It may be time to reign in hyperpartisan, biased and incompetent judges …

Federal Judge OK’s Police Surveillance Cameras on Private Property

U.S. District Judge William Griesbach has approved the warrantless placing of surveillance cameras on people’s private property. In a recent case, the judge ruled that it was permissible for the Drug Enforcement Agency to enter the defendants’ rural property without permission or warrant and install several “covert digital surveillance cameras” to determine whether or not the owners had 30 to 40 marijuana plants.

CNet News reports:

“Two defendants in the case, Manuel Mendoza and Marco Magana of Green Bay, Wis., have been charged with federal drug crimes after DEA agent Steven Curran claimed to have discovered more than 1,000 marijuana plants grown on the property, and face possible life imprisonment and fines of up to $10 million. Mendoza and Magana asked [Magistrate Judge] Callahan to throw out the video evidence on Fourth Amendment grounds, noting that ‘No Trespassing’ signs were posted throughout the heavily wooded, 22-acre property owned by Magana and that it also had a locked gate.”

But both Judges Callahan and Griesbach stated that police placing surveillance cameras outside the curtilage does not violate the Fourth Amendment. The “curtilage” refers to the area immediately surrounding a person’s house. Callahan had based his decision on a 1984 case where the majority of Justices decided that law enforcement could search someone’s “open fields” without a warrant because it was outside the suspect’s curtilage. <Source: Federal Judge OK’s Police Surveillance Cameras on Private Property>

One, what gives anyone without a warrant, sustained with credible evidence of “probable cause,” to enter your “private property” for purposes of surveillance? While you might not have any expectations of privacy from viewers outside of your property boundaries (e.g. from a neighbor’s property or an aerial drone), you should not have your private property rights violated without a credible warrant.

Two, law enforcement officials who coerce “confidential informants” into providing probable cause or misstate the facts, should be held accountable for their actions; both civilly and criminally.

Three, where are federal judges allowed to issue rulings that may cost individuals considerable time and expense to contest – and where is the remuneration for these egregious acts?  We have seen hyper-partisan judges delay major projects based on rodents and butterflies, at great cost to the property owners, developers and society at large. Who will hold these people responsible for their actions? Not their fellow judges. Not the lawyers who profit greatly from the staged conflict.

Bottom line …

It is about time to restrict the actions of corrupt law enforcement, corrupt prosecutors and corrupt judges. Pretty much why I have changed my opinion on the death penalty. Project Innocence has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that corruption in law enforcement, prosecution and judicial decisions have produced an atmosphere where an innocent man can be sent to jail or put to death – even though the means to determine the truth is close at hand (e.g. DNA testing).

While I am all for giving law enforcement the tools to fight crime, I am not about to stand idly by where every person automatically becomes a suspect on a whim and advanced surveillance is initiated to prove them guilty without a credible probable cause. We are slowly losing our freedoms to an out-of-control, hyper-partisan and ideological government. It is time to reverse that trend.

-- steve

P.S. check out the Electronic Frontier Foundation at www.eff.org for the latest in protecting your rights in a digital world.