Forwarded message:

Date: Fri, 23 May 1997 15:12:54 -0700 From: Greg Broiles <gbroiles@netbox.com> Subject: Re: Police & military access

...

This would seem to support Jim Choate's general position. (Though I have my own skepticism that many jurisdictions think it is true.)

Jim Choate's messages about cops and "civil rights" suggest that he's not familiar with and/or interested in the basics of legal research. Restrictions (and lack of restrictions) related to use of force, power to arest, possession/use of weapons, etc., are mostly statutory. You can't find them (or understand them) by starting with only the Constitution, and then reasoning and deducing things from it.

Absolutely, but those statutes MUST be referencable back to the Constitution. Something I freely admit is not the current case. If it were the current case this would be a very quite mailing list indeed. What a citizen can and can't do with a weapon is covered in the 2nd. It includes police. If I as a citizen can't have object x then a police officer can't have it, constitutionaly.

...

From a moral or political perspective, (e.g., what *should* the relationship between cops and citizens look like) what he writes is perfectly reasonable. From a legal perspective (what is the law today?) it's incomplete and thereby misleading.

Absolutely, and if you are infering that I at any time in my life have EVER asserted that my speculation was the case then you need to take a reading comprehension course (as well as reflect on what the entire discussion on cypherpunks truly is at the core). What *should* be the case is the whole damn point. Jim Choate CyberTects ravage@ssz.com