Warrants? We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Warrants!

Guest Post by Eric Peters

America is becoming unrecognizable. The landscape is still familiar; the flag looks the same. But it is a changed placed.Life in the Homeland

And some places are more changed than others.

In New Jersey, the state Supreme Court has just ruled that a cop can search your vehicle if you are pulled over for any reason – and without a warrant.

A defective turn signal, for instance.

Or a seatbelt “violation.”

Basically, the NJ court has ruled that once a cop turns on his emergency lights, your Fourth Amendment rights have been forfeited.

It used to be (and still is, in other states) that more in the way of evidence or at least, “reasonable suspicion” that the car’s driver or occupants had done something else (besides the alleged traffic infraction) was necessary before the cop could – legally – search the vehicle.

Not buckling up for “safety,” for instance, was insufficient, by itself, to legally justify searching either the driver or his vehicle.

The cop needed a warrant.NJ SA on parade

“I do not consent to any searches.”

“Am I free to go?”

Not anymore.

It used to be that the cop was empowered to check the driver’s papers (license, registration, proof of insurance) but – absent some additional grounds for suspicion – that was as far as he could take it.

Which of course frustrates cops – who view any restriction of their power over us as an intolerable affront.

The NJ ruling (5-2 in favor) affirms this viewpoint.    

Keep in mind that there is almost no legal impediment standing in the way of a cop lighting up his flashers and pulling you over. You were (he will later say) driving “erratically.” Your headlights are “too bright.” The tint of your windows “too dark.” The cop says you tossed a cigarette butt out of the window. Gave him a hard stare. Didn’t stare.

And so on.NJ cops cars

It can be almost anything – which means, it can be nothing at all.

What prevents a cop from pulling you over at whim? Is there any circumstance, any mechanism, anything at all that a motorist has in the way of immunity from being pulled over at random? There is none such. The cop turns on his lights, you are required to pull over.

And now – in NJ – you’re required to submit to a search, too.

Of a piece with TSA searches, which are also random and arbitrary, requiring nothing more than a TSA cretin’s decision to single you out. Frown at the blue-suited clown and it is sufficient warrant to proceed without a warrant.

Don’t forget that even driving the speed limit is now grounds for a pull-over. Cops take the position that this is “suspicious” behavior because – after all – everyone speeds. If you’re not speeding, then – clearly – you must be trying to hide something. 

And then, if you’re “too polite” once actually pulled over… well, that’s “suspicious” as well.

The court says bully.NJ supreme court

That the previous requirement that a cop had to have a warrant based on probable cause – something more than a mere traffic infraction – in order to have the legal authority to search the vehicle “…place(s) on law enforcement unrealistic and impractical burdens.”

Naturlich. 

Justice (sic) Barry Albin elaborated:

“The current approach to roadside searches premised on probable cause – ‘get a warrant’ – places significant burdens on law enforcement.”

Italics added.

Precisely as the Constitution (RIP) intended.

It’s the whole point of the thing. It – the Bill of Rights – was written specifically to make it harder for “law enforcement” (an odious modern term that fits our age; of a piece with “troops” rather than soldiers and, of course, the “homeland”) to defenestrate the people.The Chimp

This approach certainly makes it easier for guilty individuals to “get away with it” – everything from driving drunk to much worse things. But the upside is (well, was) that it also made it much harder for the most dangerous entity on this earth – the government – to “get away” with abuses on an industrial scale.

Think about this a little.

Even the worst of us, as individuals, can only do so much damage. How many did Ted Bundy kill?

How many did George W. Bush have killed?

Bundy had only two hands. The government has millions of hands.

Bundy acted outside the law.

The government acts under color of law.

You can (legally) defend yourself against a Bundy.

You cannot (legally) defend yourself against the government.

Resistance is not merely futile – it is illegal.madison bill of rights

The Bill of Rights – tacked on to the Constitution by in retrospect justly suspicious anti-federalists such as Madison and Mason (and supported by men like Jefferson) was meant to be a kind of warranty against tyranny. Which was defined by them as something governments – not individuals – did.

The King. Parliament. And later, the infant federal colossus shaking its rattle in the dismal swampland near the Potomac River. The anti-federalists saw what was coming and tried to hedge against it. Tried to bind the infant colossus. On the view that once unbound, the damage such a creature is capable of causing is almost without limit.

They should have strangled it in its crib. The human capacity for harming other humans is directly proportionate to the power wielded by some humans over other humans.

This is the crux of the matter – which (benign view) either the NJ “justices” did not grok or (cynical view) they do grok – and ruled as they did precisely for that reason.   

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Anonymous
Anonymous

It’s obvious that the Constitution, both Federal and of the various States, is far too complicated for the average person to understand,

Therefore, we need highly educated legal authorities to explain to us what it really means since the average person would conclude it means something very different from what is being practiced by those authorities.

