrats descending on the state capitol to lobby legislators against the bill and then John E. Murphy, US Attorney for the Western District of Texas issued an official letter (PDF) on behalf of the Department of Justice to state legislators which threatened an injunction against the bill if it passed as well as stating that if an injunction were not granted the “TSA would likely be required to cancel any flight or flights for which it could not ensure the safety of passengers and crew.”

The Department of Justice makes the argument in the letter that “under the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution, Texas has no authority to regulate federal agents and employees in the performance of their federal duties or to pass a statute that conflicts with federal law.”

The letter from U.S. attorney John Murphy said Texas could not pass a statute that conflicts with federal law. (Let’s stop right there….Federal Law is NOT supreme over State law automatically…Federal law MUST be one of the “ENUMERATED POWERS”  granted to it by the States to have supremacy, otherwise the power to regulate is in the hands of the States. Regulating air flight is NOT one of the Enumerated Powers……the 10th amendment should prevail here, but as I said the Texas legislator blinked on the central government’s bluff or threat whatever you want to call it.)  If it had, the TSA would have sought an emergency stay and until that had been granted, would have had to shut down Texas airports as it “could not ensure the safety of passengers and crew.”

“Naturally, Texans didn’t take to well to being threatened in that manner,” said Rep. David Simpson, the author of the bill, in a written statement.

They may not like it, but it worked.

Continued on the next page

Read more: Blog Critics

Senator Rand Paul explains his position on the extension of provisions in the USA Patriot Act

I might add the extension of the Unconstitutional Patriot Act:

TSA Responds To Texas: Resistance is Futile

This type response just goes to show you, the Federal Government doesn’t understand the Constitution. The “supremacy clause” doesn’t give the government unrestricted ‘supremacy’ over the States. It only gives the Federal Government ‘supremacy’ in the areas of “enumerated powers” ( or the areas of authority)  granted to them by the STATES or we the people. It is NOT unrestricted or unlimited power over the States and People as the Federal government wishes it was, but they will push it like a bully and see what happens.

The TSA has issued a laughable response to the news that the state of Texas has passed a bill to officially make it a misdemeanor to pat-down breasts, buttocks, or genitals.

The Agency contends, via its blog, that Texas cannot do anything to restrict TSA procedures because, as a federal agency it is protected under the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

“Blogger Bob”, the TSA’s propaganda mouthpiece, writes:

“What’s our take on the Texas House of Representatives voting to ban the current TSA pat-down? Well, the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution (Article. VI. Clause 2) prevents states from regulating the federal government.”

How ridiculous it is for the TSA to cite the Constitution in its own defense! While citing one section, it is completely ignoring two others – namely the Fourth and Tenth Amendments.

The Fourth Amendment protects “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches” without “probable cause”.

As far as we can recollect, no where in the Constitution does it say that the federal government has the right to touch Americans’ private parts in the first instance.

Therefore, under the Tenth, States have the right to pass their own laws against this abuse of power, because:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

The TSA’s contention that the Supremacy Clause bars states from regulating the federal government is a total lie. The Supremacy Clause states:

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding.

In other words, The constitution is the supreme law and any federal laws made in line with the constitution are supreme. No where does it say that states cannot regulate federal government.

The Constitution protects the rights of the people, not the rights of the federal government.

. Under the Tenth Amendment, airport operation falls under state jurisdiction.

The TSA blog goes on to state:

“We wish we lived in a world where you could just walk on a plane with no security screening, but that just isn’t the case unfortunately. Aviation security agencies worldwide have been using pat-downs long before TSA was created to prevent dangerous items from getting onto airplanes. The pat-down is a highly effective tool to resolve certain alarms and keep these dangerous items off of planes that could cause catastrophic damage.”

Again, this is a pathetic attempt at justification of full on government groping. To claim that “Other countries did it first” is just plain weak. Other countries do not have a written constitution safeguarding the privacy rights of their citizens. And besides, specifically, what other countries governments are putting their hands inside people’s pants and literally touching their genitals?

The Texas House of Representatives passed the legislation on Friday to prohibit “intrusive touching” when people are seeking access to public buildings and forms of transportation.

The bill, sponsored by Republican House member David Simpson, outlaws public servants from “intentionally, knowingly or recklessly touching anyone’s anus, sexual organ, buttocks or breasts, including touching through clothing, and any manner of touching that would be offensive to a reasonable person.”

Should the bill also pass the Senate and be signed into law, convicted TSA agents could face a $4,000 fine and up to one year in jail.

The TSA’s version of the US Constitution, like much of the federal government’s, is a complete perversion of it’s actual meaning.

Meanwhile, in related news, the revolt against the TSA continues as a House Appropriations Subcommittee last week stripped $76 million out of the TSA budget for 2012. The funds had been designated for the purchase of 275 more naked body scanners. Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) said that the body scanners are “a nuisance. They’re slow. And they’re ineffective.”

Entire article @ Infowars

Indiana Court: No right to resist illegal cop entry into home

What in the world was this court in Indiana thinking about when it ruled on this? Unlawful entry into my house can not be resisted? The 4th amendment doesn’t apply? Incompatible with modern Fourth Amendment jurisprudence? This is crazy and if taken to the Supreme Court will be overturned. This is an insane ruling. We’re talking about UNLAWFUL ENTRY:

4th amendment: Modern and Original

“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.”

Court: No right to resist illegal cop entry into home

INDIANAPOLIS | Overturning a common law dating back to the English Magna Carta of 1215, the Indiana Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Hoosiers have no right to resist unlawful police entry into their homes.

In a 3-2 decision, Justice Steven David writing for the court said if a police officer wants to enter a home for any reason or no reason at all, a homeowner cannot do anything to block the officer’s entry.

“We believe … a right to resist an unlawful police entry into a home is against public policy and is incompatible with modern Fourth Amendment jurisprudence,” David said. “We also find that allowing resistance unnecessarily escalates the level of violence and therefore the risk of injuries to all parties involved without preventing the arrest.”

The court’s decision stems from a Vanderburgh County case in which police were called to investigate a husband and wife arguing outside their apartment.

When the couple went back inside their apartment, the husband told police they were not needed and blocked the doorway so they could not enter. When an officer entered anyway, the husband shoved the officer against a wall. A second officer then used a stun gun on the husband and arrested him.

Professor Ivan Bodensteiner, of Valparaiso University School of Law, said the court’s decision is consistent with the idea of preventing violence.

“It’s not surprising that they would say there’s no right to beat the hell out of the officer,” Bodensteiner said. “(The court is saying) we would rather opt on the side of saying if the police act wrongfully in entering your house your remedy is under law, to bring a civil action against the officer.”

Justice Robert Rucker, a Gary native, and Justice Brent Dickson, a Hobart native, dissented from the ruling, saying the court’s decision runs afoul of the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

“In my view the majority sweeps with far too broad a brush by essentially telling Indiana citizens that government agents may now enter their homes illegally – that is, without the necessity of a warrant, consent or exigent circumstances,” Rucker said. “I disagree.”

Rucker and Dickson suggested if the court had limited its permission for police entry to domestic violence situations they would have supported the ruling.

But Dickson said, “The wholesale abrogation of the historic right of a person to reasonably resist unlawful police entry into his dwelling is unwarranted and unnecessarily broad.”

This is the second major Indiana Supreme Court ruling this week involving police entry into a home.

On Tuesday, the court said police serving a warrant may enter a home without knocking if officers decide circumstances justify it. Prior to that ruling, police serving a warrant would have to obtain a judge’s permission to enter without knocking.

NWI Times