Another Court Case that erodes our rights
My Humble Opinion: The courts are our self declared arbiters of what is and is not constitutional. Weather by deliberate action, or just by eventual mission creep the courts have turned our rights into a crap shoot. There is no telling, in any given situation weather they will decide something totally rediculously unconstitutional IS constitutional. They do this with acrobatic feats of rationalization, logic that seems totally upside down, defining terms to mean something other than what they are (say Commerce Clause!) or like this case, by laying a complex web of circumstances over a given action, so that the average person could never know where their rights begin or end. This is exactly the kind of court legislation that we need to be able to overturn by citizen action. WE THE PEOPLE need a vehicle to decide what is and is not Constitutional when the courts fail us. Read on...
Read the Court Case here
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The Seventh Circuit Finds Warrantless GPS Tracking Constitutionally Permissible
The Seventh Circuit held that a warrantless GPS tracking session, which lasted sixty (60) hours and tracked a suspect's journey from Arizona to Illinois did not violate the Fourth Amendment.
In 2008, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers and local police in Phoenix, Arizona came to believe that Juan Cuevas-Perez was involved in the illicit distribution of drugs. On Feb. 6, 2009, Detective Matthew Shay placed a Global Positioning System (GPS) tracking device on Cuevas-Perez's Jeep Laredo. The GPS device was programmed to track the car's movements, and relay an update to Detective Shay every four minutes. Detective Shay did not have a warrant which authorized placing a GPS device on Cuevas-Perez's car.
Shortly after the GPS device was installed, Cuevas-Perez set out
on a trip from Arizona which ultimately lasted 60 hours and ended in Illinois. While Cuevas-Perez was in Missouri, the GPS batteries began to run low. Detective Shay asked local ICE agents to begin visual surveillance on Cuevas-Perez's Jeep. They did so until he crossed the Illinois state line, at which point the Illinois State Police (ISP) took up visual surveillance.
ICE officers asked the ISP to pull Cuevas-Perez over and search the vehicle if any opportunity to do so presented itself. ISP officers followed Cuevas-Perez for 40 miles before they pulled him over for remaining in the left-hand passing lane, a minor traffic infraction under Illinois law. A police officer with a drug-sniffing dog was dispatched to the scene. The dog alerted officers that there were probably narcotics in the vehicle. Police officers then conducted a search and found nine packages of heroin hidden in door panels and the ceiling.
Cuevas-Perez was arrested and charged with possession of heroin
with intent to distribute. At trial in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois, Cuevas-Perez sought to suppress the evidence, arguing that the GPS data had been obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment. The district court denied the suppression motion. Cuevas-Perez pled guilty pending an appeal of the suppression denial to the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.
On appeal, Cuevas-Perez argued that the evidence against him
should be suppressed under United States v. Maynard, 615 F.3d 544 (D.C. Cir. 2010). In Maynard, the DC Circuit held that continual GPS monitoring for 28 days violated the Fourth Amendment. The DC Circuit reasoned in Maynard that "unlike one's movements during a single journey, the whole of one's movements over the course of a month is not actually exposed to the public because the likelihood anyone will observe all those movements is effectively nil." Furthermore, an extended GPS monitoring could effectively reveal a person's lifestyle and personal affairs; in the words of theMaynard court, "[r]epeated visits to a church, a gym, a bar, or a bookie tell a story not told by any single visit, as does one's not visiting any of
these places over the course of a month." Thus, Cuevas-Perez argued, lengthy warrantless GPS monitoring violated the Fourth Amendment and the evidence against him should be suppressed.
The Seventh Circuit rejected this reasoning and upheld the district court's decision to deny the motion for suppression. The court of appeals noted that the Maynard decision explicitly states that an individual's movement in a single journey, such as Cuevas-Perez's road trip, does not reveal the whole of that person's movements, which in turn is what the DC Circuit found to implicate the Fourth Amendment. Even if that were not the case, the court of appeals distinguished Cuevas-Perez's case from Maynard by noting that the observation in "Maynard was much lengthier than the 60 hour surveillance" of Cuevas -Perez.
Finding Maynard unpersuasive, the court of appeals relied primarily relied on United States v. Knotts, 460 U.S. 276 (1983) and United States v. Garcia, 474 F.3d 994 (7th Cir. 2007) in its reasoning.
In Knotts, the Supreme Court "held that the use of a beeper device to track a drug suspect did not violate the Fourth Amendment because it did not amount to a search or seizure [since] . . . â•~[a] person traveling in an automobile on public thoroughfares has no reasonable expectation of privacy in his movements from one place to another.'"
