Search and Seizure

The NYPD's stop-and-frisk program unconstitutionally targets racial minorities, a federal judge ruled Monday. Mayor Bloomberg isn't happy, but civil libertarians and black and brown New Yorkers are.

Veteran investigative journalist Radley Balko has delivered a masterwork on the rise of American's militarized police. "Rise of the Warrior Cop" is a must-read for those of us wondering how we got in this sorry mess and how we can ever get out.

The war on marijuana is disproportionately waged against Black America, the ACLU finds in a new report based on federal statistics. And it costs a whole lot of money and isn't achieving much.

A recently leadked DEA memo suggested that the feds couldn't crack the encryption on Apples's iMessage communications system. There's both more and less to it than meets the eye.

Meet Stingray, law enforcement's newest high-tech weapon in its fight against crime. Civil libertarians and privacy advocates have some concerns, and they're starting to make their way into the federal courts.

A drug dog's sniff of a home's front door is a search under the meaning of the Fourth Amendment and police must thus first obtain a search warrant, the US Supreme Court ruled Tuesday.

As politicians dither, New Yorkers hoping to end New York City's reign as marijuana arrest capital of the world will have to wait. In the meantime, another thousand people are getting popped for pot in the Big Apple every week.

New York City and the NYPD are under fire this week for both their stop-and-frisk policing program and their massive number of marijuana possession busts in a state where it is supposed to be decriminalized.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has announced that police will no longer hold people arrested for small-time marijuana busts, but will instead merely have them make a desk appearance and then be released.