Chances are you now live in a ‘Constitution Free Zone’.
US Federal District Judge Edward Korman, has reaffirmed an Obama admin policy that grants officials the authority to search Americans’ laptops and other electronics without a warrant, citing a controversial premise that makes citizens within 100 miles of the border eligible for a warrantless police search.
The decision came in Tuesday, more than 3 years after the ACLU filed suit against the policy.
Almost two-thirds of the population (197.4 million people) live within 100 miles of the US border.
Next it will be 200 miles from the border, then 300 and then only people that will retain their rights are those that are making up these totalitarian laws!
ACLU attorney, Catherine Crump, had this to say about this controversial ruling:
“We’re disappointed in today’s decision, which allows the government to conduct intrusive searches of Americans’ laptops and other electronics at the border without any suspicion that those devices contain evidence of wrongdoing,” she said.
“Suspicionless searches of devices containing vast amounts of personal information cannot meet the standard set by the Fourth Amendment… Unfortunately, these searches are part of a broader pattern of aggressive government surveillance that collects information on too many innocent people, under lax standards, and without adequate oversight.”
This nonsense makes my blood boil.
District Judge Edward Korman, a US federal judge, has reaffirmed an Obama administration policy granting officials the authority to search Americans’ laptops, citing a controversial premise that makes citizens within 100 miles of the border eligible for a police check.
District Judge Edward Korman made his ruling in New York on Tuesday, more than three years after the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed suit. The ACLU claimed that – since Americans put so much of their lives on their computers, cell phones, and other devices – border officials should have reasonable suspicion before sifting through someone’s personal files.
Attorneys argued that searches conducted without reasonable suspicion are a violation of the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable search and seizure.
Not so, according to Judge Korman. In his decision Tuesday he argued that the area 100 miles inland falls under a “border exemption.”
“Laptops have only come into widespread use in the twenty-first century. Prior to that time, lawyers, photographers, and scholars managed to travel overseas and consult with clients, take photographs, and conduct scholarly research,” wrote Korman.
“No one ever suggested the possibility of a border search had a chilling effect on his or her First Amendment rights. While it is true that laptops make overseas work more convenient, the precaution plaintiffs may choose to take to ‘mitigate’ the alleged harm associated with the remote possibility of a border search are simply among the many inconveniences associated with international travel.”
The federal government has long conducted searches on travelers entering and leaving the US, but Congress expanded that policy by creating the Department of Homeland Security and setting up at least 33 checkpoints inside the country where people are stopped and asked to prove their citizenship.
The trouble is, the ACLU noted, that almost two-thirds of the population (197.4 million people) live within 100 miles of the US border. New York, Washington, Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Miami, and dozens of other major metropolitan areas fall under the so-called “exemption” zone.
The civil-liberties advocacy group filed suit in 2010 on behalf of Pascal Abidor, a 29-year-old Islamic Studies student whose laptop computer was held for 11 days when he was traveling by Amtrak rail from Canada to his parents’ home in New York.
Abidor was sitting in the train’s cafe car when an officer forced him to take out his laptop then “ordered Mr. Abidor to enter his password,” the suit claimed. The computer contained images of Hamas and Hezbollah rallies and the agents, unmoved by Abidor’s assertion the images were related to his studies, handcuffed the young man and kept him detained for three hours, questioning him numerous times.
Department of Homeland Security data indicates that 6,500 people had their devices search between 2008 and 2010 alone.
Here’s what the ACLU attorney, Catherine Crump, had to say about this controversial ruling
“We’re disappointed in today’s decision, which allows the government to conduct intrusive searches of Americans’ laptops and other electronics at the border without any suspicion that those devices contain evidence of wrongdoing,” she said.
“Suspicionless searches of devices containing vast amounts of personal information cannot meet the standard set by the Fourth Amendment… Unfortunately, these searches are part of a broader pattern of aggressive government surveillance that collects information on too many innocent people, under lax standards, and without adequate oversight.”
The absolute malicious stripping away of our rights has got to stop, folks, we must stand-up and fight back against this at every turn! The future of or Republic is at stake and many want to bury their heads in the sand… Wake Up!!!
we don’t under Obama, and his corrupt flunkies. they are the ones that are the ones that support his traitorous ways.
Obama and each of our Senators and Representatives have failed to keep their Oath of Office to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. They have became the domestic threat to our Human Rights and our Freedoms. Our current Senate and House will not stop the stupid War on Terror, will not repeal Obamacare, and will not fire Obama or repeal Obamacare and care nothing what the people of the United States want. Do you believe we should be spending trillions of dollars in a war in Africa and the Middle East and we should be trying to start a war with Russia and China. No Incumbents. Vote every one of them out.
Vote all the millionaires of our Senate and House out, they want to destroy our Human Rights and our Freedoms, they want to enforce Obamacare, and they will not enforce our Immigration Laws.
Repeal Obamacare.
End our stupid War on Terror.
Quit trying to start a war with China.
Quit trying to start a war with Russia.
No Incumbents.
Vote every one of our Senators and Representatives out.
They have not fired Obama and Holder.
Obama and Biden and most of our Senators and Representatives love war and Gun Control more than Adolf Hitler did and believe we deserve Human Rights and Freedoms as much as Adolf Hitler thought the Jews deserved them. No Incumbents. Vote them out.
The violence in Syria and in the Ukraine was financed from inside the Untied States and we impose sanctions against Russia? Every nation of the world should impose sanctions against NATO and the United States for invading all of Africa and most of the Middle East.
Well said William, who ever is in office now and running for re-election, just vote a new person in, anyone else can’t be as stupid as our congress & president,
Hope the new congress and President will repeal all King Obama’s unconstitional laws he passes.
too many sheep to vote these a**holes out
You people are, really, so stupid.
If you want an A**hole voted out, then run someone worth voting in. Shrub Jr. delivered this c**p law to us, and Shrub Sr, as CIA, ignored these laws in the first place. What is wrong with you people?
Stop marching lockstep to party-line rhetoric like sheeple, and come up with a better candidate.
This is not real!!
Screw that!
Bull $#%&!@*
F@@K obama
This piece of filthy ,nonsense of judging is in violation of the Constitution…We would be surrounded by the governments will if this come off as a working project… Ed Taylor; Here I thought we were the same as our peers with the same form of justice…Now it looks like there are only Dictators and toilet cleaners left here in the USA…I wish Putin would come and visit Obama and slap the S–t out of him for me… I would hug his neck…Just saying Jim….
WE THE PEOPLE AGREE> THIS IS UNSTITUTIONAL> GOVERNMENT OUT OF CONTROL AND BLIND AS A BAT>
Because bitching about this on facebook is totally going to stop all of this. Get up off your g*****n couch and do something about it.
to all vets who thought you were fighting for freedom in far flung sh*tholes abroad…it seems you’ve been had.