In Garcia, the Seventh Circuit explained that GPS tracking did
not constitute a search because "GPS tracking is on the same side of the divide with . . . surveillance cameras and . . . satellite imaging, and if what they do is not searching in Fourth Amendment terms, neither is GPS tracking." Instead, GPS surveillance merely substitutes "for an activity, namely following a car on a public street, that is unequivocally not a search within the meaning of the [Fourth Amendment]."
From these two cases, and a realization that Maynard explicitly did not apply to a single journey, the Seventh Circuit held that the GPS monitoring of Cuevas-Perez's journey from Arizona to Illinois did not violate the Fourth Amendment. The information provided by the GPS was exposed to the public, could have been provided by visual monitoring, and did not reveal any information in which Cuevas-Perez had an objective expectation of privacy.
However, the appellate court acknowledged that GPS tracking is a
"Fourth Amendment frontier" and that it will be up to future cases to "delineate the boundaries of the permissible use of this technology."
SNIP>
The Seventh Circuit Finds Warrantless GPS Tracking Constitutionally Permissible
The Seventh Circuit held that a warrantless GPS tracking session, which lasted sixty (60) hours and tracked a suspect's journey from Arizona to Illinois did not violate the Fourth Amendment.
In 2008, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers and local police in Phoenix, Arizona came to believe that Juan Cuevas-Perez was involved in the illicit distribution of drugs. On Feb. 6, 2009, Detective Matthew Shay placed a Global Positioning System (GPS) tracking device on Cuevas-Perez's Jeep Laredo. The GPS device was programmed to track the car's movements, and relay an update to Detective Shay every four minutes. Detective Shay did not have a warrant which authorized placing a GPS device on Cuevas-Perez's car.
Shortly after the GPS device was installed, Cuevas-Perez set out
on a trip from Arizona which ultimately lasted 60 hours and ended in Illinois. While Cuevas-Perez was in Missouri, the GPS batteries began to run low. Detective Shay asked local ICE agents to begin visual surveillance on Cuevas-Perez's Jeep. They did so until he crossed the Illinois state line, at which point the Illinois State Police (ISP) took up visual surveillance.
ICE officers asked the ISP to pull Cuevas-Perez over and search the vehicle if any opportunity to do so presented itself. ISP officers followed Cuevas-Perez for 40 miles before they pulled him over for remaining in the left-hand passing lane, a minor traffic infraction under Illinois law. A police officer with a drug-sniffing dog was dispatched to the scene. The dog alerted officers that there were probably narcotics in the vehicle. Police officers then conducted a search and found nine packages of heroin hidden in door panels and the ceiling.
Cuevas-Perez was arrested and charged with possession of heroin
with intent to distribute. At trial in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois, Cuevas-Perez sought to suppress the evidence, arguing that the GPS data had been obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment. The district court denied the suppression motion. Cuevas-Perez pled guilty pending an appeal of the suppression denial to the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.
On appeal, Cuevas-Perez argued that the evidence against him
should be suppressed under United States v. Maynard, 615 F.3d 544 (D.C. Cir. 2010). In Maynard, the DC Circuit held that continual GPS monitoring for 28 days violated the Fourth Amendment. The DC Circuit reasoned in Maynard that "unlike one's movements during a single journey, the whole of one's movements over the course of a month is not actually exposed to the public because the likelihood anyone will observe all those movements is effectively nil." Furthermore, an extended GPS monitoring could effectively reveal a person's lifestyle and personal affairs; in the words of theMaynard court, "[r]epeated visits to a church, a gym, a bar, or a bookie tell a story not told by any single visit, as does one's not visiting any of
these places over the course of a month." Thus, Cuevas-Perez argued, lengthy warrantless GPS monitoring violated the Fourth Amendment and the evidence against him should be suppressed.
The Seventh Circuit rejected this reasoning and upheld the district court's decision to deny the motion for suppression. The court of appeals noted that the Maynard decision explicitly states that an individual's movement in a single journey, such as Cuevas-Perez's road trip, does not reveal the whole of that person's movements, which in turn is what the DC Circuit found to implicate the Fourth Amendment. Even if that were not the case, the court of appeals distinguished Cuevas-Perez's case from Maynard by noting that the observation in "Maynard was much lengthier than the 60 hour surveillance" of Cuevas -Perez.
Finding Maynard unpersuasive, the court of appeals relied primarily relied on United States v. Knotts, 460 U.S. 276 (1983) and United States v. Garcia, 474 F.3d 994 (7th Cir. 2007) in its reasoning.
