Asymmetrical Information

For a libertarian, I'm pretty sympathetic to the police; I have no idea what I'd be like if my job routinely involved confronting people (often intoxicated) with a clear desire to hurt or kill me.

That's the point. People with no criminal record generally don't have any clear desire to hurt or kill anyone. Especially when they're innocent, which is quite possible when the only information about their alleged activities come from addict snitches who are probably guilty of worse things than what they're accusing others of doing.

The police can choose not to invade the homes of suspected nonviolent offenders in the middle of the night without warning. The people living in those homes, not so much.

I have nothing in particular against police, and nothing personally, but don't forget that when they take policy positions, they're just looking out for themselves, like the rest of us do. Like when they favor gun control. Is it to make people safer from criminals, or is it to reduce the supply of guns that could potentially be used against them, even at the cost of making people less safe from criminals? They also seem to think that breaking down doors and throwing in stun grenades at 2 am is the safest thing for them, and it makes good headlines when it goes well. Is it good for us?

From the article:

So if you mistake midnight-raiding police for intruders and there are drugs in your home, your mistake means the death penalty. If your roommates possess drugs and mistake raiding police for intruders and shoot and kill an officer, you're looking at a murder charge.

Somehow the “I thought it was a rival drug dealer breaking into my home” argument fails to elicit much sympathy. Maybe the solution is to, I dunno, not keep illegal drugs in your home.

If we hadn't handed the police so much unconstitutional law to enforce (the sophistry of the legal profession notwithstanding), this wouldn't be a problem.

On the other hand, the police shouldn't enjoy enforcing the law in the bullying manner now so common.

Of course, their contention that the lives of police officers are inherently more valuable than that of the citizens who employ them tells me they have a long way to go in moral philosophy.

Actually Thorston the examples from the acticle point out the serious problem with the War on Drugs. In the second example the woman was KILLED because she thought was being burglarized. After her first burglary when she called the police for protection- the police noticed her boyfriend's cocaine. So they executed a no knock search and killed her.

There is a serious problem with no knock warrants especially when the police pull up and search the wrong house! So not having drugs in your house won't stop that. There are a number of incidents every year where that happens. Fatalities are fairly common. I think the real solution is too repeal the asinine drug laws we currently have.

Here's a great web mashup from the Cato Institute. The overriding commonality with these raids - by in large (other than some cases with a minor amount of illegal drugs) are innocent people who often end up shot by the police.

http://www.cato.org/raidmap/

"But the idea that they would be held to a lower standard than the innocent folks they accidentally burst in on is lunatic. Hello, police state."

No need to ask: "Are we there yet?"

The War on Drugs is, simply, a prolonged battle to make the cowed, the unwitting, and the minority who take issue with its sundering of what was, once, a more proper order, 2nd and 3rd Class 'Citizens' in the land where they were formerly Sovereign.

Forget, not, the fulsome flow of Fiat it provides, in so doing.

We pay police to protect us.

Maybe some of us do.

I pay the police because if I don't, the police will seize my house.

If we hadn't handed the police so much unconstitutional law to enforce (the sophistry of the legal profession notwithstanding), this wouldn't be a problem.

Except of course there is nothing unconstitutional about either no-knock warrants nor the War on Some drugs. You may think that they are bad policy or being implemented poorly but disagreeing with the policy does not make it unconstitutional.

Thorley,

This/These: "Except of course there is nothing unconstitutional about either no-knock warrants nor the War on Some drugs."--Sound like conclusions.

Could you state your premises, offer some cites??

Thank you, in advance.

Except of course there is nothing unconstitutional about either no-knock warrants nor the War on Some drugs. You may think that they are bad policy or being implemented poorly but disagreeing with the policy does not make it unconstitutional.

You're in the pro-Wickard v. Filburn crowd?

Maybe the solution is to, I dunno, not keep illegal drugs in your home.

We could argue whether what is basically, I dunno, extrajudicial executions of people for minor drug offenses are justified, but regardless, that doesn't work for people who don't keep illegal drugs in their home.

See several examples here.

I think there is reason to believe that the open-ended no-knock warrants, while perhaps not against the letter of the unconstitution, may in fact be contrary to its intention. The fourth amendment, regulating search and arrest without probable cause, was partially a response to the open-ended "writs of assistance" used by the British to search any property they saw fit, without probable cause and without compensation for damage caused.

I would say that giving police officers the freedom to use no-knock tactics on property ancillary to an investigation, for allegations of a minor drug crime based on unreliable information, and which oftentimes results in innocent people being killed, and without the offending officers being held responsible, comes VERY close to violating the spirit of the 4th amendment. I would guess that the writers of the 4th would look at these tactics and wonder why we are even debating if this should be practiced.

The war on drugs is a whole other can of worms, but I also think that goes against the spirit of the constitution...that people's rights are only bounded to the extent that they affect other people. There are some rights that I think the founders thought were so obvious that it didn't even cross their minds to write them down on paper. Most of the Bill of Rights has to do with how people interact with each other (religion, assembly, speech, etc.), and I think it was virtually a given that citizens had the right to engage in private activities that did not harm others.

One thing mentioned on Balko's site is that "courts have generally found that police can, at the scene, decide to conduct a no-knock in spite of the warrant if (a) they believe the suspect may destroy important evidence, and/or (b) if they believe announcing themselves would endanger their own safety."

I think this is giving too much leeway to police. What officer is not going to want to bust the door down and go in with guns blazing when making a raid, instead of knocking and waiting for an answer? And even if they don't believe announcing themselves would put them in danger, it is simple to argue the opposite after the fact. It seems like a blank check. The courts issuing these warrants need to be more careful.

