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Wired.com: Few Companies Fight Patriot Act Gag Orders, FBI Admits by Kim Zetter:

Since the Patriot Act broadly expanded the power of the government to issue National Security Letters demanding customer records, more than 200,000 have been issued to U.S. companies by the FBI. But the perpetual gag orders that accompany them are rarely challenged by the ISPs and other recipients served with such letters.

LA Times | Justice Department sues AZ Sherriff Arpaio claiming he's racially profiling Hispanic people and abusing them in his jails.

NYTimes.com: Lawsuit Says Sheriff Discriminated Against Latinos by Fernanda Santos and Charlie Savage:

PHOENIX — A federal lawsuit asserting a “pattern of unlawful discrimination” by law enforcement officials here claims that Latinos at the county jail were often referred to as “stupid” or addressed with a coarse ethnic slur. It also says that an e-mail circulated among jail officers contained a photograph of a Chihuahua in a swimsuit, over the words, “A rare photo of a Mexican Navy Seal.”

On the streets, Latino drivers were five to nine times more likely than their non-Latino counterparts to be stopped or searched, the suit asserts, for appearing disheveled or dirty or if it was deemed that too many people were in the back seat. Some were detained because they were said to have looked nervous or avoided eye contact.

. . .

Portraying Sheriff Arpaio’s roughly 900 deputies as poorly trained and supervised, the suit contends that they are far more likely to stop and search Latinos than non-Latinos. Further, the complaint asserts, there is a “culture of bias” against Latinos among the 1,800 officers in the county jail system.

guardian.co.uk | Pentagon suspends course after study materials posted online suggested Mecca and Medina may have to be obliterated.

Blocking defendant’s car made the encounter a seizure. [This case provides a wealth of caselaw.] United States v. Jones, 2012 U.S. App. LEXIS 9513 (4th Cir. May 10, 2012):

That this was not a routine encounter, but one targeted at Jones seems to us particularly significant given that the officers blocked in Jones's car to effectuate the encounter. In United States v. Green, 111 F.3d 515 (7th Cir. 1997), the Seventh Circuit considered a very similar case. There, as here, the police followed a car into a driveway where the driver parked the car, and there, as here, the defendant then exited his car. Id. at 517. The Seventh Circuit concluded that, although the driver was no longer in his car, and indeed was walking away from his car toward a house, when "the officers pulled their car in behind the [defendant's car], blocking the car's exit ... a reasonable person would not feel that he was free to leave." Id. at 520 n.1. Accordingly, the court found that the police had seized not only the passenger who remained in the car but also the driver who had left it. Id.

This holding comports with that of numerous other courts considering similar facts. ...

We agree that when an officer blocks a defendant's car from leaving the scene, particularly when, as here, the officer has followed the car, the officer demonstrates a greater show of authority than does an officer who just happens to be on the scene and engages a citizen in conversation. For this reason, the three cases on which the Government relies are inapposite. ... Rather, Jones saw the officers follow his car from a public street onto private property and then block the car from exiting in their haste to speak with him.

The Government contends that the placement of the police cruiser has minimal relevance because, as the police approached, two of Jones's companions walked away from the car—one into an apartment and one in the other direction —and the officers did not chase after them or call them back. But it is not altogether clear to us which way this fact cuts. On the one hand, that the officers allowed two passengers to walk away from the vehicle could convey to a reasonable person that he, too, was free to walk away.

Roommate did not have actual or apparent authority to consent to a search of defendant’s separate bedroom and bathroom. State v. Robinson, 2012 Ida. App. LEXIS 32 (May 2, 2012) [not online yet]:

The absence of locked doors does not mean that Mr. Daigneau had access to these rooms. While it does make it physically easier for him to enter these rooms, it is not uncommon for residents of a home to leave their bedroom doors unlocked. The fact that each bedroom was private and not communal is strengthened by the fact that each bedroom door was shut prior to the search commencing.

The fact that Mr. Daigneau slept at the residence does not mean that he has the actual authority to authorize the search of the entire residence. The same holds true for the fact that Mr. Daigneau listed the house in question as his residence. The State was aware prior to the search that Mr. Daigneau shared the residence with others. The probation forms list the other residents of the house, police officers on the scene the night before were aware that both [Robinson] and Mr. Daigneau lived at the residence, and the State was aware that Mr. Daigneau did not own the residence.

From these facts it is conclusive that Mr. Daigneau had actual authority only over his own bedroom and to some extent the common areas of the house. The extent of the search at that time should have been limited to communal areas and Mr. Daigneau's private bedroom. It also must be noted that [one officer] testified that he did not know whose bedroom the back bedroom was.

Defendant’s probation was not over for purposes of this probation search where a petition to revoke had been filed and unresolved at the time of the his search, effectively extending probation. United States v. Izatt, 2012 U.S. App. LEXIS 9528 (9th Cir. May 10, 2012).*

There was probable cause and nexus for a search warrant of defendant’s house where he left the house to go directly to a drug deal. United States v. Thornton, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 65652 (E.D. Pa. May 10, 2012).*

Defendant got a Franks hearing, and it was readily apparent that the proof failed. Faced with that, the defense still didn’t withdraw the motion. United States v. Villar, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 65528 (S.D. Fla. May 1, 2012).*

Plaintiff’s allegations that force was applied to coerce consent to search survives qualified immunity claim in a 1983 case. Hemphill v. Hale, 2012 U.S. App. LEXIS 9483 (8th Cir. May 10, 2012):

In Chambers, we held that evidence of de minimis injury does not necessarily foreclose a Fourth Amendment excessive-force claim, that the force alleged was not reasonable under the circumstances, but that defendants were entitled to qualified immunity because the state of the law in August 2005 was such that a reasonable officer could have believed that as long as he did not cause more than de minimis injury to an arrestee, he would not violate the Fourth Amendment. See Chambers, 641 F.3d at 904, 906-08.