In Knotts, the Supreme Court "held that the use of a beeper device to track a drug suspect did not violate the Fourth Amendment because it did not amount to a search or seizure [since] . . . â•~[a] person traveling in an automobile on public thoroughfares has no reasonable expectation of privacy in his movements from one place to another.'"
In Garcia, the Seventh Circuit explained that GPS tracking did
not constitute a search because "GPS tracking is on the same side of the divide with . . . surveillance cameras and . . . satellite imaging, and if what they do is not searching in Fourth Amendment terms, neither is GPS tracking." Instead, GPS surveillance merely substitutes "for an activity, namely following a car on a public street, that is unequivocally not a search within the meaning of the [Fourth Amendment]."
From these two cases, and a realization that Maynard explicitly did not apply to a single journey, the Seventh Circuit held that the GPS monitoring of Cuevas-Perez's journey from Arizona to Illinois did not violate the Fourth Amendment. The information provided by the GPS was exposed to the public, could have been provided by visual monitoring, and did not reveal any information in which Cuevas-Perez had an objective expectation of privacy.
However, the appellate court acknowledged that GPS tracking is a
"Fourth Amendment frontier" and that it will be up to future cases to "delineate the boundaries of the permissible use of this technology."
My Humble Opinion: On the message board I saw a lot of comments representing a biased view of poor people. Specifically, the "People on food stamps are obese" argument. Someone actually said, food stamps should be "limited" because poor people are obese. Now, this is also about food subsidies so I have to point out the relationship between obese poor people and farm subsidies. Our government subsidizes the nastiest, fattiest crap our food companies can turn out. This list includes sugar and high fructose corn syrup. As a result, this is the kind of fattening diet poor people can afford. Its not that these people are all gluttonous pigs with no self restraint- we've priced healthy foods so high they can't afford them, and subsidized junk food so heavily its what they can afford. Now, maybe if we cut the farm subsidies, and food starts to reflect its actual cost of production people will thin out a little. -Tsuzuki
House Republicans: Cut Food Stamps, Not Farm Welfare
[I]t's little surprise to see Republicans on the House Agriculture Committee urging Budget Chairman Paul Ryan not to make substantial cuts to federal farm programs.
Lest those Republicans appear profligate, however they have proposed one area for cuts--food stamps:
The only program the letter offers as a possible area for belt-tightening is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as the food stamp program.
Source URL: http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-chait/85317/house-republicans-cut-food-stamps-not-farm-welfare
House Republicans: Cut Food Stamps, Not Farm Welfare
- Jonathan Chait
- March 16, 2011 | 12:41 pm
[I]t's little surprise to see Republicans on the House Agriculture Committee urging Budget Chairman Paul Ryan not to make substantial cuts to federal farm programs.
Lest those Republicans appear profligate, however they have proposed one area for cuts--food stamps:
The only program the letter offers as a possible area for belt-tightening is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as the food stamp program.
Source URL: http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-chait/85317/house-republicans-cut-food-stamps-not-farm-welfare
Maine Rep. proposes online registry of drunken drivers
By Mal Leary, Capitol News Service
Posted April 03, 2011, at 3:18 p.m.
AUGUSTA, Maine — More than 8,000 Mainers were arrested for
drunken driving in 2009, the most recent statistics available, and Rep.
Rich Cebra, R-Naples, says Mainers should know who those drivers are.
“I want a website at [the Maine Department of] Public Safety that will have their names and addresses and their picture,” he said. “People need to know about drunk drivers that might be living next door and taking their kids to soccer practice.”
Cebra said his measure would establish the website so that Mainers could search their community to see if any neighbors are convicted drunken drivers, and whether they are multiple offenders. He said it would be similar to the state sex offender website but would not be a registry.
“This would depend on the conviction information that is already being collected,” he said, “and I am proposing a $25 surcharge on every OUI conviction to pay for the website construction and operation.”
The measure has been referred to the Legislature’s Criminal Justice Committee and will have its hearing later this month.
Rep. Gary Plummer, R-Windham, the co-chairman of the panel, said he has a problem with any proposed websites to publicize a person’s conviction of any offense except the sex offender registry.
“We have looked at several other requests, whether it is animal abusers or arsonists,” he said. “Every site that we create like that is very expensive. We don’t have the money.”
Plummer also doubted whether such a website would have a deterrent effect. He said those that drink and drive really don’t think about what will happen to them when they get caught even though fines and long license suspensions have been added to the penalties for drunken driving over the years.
