Redefining the English Language to Fight the Drug War
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.
Linguistic separation of cannabis from "drug", "drug laws" etc.
Start with REDEFINING cannabis as a nutrition supplement rather than as a "drug".
It is true that the process of "smoking" cannabis involves "drug" use because by every reasonable standard carbon monoxide, "tars" and other combustion toxins are DRUGS which produce a "stoned" effect vulgarly attributed to the cannabis. This is easily solved by acknowledging that vaporization is the way to go, and also that for those who have not the cash on hand to buy a $600 Volcano it is certainly possible to VAPORIZE WITH A ONE-HITTER-- provided you have attached a long flexible drawtube to the exit-end and can perform the "distant lighter" technique, i.e. for the first 19 seconds or so of slow suckage holding the moderate flame far enough below the crater opening of your SCREENED utensil that air entering upon the 25-mg single loading is the requisite 385F and the herb does NOT ignite until practically all vapors are safely harvested.
Another thing-- eliminate words like "pot" (as in "potty-mouth", "potshot", "potbelly", "stinkpot", "crackpot" etc.), "dope", "shit" and other derogatory terms from any association with cannabis. Attack and exterminate the suicidal habit of rolling a "joint" (which term Europeans take to mean the joining of cannabis and addictive drug tobacco in a single $igarette, which has resulted in higher tobacco $igarette addiction rates in all European countries than in the United States and Canada).
Sad but too true
I will never understand why people are so willing to sit back and watch while their rights are stripped away in the name of security or even worse,the war on drugs.I remember when the idea of putting a camera on the street would have had everyone talking revolution.Now there are so many cameras that the security state just puts them up without explanation.They feel no need.You will be photographed so many times just going for cigarettes that you could make a full length movie,although it would bore the crap out of you.Communications are routinely intercepted and stored as is everything you do on the web.This thing with the electric companies and fire departments shilling for the DEA is a travesty.In my area they do these inspections and bill the consumer for any costs.This for an uninvited violation of your personal space.Everything that is done in the name of drug enforcement is so out of what was once normal that it's unbelievable what this government has convinced people is for their own good.Governments rule and control people by fear.It has always been this way.The war on drugs has just taken the violation of privacy and personal freedom and turned it on it's head.We are really in a police state.All to try to enforce laws that many people don't respect and even more violate daily.It has eroded whatever respect there was for law and order in a huge segment of society.We now have two distinct societies living under one rule.The people who use drugs and those that do not.Even many of those that do not oppose our drug laws and the evil that the enforcement of these laws has wrought.If all drugs were legal and people were allowed to use whatever they liked there would probably be a reduction in drug use.Every year of the drug war use has increased and prices have fallen while quality has risen.Portugal has seen drug use plummet,especially among the youth.Of course the very same people who have stripped away our rights tell us that that wouldn't work here?They are so invested in the huge system set up to stop the unstoppable that the very idea of shutting down all that infrastructure scares them to death.I'm sure we could find something else for these alphabet soup brigades to do.
Your are correct...
Most people sit back and allow their rights to be diminished because they don't think that the law, verdict or otherwise will ever apply to them. It isn't until the law is used as it was not intended and applied to them is when they realize what they have lost.
Another issue concerning the system, is that it consumes every minute of everyone's time. There is little time left to educate one's self about the changes concerning liberty and to be active in policy changes regarding the rights and freedoms of the republic. Most of the republic is more concerned about Kristen Stewart's affair than government policy and politics because, as by design, our mass media is the voice of the system (systematic distraction).
Those that will study this time in the future will clearly see how the American form of democracy failed. For me, I continue on believing that there will be a significant event (a catalyst for change) that will cause critical scrutiny of the state of our failing democracy, enough to bring about significant change for the republic (I hope to contribute to that catalyst, whatever it may be).
Cannabis is that catalyst
Good point, anonymouse, but take heart, things are slightly better than in 1968 when I had my first toke. Let me spell out things you can do:
1. Go to wikiHow.com: "How to Make Smoke Pipes from Everyday Objects" and get into the bizness of providing 25-mg single-toke utensils which cut the customer base out from under $ecret $acred $igarette Papers (sneaky system for luring youngsters who want to try cannabis into tobacco stores where they are exposed to slave niggotine propaganda).
2. Learn the Distant-Lighter technique for vaping with a cheap or handmade one-hitter: hold flame far enough below crater opening that air entry temperature is 385F (see above).
3. Learn how to make screens for a quarter-inch or 5.5mm diameter crater utensil (wikiHow.com: Make Screens for a 1/4"-Diameter Smoking Utensil) (screen keeps fine particles from being drawn down into the subchannel).
4. Sift herb to 1/16th inch particle size for best vaping success (wikiHow.com: Sift Herbs for Smoking Use).
5. Go to Jamaica and open a headshop with attached factory for making CHOOMETTE (screened long-stem rastafarian microchillum with gigantic export potential-- 8 billion needed worldwide to convert 1.2 billion hot burning overdose niggotine $igarette addicts to cannabis-inspired MODERATION (Qur'anic superprayers: FIVE TOKES A DAY ANY SPECIES).
nice ideas
Thanks for another great contribution, M.Wood. You are a genius.
The Privacy Doctrine is the problem
The problem is less that business records should be regarded as private, but that privacy is the standard by which we judge whether or not a search was reasonable.
If it's a search, it should require a warrant regardless of the privacy concerns unless exigent circumstances dictate otherwise. Exigent circumstances could be a real concern that evidence will be destroyed, or that a victim will suffer unless the police act quickly. There's no fear here on the part of the police that the utility company will alter their records to frustrate the police.
Between the privacy doctrine of the Fourth Amendment and rulings like this one mean is the police can conduct fishing expeditions on people without any belief, let alone probable cause, that they've committed a crime.
"expectation of privacy"
Grant and accept individual sovereignty, you do not owe yourself to the "Rule of and by LAW ENFORCEMENT, just because you were born into a corrupt Dominion with all your human weakness
as their power and structure. Don't look up don't look down do look out. It's all Bullshit.©
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