… over at the ACLU. You’d imagine that one of the most prominent decisions regarding the Bill of Rights in years would at least be deserving of a mention.
UPDATE: Looks like they did release something, but it’s not prominent.
Category: Civil Liberties
On Emergency Powers
There has been a bit of controversey over my statement on the picture of a police officer in Iowa holding a man at gunpoint who attempted to push his way through a police blockade with his vehicle. I should note that I was merely pointing out that the officer in question was within the bounds of the law in his action. Under Iowa’s emergency powers statutes, the Governor can order the police to enforce evacuation zones. That might not be right, but that’s the law. If you ever want the civil libertarian in you to go into convulsions, take a look at your state’s emergency powers provisions. Pennsylvania’s is here.
State of emergency declarations have the effect of expanding the powers of the governor greatly. Under Pennsylvania law, for instance, they state personnel are empowered to come on to your property and remove any debris that could be considered a threat to public health or safety, including, one would presume, the remains of your house. Another provision can be found here:
§ 7308. Laws suspended during emergency assignments.
In the case of a declaration of a state of emergency by the Governor, Commonwealth agencies may implement their emergency assignments without regard to procedures required by other laws (except mandatory constitutional requirements) pertaining to the performance of public work, entering into contracts, incurring of obligations, employment of temporary workers, rental of equipment, purchase of supplies and materials and expenditures of public funds.
Pennsylvania’s emergency powers are rather limited compared to what I’ve seen in a lot of states. There doesn’t seem to be any power to enforce evacuation zones, for instance, like there is in Iowa law. [UPDATE, there is, see in comments below] But the time to look at your state emergency powers provisions, and petition your government to make changes to it, is now. Most of these laws have been in place for decades, and it’s easier to get them changed when there’s not a disaster than get them changed when there is.
I stand by my assertion that challenging that authority with the officers charged with enforcing the Governor’s edicts (and yes, under most emergency powers laws, the governor gets to make edicts) isn’t the way to go. If you feel being kept from your property is a violation of your rights, there is a remedy for that through the courts. My feeling is that restricting movement ought to be unconstitutional except in the most dire circumstances (like a pandemic). But my opinion isn’t law, and making ones opinion law is usually an uphill battle if you can’t get a lot of your fellow citizens to agree with you.
Playmobil Police State
I have to agree with Kevin on this one. Playmobil is a German company, so I’ll take some comfort in that, but it’s kind of disturbing this is sold anywhere. Or was, rather. I can’t find it as a current product offering on their web site.
Polling on the First Amendment
The Brady Campaign is always quick to remind us that while an overwhelming number of Americans support the second amendment, there are still a lot of people that support some vague thing called “gun control.” Rachel Lucas points to some interesting polling on the first amendment, in regards to “hate speech”.
88% “guard†free speech but only 53% have any sort of a clue as to what that means. Since it would be silly to imagine that as time goes on, more people will get the clue, I’m guessing that in another few decades, we’ll have laws just like France and Canada. Awesome.
The poll basically shows that while 88% believe in the first amendment, only 53% oppose laws regulating “hate speech”, with 28% favoring it, and 19% undecided. I don’t share Rachel’s pessimism about things going downhill from here, however. We’ve shown that public support for the second amendment can be enhanced when people start understanding the issue. I don’t see why the first amendment has to be exempt from that.
Gay Cooties
I don’t really get the objections to it either. The best arguments seem to be preserving a tradition that’s nearly as old as man. Seems to be that for most of man’s history we’ve also fed other human beings into live volcanos to appease some god or another, and held others as slaves. Tradition can be a poor reason to keep doing something.
Dickson City Incident Update
Four of the people involved in the incident in Dickson City have filed a lawsuit under 42 USC Section 1983 in US District Court. You can see the document filed here. Police departments in the Commonwealth need to start training their officers that open carry is a lawful practice except in a city of the first class (where you need a LTCF), and that a gun not having a record of sale is no evidence to seize it. Dickson City is about to be made an example of why this needs to happen forthwith.
Another reason …
… to never go to China. How welcoming. I mean, I won’t go just because I don’t support human rights abusing totalitarian regimes. That’s not even mentioning that they’ll bug my phone and computer.
Hat Tip Instapundit.
Legality of DC Police State Checkpoint
Civil Liberties Violation
The ACLU needs to get on this like ants on honey. Can someone explain to me why city politicians want to create police states? I’m starting to become an advocate of Congress dissolving DC city government and ruling it directly. Not that I think they’d do much better, but they sure as hell would have a hard time doing worse.
Public Smoking Bans
Looks like a town in California is proposing to ban smoking anywhere in public. I think it’s it’s unreasonable to speculate how soon it will be before gangs are shooting it out in the streets to protect their tobacco turf. You have to figure the next step after that is just banning it altogether. It’s for the lungs of the children, you know.