Miles's blog

People in this country must feel really safe.  A collection of articles from today’s New York Times demonstrates that many people want to restrict the ability of law enforcement to investigate and respond to criminal activity in order to promote their notions of privacy and civil rights. 

·        Police in southern California are going to beless harsh on those found at DUI checkpoints to be driving without a validlicense.  From now on the police will not routinely impound the cars of those caught in that situation.  The change is in response to complaints that current policy falls inordinately on those in America illegally who cannot get valid licenses.  Strangely, nowhere does the article address what happens when there is no insurance.  Most people driving without a valid license also cannot show proof of insurance.  So while allowing a licensed driver to come take the vehicle rather than having the car go to impound sounds like a good plan, I assume it cannot work that way if no one can show proof of insurance.  And while the civil libertarians are right, these police have not deterred anyone from entering America illegally and driving while they are here, permitting such behavior does not make the roads safer.

·        “A leading House Democrat is demandinginformation from the country’s biggest cellphone companies about their role inhelping local police departments conduct surveillance and tracking of suspectsand others in criminal investigations.”  Apparently in this country, helping the police is now looked upon as a bad thing.  The ACLU (America’s Criminals Love Us) has been raising a stink about government invasion of privacy from their inception, and this is like a bone to a dog for them.  They have whipped up the media to incite fear that law enforcement is going to use all this cellphone data (which I bet they have no idea how confusing those damn reports are) to spy on us law-abiding citizens.  Ironic, since there have been no reports of inappropriate police use of cellphone data, but the media is on trial in Britain for hacking into the cellphones of celebrities and crime victims. 

·        New York police are coming under fire for executing arrest warrants in the days prior to May 1 when Occupy Wall Street had promised to stage huge demonstrations in an effort to disrupt New York traffic (which, in fact, they did).  The warrants were for those who had been arrested at Occupy Wall Street efforts in the past and who had failed to appear.  Following the undeniably legal arrests, the cops chose to question those arrested about what they knew about upcoming protests.  Such actions, according to the New York Times “raises new questions about the surveillance efforts by the Police Department, which faces restrictions in monitoring political groups.”  Those restricts should include, the Times said earlier this year, not being able to access public websites.  The police could not have used such tactics if those arrested had appeared in court, but this ability to stop such police activity seems lost on those who want to blame the government.

·        The District Attorney’s Office in Queens was found to have acted unethically, although not unconstitutionally by a court for telling a defendant when they interviewed him that “if there is something you would like us to investigate about this incident you need to tell us now” but never following up on his bullshit response.  This defendant had been arrested and Mirandized the previous day, and was told just before this statement was made by the DA that “in a minute we will read you your rights” which they did.  The defendant then made a statement which a judge refused to suppress on constitutional grounds (no violation having been found) but then excluded based upon a ethical violation by making a defendant a promise the lawyers never intended to keep.  The Times was all upset the defendant never got a lawyer, but the court was more concerned with the inducement of the statement by the promise.  In any event, once again, the focus was turned onto law enforcement rather than the crime by the media who consistently thinks bad prosecutors are more dangerous than bad actors.  The newspaper equated the violation here to a blatant Miranda violation, calling it a way to “subvert” the Miranda rule.  This reminds me of a statement I once heard from the disciplinary prosecutor in Colorado which equated a DA being present during a police interrogation to a lawyer deliberately contacting a represented defendant. 

Don’t get me wrong.  I do not support illegal warrantless searches, or violations of a defendant’s constitutional rights.  I have rejected search warrants for cellphone records I thought were no more than fishing expeditions and insisted on Miranda warnings where appropriate.  My point is merely that the tenor of the debate reflects an attitude of distrust of police and prosecutors that ultimately will undermine the institutions of criminal justice which will work to the detriment of all of us. 

Unfortunately there seems to be no one in the media who stands up for law enforcement.  Both sides of the political debate, liberals on the one hand and Libertarians on the other, fear the power of the police and prosecution more than the criminals who victimize their constituents.   So people must feel pretty safe in this country, if they are more worried about the police looking at their cell phone records than they are some guy breaking into their house, stealing their car, or raping their daughter.