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ROME (AP) -- A bomb blast outside a high school in southern Italy that killed a 16-year-old student has revived dark memories of the 70s and 80s, when terrorists, anarchists and organized crime carried out dozens of bloody attacks across the country....

ROME (AP) -- A bomb blast outside a high school in southern Italy that killed a 16-year-old student has revived dark memories of the 70s and 80s, when terrorists, anarchists and organized crime carried out dozens of bloody attacks across the country....

The government seized 61 hard drives to copy and copied four others then took its time analyzing them. The court finds the delay was unreasonable and was a “flagrant disregard” of the rights of the owner of the computers and target of the search and suppresses. United States v. Metter, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 155130 (E.D. N.Y. May 17, 2011) [apparently should be a 2012 citation]:

This conclusion leaves the Court with a final determination to make: What is the appropriate remedy in this case? It is well-settled that "[g]overnment agents 'flagrantly disregard' the terms of a warrant so that wholesale suppression is required only when (1) they effect a 'widespread seizure of items that were not within the scope of the warrant,' ... and (2) do not act in good faith." United States v. Liu, 239 F. 3d 138, 140 (2d Cir. 2000) (quoting United States v. Matias, 836 F. 2d 744, 748 (2d Cir. 1988)). "The rationale for blanket suppression is that a search that greatly exceeds the bounds of a warrant and is not conducted in good faith is essentially indistinguishable from a general search." Liu, 239 F. 3d at 141. "[T]o satisfy the first prong of the two-part test described above, the search conducted by government agents must actually resemble a general search." Id. Thus, "the extreme remedy of blanket suppression should only be imposed in the most extraordinary of cases." United States v. Foster, 100 F. 3d 846, 852 (10th Cir. 1996) (internal quotation marks omitted.)

The lack of good faith by the government can be inferred from its conduct in this case. In the affidavits in support of the search warrants issued in this case, the government promised to review the evidence seized offsite to determine whether any evidence fell outside the scope of the warrants. (See McGuire Home Aff. ¶ 58; Carrano Aff. ¶ 60; McGuire Email Aff. ¶ 130.) The government then failed to commence the review, despite repeated requests from defense counsel and directions from the Court to do so. In fact, the government seemed shocked that the Court would require such a review, and, as mentioned above, threatened to provide all of the evidence seized and imaged to each defendant in the case, without conducting any such review. (See 2/4/11 S/C Tr. 24-26, 29-30; 2/28/11 Gov't Letter at 2.) The government's own conduct and statements indicate that it had no intention of fulfilling its obligations as promised in the search warrants. Nor has the government presented any evidence or arguments to the effect that it failed to fulfill this obligation due to limited resources, such as it has argued in other cases.

The Court has not reached this conclusion lightly. However, the Court cannot, in the interest of justice and fairness, permit the government to ignore its obligations. Otherwise, the Fourth Amendment would lose all force and meaning in the digital era and citizens will have no recourse as to the unlawful seizure of information that falls outside the scope of a search warrant and its subsequent dissemination. Accordingly, Metter's motion to suppress is granted. This conclusion is limited to the electronic evidence seized and imaged pursuant to the Metter Home Search Warrant, Office Search Warrant, and Email Search Warrant and does not include the paper documents and currency seized pursuant to those warrants.

Udpate: I've looked a couple of times today to find the order, and I can't without paying for it. Even then, I don't have the capability of posting it as a pdf yet (well, never asked to learn). At any rate, here is a link from the USAO about the case which, of course, doesn't mention this order. It does show, however, a status conference for this week as to Mr. Metter, and all the other defendants have apparently pled guilty. One of the letter briefs by the government appears here.

Russ Caswell, 68, is bewildered: "What country are we in?" He and his wife Pat are ensnared in a Kafkaesque nightmare unfolding in Orwellian language.

BAGHDAD (AP) -- Lawyers for Iraq's fugitive Sunni vice president charged with running death squads that targeted Shiite officials and pilgrims quit the case on Sunday in protest after judges would not let them present evidence at the trial....