This is how America was intended to be, that would be obvious to the average person if only he wasn’t unable to understand the Constitution as written.

Montefrio

When “government” and its “authority figures” lose the personal touch that exists in small communities, the potential for abuse skyrockets. Traffic cops are universally low on the social status totem pole, given that for the most part their function is that of a revenue-raising nuisance rather than as a genuine “guardian” of public safety, so to give them more power to harass whomever they please, frequently for reasons known only to themselves that stem from their personal frustrations, is to give them a license to abuse the legitimate function they’re meant to serve. Authoritarian “justices” know this: this is NOT a cynical viewpoint, it is the barefaced reality of authoritarianism run wild.

I don’t know if NJ Supreme Court justices are appointed or elected, but if the latter, vote ’em out! If not, vote out those who appoint them. The thing is, though, once this kind of crap gets written into law, it’s very difficult to overturn it, as they well know. Complacency trumps common sense, but too few people care; it is this sad fact that condemns the USA citizenry to a future in which authoritarian cattle prods lead them further and further into the chute.

CaptBill
CaptBill

We’re gonna need more rope…allot more rope.

Greg in NC
Greg in NC

“It’s the whole point of the thing. It – the Bill of Rights – was written specifically to make it harder for “law enforcement” (an odious modern term that fits our age; of a piece with “troops” rather than soldiers and, of course, the “homeland”) to defenestrate the people.

Find an actual image of the “Bill of Rights”. It doesn’t say bill of rights anywhere on it. It is an odious term that fits the agenda. By referring to it that way it implies that your rights are given to you by the government and therefore can be taken away by the same.

It is actually “further declaratory restrictive clauses”… THE Conventions of a number of the States having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best insure the beneficent ends of its institution.

The fact that NJ is ruling this way means that it will not adhere to the US constitution and it’s further declaratory and restrictive clauses. This means that NJ must leave the Union! This goes with all other state and local “laws”.(actually they are rules but it makes them feel important. How would cops feel it they were referred to as “rule enforcement”). God didn’t even give us laws but instead commandments. This is because laws cannot be broken. Think Boyle’s law, Ohms law, law of gravity, etc.

The states joined the union under the constitution and the further declaratory and restrictive clauses to ensure the laws were equal across the land so all citizens could travel freely and confidently. If I were an average citizen of one of the states and went to NJ and refused search without a warrant I would be promptly arrested for breaking their unconstitutional rule. It is time for the Governors of these free States to stand up and kick the disobedient states out of the Union.

Stucky

Lawyers and Judges.

Case closed.

OutLookingIn
OutLookingIn

The second photo at the top of this article looks suspiciously like…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gX0lx11zxk

Anonymous
Anonymous

The part of the Bill of Rights that is never read or quoted and that most people are completely unaware of. the Preamble:

Preamble

Congress OF THE United States
begun and held at the City of New York, on Wednesday
the Fourth of March, one thousand seven hundred and eighty nine.

THE Conventions of a number of the States having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best insure the beneficent ends of its institution

RESOLVED by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, two thirds of both Houses concurring, that the following Articles be proposed to the Legislatures of the several States, as Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, all or any of which Articles, when ratified by three fourths of the said Legislatures, to be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of the said Constitution; viz.:

ARTICLES in addition to, and Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, proposed by Congress, and ratified by the Legislatures of the several States, pursuant to the fifth Article of the original Constitution.

phoolish
phoolish

Not that it matters in the FSA, but isn’t this standard in place because of a SCOTUS decision?

Peaknic
Peaknic

Didn’t the Supreme Court of the U.S. just rule a few months ago that it was unconstitutional to delay a motorist beyond the normal time to write a ticket for the initial reason why they pulled you over to wait for a K-9 unit to arrive to do a sniff test? I don’t understand how this is not covered by that ruling.
I cheered when I read that ruling. The Supreme Court actually sided against the cops! But of course that couldn’t be allowed to stand.

Peaknic
Peaknic

BTW, NJ does not elect its judges.

B
B

Democracy! Yeah, that’s the ticket!

TE
TE

Michigan has operated under “Implied Consent,” for decades, your driving means you gave your consent to being searched or forced to take a breathalyzer.

This shit really started with drug laws , confiscation and drunk driving laws set on an arbitrary number..

Everyone cheered those things, Bill of Rights and Constitution be damned.

Fascism comes in baby steps that the vast majority agree with.

I quit wondering how the Nazis came to power long ago. We have seen it play out here and still most agree with it all.

It’s for the children.

Now show your papers and shut your mouth. No whining when your wife or kids are being anally probed alongside the highway. It’s for our national security, of course.

Overthecliff
Overthecliff

Taking up arms against the government is nota good thing.

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