to BlAme? follow you for a short period of time without getting some type of permission (warrant) from the courts. In essence, when you start watching someone or something, you’ll need probable cause a crime is being committed and a warrant. Justice Alito further states we cannot invade expectations of privacy for anything more than short periods of time unless there are extraordinary circumstances. What’s considered a short period of time is anybody’s guess. Apparently the fact the largest cocaine seizure in Washington DC’s history resulted from tracking Mr. Antoine Jones is not considered “of unusual importance” by our judicial branch. And it gets better … we need to look into law enforcement’s use of cameras in public places, location information from cell phones, and even information from automatic plate readers at toll collection sites on our highways. Alito’s opinion doesn’t mention protecting things posted publicly on Facebook, Twitter or a blog. However, following his logic, monitoring things written on public forums would require a warrant. You could probably look at them once, but not repeatedly. believe someone’s committing a major crime before doing anything other than a cursory investigation. If they had one more justice agreeing with them, you’d need a warrant to put up a pole camera to watch a public street corner where they sell crack; and you’d probably need a warrant to physically sit there and watch the street corner for anything more than a few hours. Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote her own opinion separately from Scalia and Alito. She agreed with Scalia, but hinted she could probably be convinced in the future to side with Alito. If she had sided with Alito, his opinion would’ve been the opinion of the court. Do we need a warrant to monitor other public locations and actions? Not yet, but the door has been opened — wide. The Supreme Court has put our legislative branch on notice: If Congress and the states don’t make laws limiting what public information police can look at and for how long, then the courts are going to do it for them. Do you think they’re bluffing? No law ever said we had to give people their Miranda Rights when we arrest them; a very liberal court made up that law. I hear you saying, “But I remember Mr. Huffberger in freshman Civics class telling me the judicial branch of government couldn’t enact laws and the US Constitution reserved that right solely for our legislative branch.” I remember that too, but the Miranda card in my wallet tells a different story. Most cops are saying this decision isn’t a big deal; and right now, it isn’t. It’s inconvenient and gives the drug dealers a chance to get away while we try to obtain a warrant. While presenting their case to the Supreme Court the federal government never mentioned the “vehicle exception” allowing for warrantless searches. And because it wasn’t presented to the court, they didn’t even consider the issue. Luckily, a PC warrant can be obtained over the phone in most areas — not in my district — but in most other districts. The truly frightening issue here is four of the nine Supreme Court Justices think a reasonable expectation of privacy no longer describes a physical location, but instead covers an arbitrary, unspecified length of time. Future cases will focus on this issue and we’re very likely to come out on the losing end. We’re a microcosm away from having to justify every step of our investigation with proof we haven’t looked “too long Continued on page 36 33 nick AdAms No Big Deal — Yet The Scary Part Alito’s camp thinks you should write an affidavit showing probable cause you WWW.AMERICANCOPMAGAZINE.COM
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