Tag: police state

Stephen Breyer’s Retirement Is Good News for the Fourth Amendment

When President Bill Clinton tapped Stephen Breyer to fill a vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court in 1994, he told the country that Breyer would be a justice who would “strike the right balance between the need for discipline and order, being firm on law enforcement issues but really sticking in there for the Bill of Rights.”

The news of Breyer’s impending retirement at the close of the Supreme Court’s current term gives us an opportunity to weigh Clinton’s words against Breyer’s record. Alas, the former president proved to be only half right. Breyer was certainly “firm” in his deference toward law enforcement. But that same judicial deference often led Breyer to do the opposite of “sticking in there for the Bill of Rights” when major Fourth Amendment cases arrived at SCOTUS.

Take Navarette v. California (2014). At issue was an anonymous and uncorroborated 911 phone call about an allegedly dangerous driver which led the police to make a traffic stop that led to a drug bust. According to the 5–4 majority opinion of Justice Clarence Thomas, “the stop complied with the Fourth Amendment because, under the totality of the circumstances, the officer had reasonable suspicion that the driver was intoxicated.” Law enforcement won big and Breyer signed on.

The deficiencies of that judgment were spelled out in a forceful dissent by Justice Antonin Scalia. “The Court’s opinion serves up a freedom-destroying cocktail,” wrote Scalia, who was joined in dissent by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan. “All the malevolent 911 caller need do is assert a traffic violation, and the targeted car will be stopped, forcibly if necessary, by the police.” That disturbing scenario, Scalia wrote, “is not my concept, and I am sure it would not be the Framers’, of a people secure from unreasonable searches and seizures.” Breyer was apparently untroubled by that Fourth Amendment–shredding scenario.

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City Now Requires Gun Owners to Carry Liability Insurance, Conveniently Exempts Current, Former Cops

In what’s being touted as a first of its kind action in the country, gun owners in San Jose will soon be forced to purchase liability insurance and pay an annual fee for practicing their right to self defense. The City Council passed the resolution this week, and it is already being torn apart by those who can see past solving problems without government mandates.

“San Jose has an opportunity to become a model for the rest of the nation to invest in proven strategies to reduce gun violence, domestic violence and suicide and the many other preventable harms from firearms in our communities,” San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo said at a news conference Monday.

But will requiring legal gun owners to buy insurance do anything at all to stop crimes or keep people safe? Not very likely. The City Council’s measure does nothing to address the problem of illegally obtained weapons that are stolen or purchased by criminals.

Despite this legislation coming forward as a reaction to the tragic mass shooting that took place at the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority rail yard that left nine people dead last May, it does absolutely nothing to stop criminal gun violence. All it does is place a burden on the thousands of lawful gun owners in the city.

The mayor, who acted as a cheerleader for the legislation, even admitted this fact, saying, “this won’t stop mass shootings and keep bad people from committing violent crime.”

On top of liability insurance, legal gun owners will also be forced to pay an annual fee to the city of $25. While it may not seem like much, coupled with an expensive insurance policy, it could make lots of legal gun owners who are having trouble paying their bills, criminals for noncompliance.

Essentially, it is just another way for government to limit the ability of poor people to legally protect themselves.

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Nova Scotia outlaws support on highway for ‘freedom’ truckers days after massive protest

The Canadian province of Nova Scotia made it illegal for people to gather along a highway ahead of the “Freedom Convoy” of truckers that made their way across the country in protest of vaccine mandates. 

The local government issued “a directive under the Emergency Management Act prohibiting protesters from blockading Highway 104 near the Nova Scotia-New Brunswick border.”

The directive specifically states supporters of the Freedom Convoy and another protest, the Atlantic Hold the Line event, can’t gather along Highway 104, on the Nova Scotia-New Brunswick border. The directive states that “allowing people to gather in those areas would put themselves and others at risk.”

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‘Someone Opened the Doors From the Inside,’ Jan. 6 Defense Attorney Says

Kelly Meggs and other members of the Oath Keepers could not have done one of the major things of which they are accused by federal prosecutors: force their way into the U.S. Capitol Rotunda on Jan. 6, 2021, through the famous Columbus Doors, a defense attorney says.

The two sets of historic doors that lead into the Rotunda were opened by someone on the inside, and not his client, says defense attorney Jonathon Moseley.

Department of Justice video widely circulated on Twitter this week shows a man trying to open the inner doors by leaning against them, before turning around as if listening to someone, then returning to the entrance and opening the left door for protesters.

“The outer doors cast from solid bronze would require a bazooka, an artillery shell or C4 military-grade explosives to breach,” Moseley wrote in a letter to federal prosecutors. “That of course did not happen. You would sooner break into a bank vault than to break the bronze outer Columbus Doors.”

The 20,000-pound Columbus Doors that lead into the Rotunda on the east side of the U.S. Capitol are secured by magnetic locks that can only be opened from the inside using a security code controlled by Capitol Police, Moseley wrote in an eight-page memo.

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