More on the destruction of the Fourth Amendment

Posted on June 5, 2013 by Michael

In case you missed it: The Supreme Court has ruled that the police can take a DNA sample from a person without probable cause, without a warrant, and without a conviction. So long as a person has been arrested for a felony, he is subject to an intrusion upon his body. It’s an overt violation of the Fourth Amendment that, given the specific arguments of the Court, will undoubtedly lead to DNA sampling for absolutely any crime for which one may be arrested, including jaywalking or running a red light.

There are incredible problems with all this. First, unlike with fingerprinting, the point of DNA sampling is not to identify a suspect. The sole point is to solve other crimes. This is the explicit intent of the state legislatures that have passed such laws. It is exactly the same as if a state legislature declared that a person’s home was automatically subject to being searched upon that person’s arrest. The police are now allowed to go on horseshit fishing expeditions.

Second, while there are often restrictions placed upon what the police are allowed to do with your DNA, that can be changed on a whim by a given state’s governing body. Moreover, do you trust the government to keep its blinders on? If you had a 100 page journal and a judge told the prosecution that it could read it but it had to stick to pages 14-17, do you really think that would happen? Of course not. Pages 1-13 and 18-100 would be absolutely scoured, regardless whether or not the information found therein could be used directly against you.

The only civil liberties decisions of the past 100 years more important than this one are Brown v Board of Education and Loving v Virginia. Every American is forever subject to suspicionless searches and seizures, less the states pass a sorely needed amendment to the constitution.

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Mainers made safer with LD415

Posted on June 1, 2013 by Michael

The citizens of Maine will become just a little bit safer with the passage of LD415:

Lawmakers in Maine are putting themselves at the forefront of efforts to curb excessive surveillance by instituting new privacy safeguards.

On Wednesday, the state House voted 113-28 in favor of legislation that would in all but exceptional cases prohibit law enforcement agencies from tracking cellphones without a warrant. If enacted, LD 415 would make Maine the first state in the country to require authorities to obtain a search warrant before tracking cellphones or other GPS-enabled devices. The law would also require that law enforcement agencies notify a person that she was tracked within three days, unless they can prove that secrecy is necessary, in which case a delay can be granted for up to 180 days. LD 415 would additionally require the publication of an annual report online detailing the number of times location data were sought by law enforcement agencies.

Here’s a good way of thinking about this: If the police were to start following people around for little to no reason whatsoever – for any thing they deem to be ‘reason enough’ – we would rightly say they’ve crossed a line; at that point they would be common criminal stalkers unfit to wear a badge. That they are able to do exactly that from a remote location doesn’t change the fact that their actions need to be checked. If they can’t get court approval, then they don’t have the right to stalk people. Because, frankly, fuck that bullshit.

LD415 isn’t yet law. It has passed in the house (113-28) and senate (20-15), but it needs to go through the senate again for procedural reasons. These numbers raise an interesting question: Who are the 43 assholes who voted against civil liberties?

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Good job, Lois Lerner. Kind of.

Posted on May 26, 2013 by Michael

Lois Lerner of the IRS was recently called to testify in front of Congress. She rightly recognized that speaking to the government is, generally, not a good idea:

Lois G. Lerner, the head of the IRS tax-exempt organizations office, said in advance of Wednesday’s testimony she would assert her Fifth Amendment privilege and refuse to answer questions from House members during committee hearings about the IRS’s targeting of conservative nonprofit groups.

Lerner then appeared before the committee, read a prepared statement, and said she was invoking her Fifth Amendment rights.

“I have not done anything wrong,” Lerner said in her statement. “I have not broken any laws. I have not violated any IRS rules or regulations. And I have not provided false information to this or any other congressional committee.”

“Because I’m asserting my right not to testify, I know that some people will assume that I’ve done something wrong. I have not,” she said. “One of the basic functions of the Fifth Amendment is to protect innocent individuals, and that is the protection I’m invoking today.”

