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Becky Akers | Our corporate Rulers lust to profit even more than they already have from passengers’ trauma at the TSA’s checkpoints.

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. — The former Rutgers student sentenced this week to 30 days in jail for using a webcam to view his roommate kissing another man says he did not apologize largely because it would have been seen as insincere.

Dharun Ravi told the Star-Ledger in an ...

JOPLIN, Mo. (AP) — Malachi Murdock doesn't remember the massive tornado that struck Joplin a year ago Tuesday, killing 161 people and nearly killing him.

The 17-year-old was onstage after a performance at the Stained Glass Theater when the twister shredded the building. Three of those inside were killed. Mr. ...

Steve Watson | Agency head admits $1 billion body scanner program may fail.

Philip Weiss | The Washington Post seems to think that the United States is not in enough overseas wars.

lionsofliberty.com | Creepy Congress critters are at it again, hard at work on the 2013 version of the NDAA.

Where the arrest reports show defendant consented to a search, the defendant must file an affidavit in opposition to get a hearing to show a disputed fact. United States v. Rosario, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 69240 (S.D. N.Y. May 11, 2012).*

An AT&T technician visiting defendant’s house and working on his internet connection accessed the computer to see if it would connect to the internet and saw child pornography. This was not a government search. United States v. Jurek, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 70242 (N.D. Ohio May 21, 2012).*

Defendant was stopped on a motorcycle on the closed Quantico Marine base by a U.S. Marines police officer. The officer first thought he might be lost, but his demeanor suggested criminal activity of some sort, and the frisk of his back pack after he admitted there was a knife in there and had no DL was reasonable. United States v. Cooper, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 70001 (E.D. Va. May 18, 2012).*

Ben Crystal | The list of things the Federal government does well is fairly short.

The search warrant sought computer records for 2007, but the government’s computer search intentionally wasn’t limited and found incriminating records from 2003 and 2004. The government’s failure to limit the search violated the terms of the search warrant. Also, one defendant who had a desk and a computer in a common area had an expectation of privacy in both because nobody else used them. Moreover, the computer was password protected. United States v. Reeves, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 68962 (D. N.J. May 17, 2012):

In particular, Special Agent Cassin testified that he had the ability to limit his search to the calendar year 2007 and search for documents that were created and modified in 2007. He also had the ability to search for the year "2007" or "/07," etc., in the body of the documents using a keyword search. Special Agent Cassin, however, testified that he did nothing to so limit his search and instead searched all the files on the Harbor House computers without regard to their date. Specifically, Special Agent Cassin disregarded the scope of the warrant by engaging in broad keyword searches of all the electronic files on the computers.

This is unreasonable and violates the Fourth Amendment. It is evident that Special Agent Cassin took no efforts to comply with the temporal scope of the warrant and disregarded the express date limitation contained therein. Special Agent Cassin did not conduct his search in a manner that minimized unwarranted intrusions upon privacy and his broad keyword search was more akin to "'general, exploratory rummaging" in Harbor House's computer files rather than a particular search in accordance with the express limitations of the search warrant. Andresen v. Maryland, 427 U.S. at 481. If the government felt they had enough probable cause to justify a search of Harbor House computers for all documents related to oysters and the Reeves Brothers, which is essentially what the government did, then the government needed to re-apply for a new warrant or put forth sufficient probable cause for such a broad search in their initial application. The government did neither in this case and thus their search is unreasonable as to the pre-2007 documents.

The government's reliance on United States v. Stabile, 633 F.3d 219, 241-42 (3d Cir. 2011) is misplaced. In Stabile, the government inadvertently found child pornography files on the defendant's computer while searching the computer for evidence of financial fraud. The discovery of the child pornography was inadvertent and immediately apparent due to the lurid names of the electronic files. Such files containing child pornography were in plain view of the searching agents and could thus be seized as evidence of crime.

The instant action is clearly distinguishable. There was no inadvertence by the government in finding the 2003 and 2004 incriminating documents at issue here. These documents would not have been retrieved if the search was limited pursuant to the terms of the search warrant which only authorized the government to search for documents created or modified from January 1, 2007 to December 31, 2007. The discovery of these two 2003 and 2004 documents was the result of the government's overly broad keyword search. ...

