There's something funny going on in Georgia, the DEA is investigating missing drug evidence in West Virginia, more prison guards get in a trouble, and an Alabama cop gets caught with sticky fingers. Just another week of drug-related law enforcement corruption. Chronicle story here.

The city council in Springfield, Missouri reluctantly passed a marijuana decriminalization ordinance to avoid a citizen vote, but has plans to amend it. Chronicle story here.

A 21-year-old black man killed Wednesday by Alabama narcs is the 44th person to die in US domestic drug law enforcement operations so far this year. Chronicle story here.

Arkansas will be the first southern state where voters will have a chance to approve medical marijuana at the polls. An initiative there has qualified for the November ballot, state officials said Monday. Chronicle story here.

Drug prohibition-related police corruption never stops, and there are so many varieties of law enforcement misdoing... Chronicle story here.

New Jersey will become the ninth state to enact a Good Samaritan drug overdose prevention law -- if Gov. Christie signs it into law. Chronicle story here.

An Iowa City man was shot and killed by undercover members of a drug task force last Thursday after "an altercation ensued and shots were fired." Chronicle story here.

Hoping to put a human face on the drug war's toll, a cross-border Caravan for Peace has begun its weeks-long, 27-city journey across the US. Chronicle feature story here.

The Arkansas Medical Marijuana Act looks set to qualify for the ballot after proponents handed in three times as many signatures as they need to make it for the November election. Chronicle story here.

The tendency of the courts to trash our privacy rights in a pathetic attempt to prevent marijuana smoking is so routine that I seldom bother even to point it out anymore, but something about this case bugged me just enough to slap it around for a second.

FAIRBANKS, Alaska -- The federal government can obtain suspected marijuana growers' utility records without a warrant.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday ruled in the case of a Fairbanks utility, Golden Valley Electric Association, which refused turning over records to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

…

GVEA argued the Fourth Amendment protects customers from search and seizure without a proper warrant.

But the appeals court ruled a customer lacks an expectation of privacy in an item, like a business record. [SacBee.com]

Doesn't that just sound silly? In fairness, I've studied enough law to know that the legal definition of a term like "expectation of privacy" is always slowly evolving and doesn't necessarily mean what a random person would think it to mean. But come the hell on. Once we reach point where they're telling us with a straight face that we have no "expectation of privacy" with regards to our business records, well, that's just too stupid for school.

Unfortunately, it's really rather consistent with how the courts treat our privacy rights, and the decision of how much privacy we can reasonably expect is not ours to make. Courts have consistently ruled, for example, that information you share with a third party carries no expectation of privacy because you're assuming the risk that someone will turn that information over to the government. I disagree.

Rather obviously, we wouldn't have to worry about the government obtaining our information from third parties if the government hadn't granted itself the authority to collect said information and then introduce it as evidence against us in court. I wouldn't have to worry about third parties carelessly disclosing my private information if such information were legally inadmissible as it ought to be.

When I hear the term "expectation of privacy" I think of the physical boundaries that separate public from private. I don't expect privacy with regards to my purchases at the grocery store, or the content of a conversation on a crowded street. It's well understood that any crime committed in "plain view" is fair game for police, even if they have to use binoculars to get a good view. I even sort of sympathize with allowing police to search your trash, since you left it outside where anyone could walk off with it.

But anyone can't just walk off with my utility bills. Stealing mail is a crime, after all. To say that I have no expectation of privacy with regards to that information is preposterous. Yes, the utility company could give my information to the police, but so could a neighbor who steals my mail. Either way, I'm getting screwed by somebody and it's not my fault for expecting privacy.

I don't even want to know how many times I've written about the reckless idiocy of this man, but what am I supposed to do, ignore him? The arrogance on display here is so perfectly horrible, I'm afraid I just can’t look away.

You can see the frustration of his guests as they struggle to explain anything at all about our drug policy to a guy who is so determined never to understand it. From his casual slander against medical marijuana laws, to his bizarre inversion of factual vs. theoretical examples, to his ridiculous insistence that any drug sale borders on attempted murder, O'Reilly is the hellish incarnation of every dumb idea anybody ever had about how to deal with drugs.

I can't wait to hear what he has to say when we finally end the drug war and everyone is safer, happier, and healthy. I can only assume he'll complain quite vigorously about it.

North Dakota could be voting on medical marijuana this fall. Initiative campaigners have handed in 150% of the signatures they need to qualify. Now, they have to wait and see if they have enough valid signatures. Chronicle story here.