The only problem with this is that by making any statement at all, Lerner may have waived her Fifth Amendment rights. There’s a bit of a debate going on about this, so I’m not entirely sure what the outcome will be. It sounds like a witness is allowed to say a few things, such as where Lerner asserts her innocence, without waiving any rights, but that may be tested here. For my two cents, I hope they do test her and I hope she stands her ground. I hope she then wins the overwhelming right to continue with her day unmolested by government questions. Because, of course, the only reason these congresspeople would call her back would be to intimidate her with the backup of embarrassment. That is, calling her back would be for the sake of daring her to take on the government, something they hope she doesn’t do. Then, if she does do that, the backup plan is to simply embarrass her by virtue of shining a public spotlight on her lack of testimony – congress and everyone else damn well knows that guilt is assumed of those who refuse to testify against themselves.

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Equality in Minnesota

Posted on May 10, 2013 by Michael

I find this one particularly satisfying given the interactions I’ve had with some bigots from Minnesota:

Minnesota is poised to become the second Midwestern state to legalize same-sex marriage after the state House of Representatives approved a bill Thursday that would allow the practice.

The House had been considered the measure’s toughest hurdle. The bill passed 75 to 59 and heads to the state’s Democratic-majority Senate, which is expected to consider it Monday.

Gov. Mark Dayton, a Democrat, has said he will sign the measure.

Unsurprisingly, the biggest objection to equality came from the religious quarter. Denouncing that they were bigots, many appealed to the fact that their misgiving were premised not in hatred, but rather deep belief. As if the sincerity of the bigotry changes that it is, in stark fact, bigotry.

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And down go the dominoes

Posted on May 8, 2013 by Michael

As more and more Americans begin to realize that sexual orientation and morality have zero connection, more and more states keep making marriage equal:

In the past week, Rhode Island and Delaware became the 10th and 11th states to approve gay marriage. But so far, only legislatures in coastal or New England states have voted affirmatively for gay marriage. Except for Iowa, which allows gay marriage due to a 2009 judicial ruling, same-sex couples can’t get married in flyover country.

Minnesota might go first, but Illinois could be close behind. The state Senate there voted in February to allow same-sex marriage, and supporters think they’re close to securing the votes needed to get it through the House and on to Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn, who says he’ll sign it.

Officially, Maine was the first state to make marriage equal by way of the ballot box, but it soon became officially legal in Maryland and Washington the same night. Not long after, Rhode Island caught up with the rest of New England through the legislative process, and, to the surprise of many, did it with very strong Republican support. Now the states that value liberty the most eagerly await the next moves in the mid-west and west.

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The trampling of free speech

Posted on May 5, 2013 by Michael

This is utter horseshit:

The case of teenager Cameron Dambrosio might serve as an object lesson to young people everywhere about minding what you say online unless you are prepared to be arrested for terrorism.

The Methuen, Mass., high school student was arrested last week after posting online videos that show him rapping an original song that police say contained “disturbing verbiage” and reportedly mentioned the White House and the Boston Marathon bombing. He is charged with communicating terrorist threats, a state felony, and faces a potential 20 years in prison. Bail is set at $1 million.

1. Fuck the author of the article, Mark Guarino, for writing as if teenagers need a lesson in why they aren’t allowed free speech rights. Seriously, fuck that guy.

2. I can only imagine the doltish law enforcement officials participating in the quashing of Cameron Dambrosio’s First Amendment rights regret never seizing the opportunity to arrest Johnny Cash for shooting a man in Reno.

3. The biggest issue here is the fact that artistic expression, an entirely protected right, is being violated for obviously and offensively unconstitutional reasons. That said, fuck fuck fuck Mark Guarino.