Shenna Bellows, executive director of the Maine Civil Liberties Union, said that while the concern about drunken drivers on the roads is a real one that she shares, she opposes the website as a solution to the problem of protecting family members from drunken drivers.
“The best way for parents to keep their children safe is to know their neighbors and know the adults that they let their children get rides with,” she said. “A website like this does not improve public safety.”
Bellows said the MCLU has consistently opposed websites like the one Cebra has proposed because they do not advance public safety and do thwart efforts of individuals to get past their offense and become integrated back into society.
Sen. Bill Diamond, D-Windham, who served as secretary of state for a decade, said that while he supports the sex offender registry because of the nature of the crimes involved, he does not think a publicly available website listing those convicted of OUI would help with the problem of drunken driving.
“If we do this, where will we stop?” he said. “There are several issues that go with putting somebody’s picture up on a website — serious issues, many, many issues that the Legislature needs to explore before passing something like this.”
Diamond said the issues of developing a website are not “black and white” and include many unintended consequences that could cause lawmakers problems in future sessions. He urged the rejection of the proposal.
But Cebra is not deterred by the opposition to his proposal. He said most Mainers are very upset at the number of drunken drivers who are back on the roads just weeks or months after being convicted of OUI.
“What really gets me is the person who is that fourth-time offender that is only losing their license for 90 days,” he said. “This may not be the perfect answer, but we have to start looking at this; we are not being serious about this.”
Cebra said there have been decades of discussions about drunken drivers, and he said it is time to try to do something to reduce the numbers. He said too many families have had to experience a tragedy from a drunken driver killing or injuring a loved one to simply do nothing.
http://new.bangordailynews.com/2011/04/03/politics/drunken-driver-website-proposal-stirs-debate/ printed on April 17, 2011
“I want a website at [the Maine Department of] Public Safety that will have their names and addresses and their picture,” he said. “People need to know about drunk drivers that might be living next door and taking their kids to soccer practice.”
Cebra said his measure would establish the website so that Mainers could search their community to see if any neighbors are convicted drunken drivers, and whether they are multiple offenders. He said it would be similar to the state sex offender website but would not be a registry.
“This would depend on the conviction information that is already being collected,” he said, “and I am proposing a $25 surcharge on every OUI conviction to pay for the website construction and operation.”
The measure has been referred to the Legislature’s Criminal Justice Committee and will have its hearing later this month.
Rep. Gary Plummer, R-Windham, the co-chairman of the panel, said he has a problem with any proposed websites to publicize a person’s conviction of any offense except the sex offender registry.
“We have looked at several other requests, whether it is animal abusers or arsonists,” he said. “Every site that we create like that is very expensive. We don’t have the money.”
Plummer also doubted whether such a website would have a deterrent effect. He said those that drink and drive really don’t think about what will happen to them when they get caught even though fines and long license suspensions have been added to the penalties for drunken driving over the years.
Shenna Bellows, executive director of the Maine Civil Liberties Union, said that while the concern about drunken drivers on the roads is a real one that she shares, she opposes the website as a solution to the problem of protecting family members from drunken drivers.
“The best way for parents to keep their children safe is to know their neighbors and know the adults that they let their children get rides with,” she said. “A website like this does not improve public safety.”
Bellows said the MCLU has consistently opposed websites like the one Cebra has proposed because they do not advance public safety and do thwart efforts of individuals to get past their offense and become integrated back into society.
Sen. Bill Diamond, D-Windham, who served as secretary of state for a decade, said that while he supports the sex offender registry because of the nature of the crimes involved, he does not think a publicly available website listing those convicted of OUI would help with the problem of drunken driving.
“If we do this, where will we stop?” he said. “There are several issues that go with putting somebody’s picture up on a website — serious issues, many, many issues that the Legislature needs to explore before passing something like this.”
Diamond said the issues of developing a website are not “black and white” and include many unintended consequences that could cause lawmakers problems in future sessions. He urged the rejection of the proposal.
But Cebra is not deterred by the opposition to his proposal. He said most Mainers are very upset at the number of drunken drivers who are back on the roads just weeks or months after being convicted of OUI.
“What really gets me is the person who is that fourth-time offender that is only losing their license for 90 days,” he said. “This may not be the perfect answer, but we have to start looking at this; we are not being serious about this.”
Cebra said there have been decades of discussions about drunken drivers, and he said it is time to try to do something to reduce the numbers. He said too many families have had to experience a tragedy from a drunken driver killing or injuring a loved one to simply do nothing.
http://new.bangordailynews.com/2011/04/03/politics/drunken-driver-website-proposal-stirs-debate/ printed on April 17, 2011