Chambers, however, did not address the situation alleged here: that the force was used in an attempt to coerce consent to a search. While in Chambers we stated that "[p]olice officers undoubtedly have a right to use some degree of physical force, or threat thereof, to effect a lawful seizure," see id. at 907, we agree with the district court that officers do not have the right to use any degree of physical force or threatened force to coerce an individual to consent to a warrantless search of his home. See United States v. Drayton, 536 U.S. 194, 201 (2002) (law enforcement officers may request consent to search "provided they do not induce cooperation by coercive means"); United States v. Thomas, 93 F.3d 479, 486 (8th Cir. 1996) (consent to search may not be result of "'duress or coercion, express or implied'" (internal citation omitted)); cf. Wilkins v. May, 872 F.2d 190, 194 (7th Cir. 1989) (showing of physical injury required to state Fourth Amendment excessive-force claim for force used in course of arrest is not required in situations not involving arrest, such as during interrogation). Because no use of force to obtain Hemphill's consent to search would have been reasonable, the force Hale was alleged to have used-grabbing Hemphill by the neck, choking him, and hitting him two or three times while he was handcuffed-was objectively unreasonable given the facts and circumstances in the case. See Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 396-97 (1989) (officer's use of force violates Fourth Amendment when it is objectively unreasonable given facts and circumstances of particular case, judged from perspective of reasonable officer at scene). The law regarding forced consent was clearly established in August 2009 such that a reasonable person in Hale's position would have known that his actions were unreasonable. See Drayton, 536 U.S. at 201; Thomas, 93 F.3d at 486.

The order denying qualified immunity is affirmed.

Paul Joseph Watson | Susan Rice seizes on horrific bombings to push NATO political agenda for regime change.

Infowars.com | Conflict in Syria escalates. Bombs in Damascus increase pressure on UN.

Infowars.com | Infowars.com correspondent Patrick Henningsen mounts part one of an in depth investigation into Operation 'Fast and Furious'

Infowars.com | The elitists at The Club Of Rome call for lowering living standards to combat climate change.

The American Dream | Did you know that illegal immigrants all over the United States are using a massive scam to receive tax refunds from the federal government that are often in excess of $10,000?

The Economic Collapse | You are not going to believe how much money is being spent on our former presidents.

Infowars.com | According to the BBC, the town will "test out the latest technologies such as renewable energies and terrorism security systems."

NYTimes.com: 2 Opinions on Stop-and-Frisk Report by Al Baker and Joseph Goldstein

In 2003, the second year of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s first term, police officers confiscated 604 guns through 160,851 stop-and-frisk encounters: a success rate of one gun for every 266 stops.

Last year, the police seized 780 guns through 685,724 stop-and-frisk encounters, meaning that officers made 879 stops for each gun found.

Critics of the Police Department’s street-stop tactics, including the New York Civil Liberties Union, said the falling gun recovery rate was a sign that the department was stopping too many innocent people as it made an increasing number of street stops in minority neighborhoods.

Marijuana Odor Perception: Studies Modeled From Probable Cause Cases, 28 Law and Human Behavior, No. 2 (April 2004), by Richard L. Doty, Thomas Wudarski, David A. Marshall, and Lloyd Hastings:

The 4th Amendment of the United States Constitution protects American citizens against unreasonable search and seizure without probable cause. Although law enforcement officials routinely rely solely on the sense of smell to justify probable cause when entering vehicles and dwellings to search for illicit drugs, the accuracy of their perception in this regard has rarely been questioned and, to our knowledge, never tested. In this paper, we present data from two empirical studies based upon actual legal cases in which the odor of marijuana was used as probable cause for search. In the first, we simulated a situation in which, during a routine traffic stop, the odor of packaged marijuana located in the trunk of an automobile was said to be detected through the driver’s window. In the second, we investigated a report that marijuana odor was discernable from a considerable distance from the chimney effluence of diesel exhaust emanating from an illicit California grow room. Our findings suggest that the odor of marijuana was not reliably discernable by persons with an excellent sense of smell in either case. These studies are the first to examine the ability of humans to detect marijuana in simulated real-life situations encountered by law enforcement officials, and are particularly relevant to the issue of probable cause.

Network World: Fight the Patriot Act and win. Next? Promise privacy, a surveillance-free ISP:

Nick Merrill, once known as John Doe, secretly fought for our First and Fourth Amendment rights, battled against NSL abuse, a gag order, excessive government secrecy, and almost entirely redacted documents from FBI counterintelligence. Living under such mentally-exhausting circumstances for years is bound to change a person, but Merrill believes it is "better to die on your feet than live on your knees" and is "hoping to do further legal challenges to some of the warrantless wiretapping laws in America.” What’s next after fighting the Patriot Act and winning? Merrill intends to create a surveillance-free ISP with end-to-end encryption that promises to put your privacy above profit. The Calyx Institute promises to be an ISP that will stand up to the government.

Infowars.com | The contest entries roll on, with unstoppable human consciousness seeking to understand and stop the tyranny enveloping the globe.