The stopped motorist pulled his license and registration from his rear pants pocket. His later gesture to the center console of the vehicle was cause for police concern and justified a frisk of the console under Mimms [and Long]. United States v. Colen, 2012 U.S. App. LEXIS 10059 (3d Cir. May 18, 2012):

Here, the police acted reasonably. Their suspicion was aroused when they saw Colen quickly shut the center console as they first approached the car. They did not conduct a search at that point although they clearly could have under Mimms. Thereafter, Colen removed his license and registration from his rear pants pocket, thus negating a possible explanation for his gestures toward the center console. When the officers returned to their car, they both saw Colen again reaching for the center console. Only then did the officers remove him from the car, frisk him, and search the portion of the interior of the car that would have been within his immediate control when they allowed him to get back in. It was during that protective search that Officer Mason found the loaded handgun.

When deciding to conduct the kind of limited search that occurred here, "an officer need not be absolutely certain that the individual is armed' so long as the officer's concern was objectively reasonable." United States v. Kithcart, 218 F.3d 213, 219 (3d Cir. 2000) (quoting Moorefield, 111 F.3d at 13-14). The officers' decision to check the center console for weapons was completely justified by the circumstances here.

A 16-year-old boy assaulted on the outskirts of north Belfast on Saturday remains in a serious condition in hospital.

An American DEA officer in Aruba working on a drug investigation ultimately indicted in Puerto Rico was not on a joint venture with Aruba. The Aruba investigation was underway before he got there, and they got the wiretap on their own without U.S. participation and then excluded the DEA officer from having anything to do with it while it was conducted. United States v. Valdivia, 2012 U.S. App. LEXIS 9876 (1st Cir. May 16, 2012).

Officer’s knowledge of an arrest warrant for person is reason for a stop. United States v. Nelson, 2012 U.S. App. LEXIS 9839 (3d Cir. May 16, 2012).*

The stop of the car here was justified because of a license plate light being out, even though there was a temporary paper tag in the rear window. Once an arrest was made of the driver, it was proper to impound and inventory the car at 4:30 am, and there is no constitutional requirement to impose lesser intrusive measures on the police to find the unidentified and unregistered alleged owner. United States v. Cubillos, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 68984 (N.D. Ga. March 20, 2012).*

Crowds and cheers as Olympic torch heads for Exeter

The designer of the iconic Raleigh Chopper bike dies after a battle with cancer.

Campaigns urging voters to back either Scottish independence or the United Kingdom are set to be launched within weeks.

RAF Kinloss authorities knew the public could be at risk from chemical weapons buried near the base, according to documents obtained by BBC Scotland.

The prime minister is this week expected to back a plan to help boost growth by cutting employment red tape.

Crowded House drummer Peter Jones dies at the age of 45.

Defendant’s car was stopped for a traffic offense and a pretext for a drug investigation. There was justification for the traffic stop but no reasonable suspicion for anything else. A de minimus Fourth Amendment violation is rejected as inconsistent with Arizona v. Johnson which had reasonable suspicion. Murray v. State, 2012 Del. LEXIS 266 (May 14, 2012):

This case, then, involves baseless police investigation after the conclusion of a traffic stop. The dissent nevertheless defends this continuing investigation, describing it as a de minimis intrusion. The first problem with this conception is that the relevant United States Supreme Court precedent focuses on whether police extended the traffic stop's duration "measurably," not on whether police extend the stop "significantly" or "substantially." In Arizona v. Johnson, the Court said that "[a]n officer's inquiries into matters unrelated to the justification for the traffic stop do not convert the encounter into something other than a lawful seizure, so long as those inquiries do not measurably extend the duration of a traffic stop." In Johnson, the Court permitted an officer who suspected criminal activity on the strength of gang clothing, tattoos, and the presence of a police scanner radio to perform a protective patdown at the start of a traffic stop. That is, the 'unrelated matters,' in Johnson, were not matters that the officer dealt with after the traffic stop, but measures taken for self-protection at the very start of the traffic stop. None of the officers in this case spotted items in the car that provided a reasonable basis to think the car's occupants posed a threat, nor did they conduct protective patdowns at the start of the encounter.

Health Secretary Andrew Lansley insists the quality of hospital food in England will improve, after criticism of the nutritional value of meals currently offered.

Bellaghy parish priest Fr Andrew Dolan says teenager Lauren O'Neill died trying to protect her sister, as police charge a man with the shooting.

'No-one visits Zambia, so waiting to see the Queen felt surreal'

SANT'AGOSTINO DI FERRARA, Italy (AP) -- One of the strongest earthquakes to shake northern Italy rattled the region around Bologna early Sunday, a magnitude-6.0 temblor that killed at least four people, toppled buildings and sent residents running into the streets, emergency services and news reports said....

Kurt Nimmo | Declares more sanctions are in order.