At 06:08 PM 6/22/2001 -0400, George@Orwellian.Org wrote:

So, they can pull you over for no reason? She asked repeatedly if she'd done anything wrong, the Copper said it was a checkpoint thang.

The US Supreme Court last addressed this in November 2000 - their conclusion is that checkpoints may be legal if they're done for a permissible reason. The federal government may conduct checkpoints to identify illegal aliens near border crossings; and states and cities may conduct checkpoints to detect drunk drivers or license/equipment violations if the checkpoints are intended to ensure highway safety. Checkpoints are not permitted if they were operated, as they were in _City of Indianapolis v. Edmond_ http://laws.findlaw.com/us/000/99-1030.html, for a general law enforcement purpose. So, if you're a police department, don't set up any of those "drug dealer" checkpoints, because they're not OK - but if you see a lot of drug dealers in a particular neighborhood, you can go ahead and set up a drivers' license/registration/proof-of-insurance/taillight *safety* checkpoint in that neighborhood, and if you happen to run across any evidence of drug possession or use or sale while you're conducting a safety checkpoint, well, so be it . . . Also take a look at http://www.roadblock.org, though they don't have the _Edmond_ case on their site yet, so perhaps they're not wildly up-to-date. State constitutional provisions may provide greater privacy protection - California's doesn't, Oregon's does (though not necessarily in a car stop/checkpoint context), I've got no idea what Virginia's constitution says or how it's interpreted. I mention this law-geek point only as a reminder that there are frequently two constitutions regulating government behavior, and it's very common (even among lawyers) to forget about the state constitution. State constitutions are also a wonderful way for state courts to disagree with the US Supreme Court without getting overruled, at least in the direction of limiting government actors - they merely need to interpret their own state's constitution to be more protective of individual rights, where the US Supreme Court and the US Constitution represent a baseline or "floor" for protection, not the "ceiling". Oregon courts have done this with respect to search and seizure and have developed their own body of more sensible search and seizure jurisprudence which avoids the result-oriented federal trainwreck. California was doing this, too, but that got chopped off at the knees by a bunch of Republicans a few years ago and now CA's constitution is interpreted mostly as an identical copy of the US constitution, on criminal law topics.

I can check out Radio Shack, etc, but does anyone have recommendations for (hidden) wireless transmitter mics?

Be careful here, with your state's surveillance/wiretap/recording rules, with respect to being in a 1-party state or a 2-party state - I've heard that CA cops can be very aggressive re prosecution versus citizens who make audio recordings of them without consent.

Also, what can take out a surveillance camera from a distance? An Edmund Scientific laser? How about the ones in a dark glass bowl?

I have wondered about this but don't have answers. One direction of thought and research which might be productive is nondestructively temporarily disabling the camera, perhaps by flooding its light sensor with a focused beam of light, like a flashlight or laser - it's going to compensate for that level of lighting, leaving the rest of the frame underexposed, as long as it's misled by that local brightness. Also, if you're monkeying with cop cameras, that *would* probably be obstruction of justice or interfering with a police officer or whatever your local "don't fuck with the cops" statute is. -- Greg Broiles gbroiles@well.com "Organized crime is the price we pay for organization." -- Raymond Chandler