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Don’t be shy

Posted on March 26, 2013 by Michael

People shy from frank and aggressive language in a lot of instances, but I think that’s sometimes inappropriate. For example, there’s this desire to engage in some sort of ‘respectful’ conversation with those who support ‘traditional’ marriage*, as if they deserve equal time and opportunity – despite overtly advocating to deny basic equalities and opportunities to gay people. I disagree with that desire. These people are blatant bigots and should be called as much.

Affording undue respect to scummy people like this is exactly the same as affording undue respect to a member of the KKK or some other racist organization. You lend validity to a view when you say it deserves a fair shake and a good listen. Don’t do that shit.

*I, of course, mean marriage as defined between one man and one woman in relatively recent times by, mostly, Western culture. I am not referring to marriage where dowries and goats are involved, as happened early on before our invention of particular gods.

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The collapse of bigotry

Posted on March 20, 2013 by Michael

Progress marches on:

A solid majority of Americans support gay marriage, capping a complete reversal in public opinion in less than a decade

A new Washington Post/ABC News poll shows that a solid 58 percent of Americans support legalizing same-sex marriage, compared with 36 percent who believe it should be illegal. The findings represent nothing less than a stunning collapse of opposition to gay marriage: As recently as 2003, the numbers were reversed, with 37 percent favoring gay marriage, and 55 percent opposing.

As the elderly die off, religious adherence decreases, and perspectives and understandings increase in a shrinking world, the equal treatment of gay members and families of society has been on the rise. I would expect nothing less.

The fact is, one of the last times we saw anti-gay bigots come away with a significant victory was in my state of Maine in 2009. That was an off-year for elections and the spending by religious groups (especially the Catholic Church) was astronomical. They were able to organize effectively and take advantage of a relatively low voter turnout. However, they failed decisively in 2012 when Mainers made marriage equal. And why did this happen? Maine is an older, rural state, so while people die and the world shrinks, those effects are not massive here. What was significant, though, was that our generally non-religious nature was able to show through. There are no honest secular arguments against marriage for gay couples, and I think people recognized that. The integrity of secular morality was able to overcome the temporary dominance of religious ideology once a fair showing of voters happened.

If the courts don’t follow the 14th Amendment and the rest of the constitution soon, equality in marriage will still become commonplace anyway. It’s a matter of time.

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And the boots of progress continue…

Posted on February 23, 2013 by Michael

The Obama administration has just gotten even more active in being on the right side of history:

The Obama administration on Friday urged the Supreme Court to strike down the Defense Of Marriage Act in a brief that calls the law unconstitutional because it violates “the fundamental guarantee of equal protection.”

Solicitor General Donald Verrilli argues in the brief that Section 3 of the 1996 federal law prohibits the marriage of same-sex couples and should get the court’s close scrutiny:

“The law denies to tens of thousands of same-sex couples who are legally married under state law an array of important federal benefits that are available to legally married opposite-sex couples. Because this discrimination cannot be justified as substantially furthering any important governmental interest, Section 3 is unconstitutional.”

Emphasis mine. It’s clear that DOMA and other anti-equality measures have always been about a lack of comfort and sexual maturity amongst Christians and those who have been duped by bogus Christian arguments and, often, outright lies.

I, for one, cannot wait to see marriage equality spread across the United States. The only downside is that when absolutely nothing bad happens as a result, I’ll be stuck being associated with the dwindling but still strong base of bigots that pervade my generation and the generation ahead of me.

Filed under: News, Rights, Same-sex marriage | 3 Comments »

And the march continues…

Posted on February 15, 2013 by Michael

Deciding that the right side of history is where they want to be, the U.K., France, and Illinois have all taken steps this month toward putting into law a requirement that same-sex couples be allowed to marry. I think we can expect to see more of this in parts of the world that tend to be enlightened. And if we’re lucky, the U.S. Supreme Court will follow the 14th Amendment and declare that marriage for same-sex couples is required so long as a state decides it wants to have marriage at all. (As I’ve said before, I expect Political Figure Scalia to contradict previous arguments he has made and principles he has stated, but I hope I’m wrong.)

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