The Art of Submarine Warfare

[Greg Broiles]

At 06:08 PM 6/22/2001 -0400, George at 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 at well.com
"Organized crime is the price we pay for organization." -- Raymond Chandler