Kurt Nimmo | Stasibook takes on a side project -- to enrich insiders while taking the outsiders to the cleaners.

Plaintiff is civilly committed to the BOP having been found not guilty by reason of insanity in 2003 for an attempted airplane hijacking. The court concludes the DNA Act applies to him. Commey v. United States, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 70425 (D. Mass. May 21, 2012):

No court has addressed the constitutionality of the DNA Act as applied to individuals civilly committed to BOP custody after being found not guilty by reason of insanity. In Weikert, the First Circuit applied the general Fourth Amendment totality of the circumstances analysis, balancing Weikert's expectation of privacy against the government's interest in taking his DNA. 504 F.3d at 11. Applying this analysis to Commey, civilly committed persons have a diminished expectation of privacy. Both the Supreme Court and First Circuit have compared the liberty interests of civilly committed persons to those of pretrial detainees. See Youngberg v. Romeo, 457 U.S. 307, 320 (1982); Davis v. Rennie, 264 F.3d 86, 102, 108 (1st Cir. 2001) (applying to civilly committed persons the legal standard for Fourth Amendment seizure claims brought by pretrial detainees). The Eighth Circuit has explicitly held that, when considering whether a particular search violates the Fourth Amendment, civilly committed persons have the same expectation of privacy as pretrial detainees. See Serna v. Goodno, 567 F.3d 944, 948-49 (8th Cir. 2009). In Mitchell, the Third Circuit balanced pretrial detainees' expectation of privacy against the government's interest in taking their DNA, and held that the DNA Act does not violate pretrial detainees' Fourth Amendment rights. 652 F.3d at 416.

Based on this caselaw, the court concludes that the government's important interests in monitoring and rehabilitating civilly committed persons, solving crimes, and exonerating innocent individuals outweigh Commey's privacy interests, given his status as a civilly committed person, "the relatively minimal inconvenience occasioned by a blood draw, and the coding of genetic information that, by statute, may be used only for purposes of identification." Weikert, 504 F.3d at 14.

Therefore, the DNA Act as applied to Commey does not violate the Fourth Amendment.

I recently came across Nathaniel Hawthorne's haunting short story "Wakefield," and I couldn't help but notice similarities (and differences) between Wakefield and President Obama.

Defendant’s arrest for counterfeiting, for which there was clearly probable cause, justified a search incident of his backpack. There was also concern for officer safety. United States v. Pittman-Wright, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 69347 (N.D. Cal. May 17, 2012).*

Consent search and false arrest claims fail on the merits for valid consent and an arrest warrant. Southerland v. Garcia, 2012 U.S. App. LEXIS 10020 (2d Cir. May 18, 2012).*

There was probable cause for issuance of this search warrant in a bank robbery case based on the video of the robbery, an anonymous caller, and surveillance of the defendant’s house. Defendant’s assertion that the color of the house was slightly off and other houses in the neighborhood could have been described as well wasn’t sufficient to overcome the warrant. The suspect vehicle was parked in the driveway. United States v. Allen, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 68902 (W.D. Mo. April 24, 2012),* adopted 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 68901 (W.D. Mo. May 17, 2012).*

Paul Joseph Watson | Federal agency looking to develop new wanding-style device for searches.

Daily Caller | Former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott told The Daily Caller on Monday that he isn’t a hypocrite for lobbying in favor of a treaty he emphatically denounced as recently as 2007.

Infowars.com | Infowars' Paul Joseph Watson is joined by Syrian Girl, an outspoken activist against NATO's campaign to use Al-Qaeda terrorists as a means of destabilizing the Assad regime.

Infowars.com | Bennett said it would be "possible" that he keeps President Obama off the Arizona ballot in November unless he receives "confirmation" from the state of Hawaii that Barack Obama was born there.

The American Dream | Should it be legal for the U.S. government to spend billions of dollars on propaganda designed to change public opinion in the United States?

The Economic Collapse | Why isn't the U.S. economy in a depression right now?

Infowars.com | The school system is becoming a training ground for teaching kids to be subservient to the state.