"Hello, police state"? You just noticed? Where were you during Waco and Ruby Ridge? The people who pulled off those wonderful things are still high-ranking employees of the FBI. They took the Fifth when called up before Congress. Those are not the actions of an agency of Justice, they are the hallmarks of the American Gestapo.

Countries with armies of secret police, coerced informants, wiretaps and bugs, and where lots of people fear the "midnight knock on the door" used to be known as police states. It's worth asking whether fighting the war on drugs is worth what it's costing us. (We won't ask that as a country, of course, but we'd be better off if we did.)

there is nothing unconstitutional about ... the War on Some drugs.

Once upon a time, it was thought that the Constitution did not give the federal government the power to ban alcohol, and thus before the Volstead Act could be passed, the Constitutional powers of the government had to be expanded with the 18th amendment. Since the 21st amendment repealed the 18th, we're back where we were in 1918: the federal government does not have the authority to ban intoxicating substances.

q.e.d. the War on Some Drugs is unconstitutional.

" .... before the Volstead Act could be passed, the Constitutional powers of the government had to be expanded with the 18th amendment. Since the 21st amendment repealed the 18th, we're back where we were in 1918: the federal government does not have the authority to ban intoxicating substances ... ."

It's worse than that: If you look at the history of the War on [some] Drugs, it was conceived -- at least in part -- as a job-security program for all the federal "G-men" who would otherwise have been out of a job after the passage of the 21st amendment.

The courts issuing these warrants need to be more careful.

I don't think that that's going to be an effective solution, ultimately. The courts don't know anything that the police don't tell them about the case. The police are the only ones who have the information needed to properly assess whether a no-knock military-style raid is reasonable, but they may have incentives to err on the side of excessive force. The solution, in my opinion, is first of all to make the government or the police department legally liable for damage caused by mistakes and excessive force, and make it easy to actually sue them and win. That would hopefully create internal organizational incentives for individual police officers to be careful. I would also be in favor of banning military-style raids for non-violent offenses such as drug offenses (if the warrant is only for drug offenses, and not for associated violent crimes). That may mean that some drug dealers and users may have a chance to destroy some evidence, but I think that that is greatly outweighed by the possibility of mistakes resulting from excessive force. It's politically unfeasible to legalize or even decriminalize drugs at the moment, but a deescalation of the drug war may be possible, and is sorely needed.

This is a sore spot with me. The problem is really rather simple: police officers should be clearly recognizable as police. They shouldn't look like a home invasion gang, to be blunt. Since I do not allow anything illegal in my house, in the unlikely event that my front door is knocked open in the middle of the night, I have no choice but to assume an illegal entry, a home invasion, is in progress and react accordingly. If it's actually a special police raid by men dressed up just like a home invasion gang, i.e. all in black with no ID of any kind, then I'll die. If I could see that they were actually police, I'd submit to their illegal assault and take it out of their hide in court. But, of course, to force the SWAT/SRT guys to wear regular uniforms, with clearly observable badges and other things that make it obvious they are police, somehow is beyond reasonable.

To demand that no warrant be issued on the sayso of one informant, but rather that two different sources and some kind of surveillance be required, has been strongly urged by Federal judges. But it still doesn't happen, apparently. One drunken "confidential informant" mumbling in a bar, or maliciously lying (as in the Pratt case in Snohomish, Oregon) is sufficient to get a warrant.

Until such time as police officers that perjure themselves in court, or that can't be bothered to make sure the address is right, can be punished in a meaningful way (loss of house, job, and prison term) I do not seen any change in this sorry state of affairs on the horizon.

"Until such time as police officers that perjure themselves in court, or that can't be bothered to make sure the address is right, can be punished in a meaningful way (loss of house, job, and prison term) I do not seen any change in this sorry state of affairs on the horizon."

ellipsis,

They, too, have ascended to a higher state of 'citizen'-status.

elipsis -

Okay, so the police look like police, with "POLICE" written across them.

What stops the bad guys from getting shirts with "POLICE" written across them?

I've seen reports from at least six different cities where that has happened.

If the police don't announce in advance, and give people a chance to consider or communicate, then they have caused a dangerous confrontation. The possibility of destruction of evidence versus the possibility of destruction of human life.

I know which one I'd vote for.

Twill00 wrote:
elipsis -

Okay, so the police look like police, with "POLICE" written across them.
What stops the bad guys from getting shirts with "POLICE" written across them?
I've seen reports from at least six different cities where that has happened.

Oh, I want a whole lot more than just a shirt or a jacket. I want officers in the uniform of their agency, with a nice, shiny and easily seen badge, just for a start.

If the police don't announce in advance, and give people a chance to consider or communicate, then they have caused a dangerous confrontation.

I think a couple of clearly marked patrol cars, with light bars fully on, and an announcement over the PA system to the effect of "This is a raid by the police department in the following building" would be a good start...and it would be clear who was coming in the front door, at that point.

The possibility of destruction of evidence versus the possibility of destruction of human life.

Yes, and what's worse, the possibility of destruction of some human holding a TV remote control, or a wallet (both actual cases)...

I know which one I'd vote for.

Me too, but then we get called "cop haters who don't care about officer safety"...

ellipsis,

""cop haters who don't care about officer safety""

you already know what kind of logical fallacy that is. when the arguments, against, are not--you know what that means to.

the name-callers are tools of malevolence that work more violence. sadly, more violence has made More work for them, and the 'police'.

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