Police State - Official Thread

[Soul Crusher]

Things are gettting worse rapidly

Appeals Court Rules That Cops Can Physically Make You Unlock Your Phone

This week, a federal court decided that police officers can make you unlock your phone, even by physically forcing you to press your thumb against it.

In November 2021, Jeremy Payne was pulled over by two California Highway Patrol (CHP) officers over his car's window tinting. When asked, Payne admitted that he was on parole, which the officers confirmed. After finding Payne's cellphone in the car, officers unlocked it by forcibly pressing his thumb against it as he sat handcuffed. (The officers claimed in their arrest report that Payne "reluctantly unlocked the cell phone" when asked, which Payne disputed; the government later accepted in court "that defendant's thumbprint was compelled.")

The officers searched through Payne's camera roll and found a video taken the same day, which appeared to show "several bags of blue pills (suspected to be fentanyl)." After checking the phone's map and finding what they suspected to be a home address, the officers drove there and used Payne's keys to enter and search the residence. Inside, they  found and seized more than 800 pills. Payne was indicted for possession with intent to distribute fentanyl and cocaine.

In a motion to suppress, Payne's attorneys argued that by forcing him to unlock his phone, the officers "compelled a testimonial communication," violating both the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable search and seizure and the Fifth Amendment's guarantee against self-incrimination. Even though the provisions of his parole required him to surrender any electronic devices and passcodes, "failure to comply could result in 'arrest pending further investigation' or confiscation of the device pending investigation," not the use of force to make him open the phone.

The district court denied the motion to suppress, and Payne pleaded guilty. In November 2022, he was sentenced to 12 years in prison. Notably, Payne had only served three years for the crime for which he was on parole—assault with a deadly weapon on a peace officer.

Payne appealed the denial of the motion to suppress. This week, in an opinion authored by Judge Richard Tallman, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled against Payne.

Searches "incident to arrest" are an accepted part of Fourth Amendment precedent. Further, Tallman wrote that as a parolee, Payne has "a significantly diminished expectation of privacy," and even though the conditions of his parole did not require him to "provide a biometric identifier," the distinction was insufficient to support throwing out the search altogether.

But Tallman went a step further in the Fifth Amendment analysis: "We hold that the compelled use of Payne's thumb to unlock his phone (which he had already identified
for the officers) required no cognitive exertion, placing it firmly in the same category as a blood draw or fingerprint taken at booking," he wrote. "The act itself merely provided CHP with access to a source of potential information."

From a practical standpoint, this is chilling. First of all, the Supreme Court ruled in 2016 that police needed a warrant before drawing a suspect's blood.

And one can argue that fingerprinting a suspect as they're arrested is part and parcel with establishing their identity. Nearly half of U.S. states require people to identify themselves to police if asked.

But forcibly gaining access to someone's phone provides more than just their identity—it's a window into their entire lives. Even cursory access to someone's phone can turn up travel history, banking information, and call and text logs—a treasure trove of potentially incriminating information, all of which would otherwise require a warrant.

https://reason.com/2024/04/19/appeals-court-rules-that-cops-can-physically-make-you-unlock-your-phone/

[Skeletor]

Just a misdemeanor... Don't expect any rioting or looting of course.


Colorado sheriff’s deputy convicted of misdemeanor in shooting death of man who called for help

A former Colorado sheriff’s deputy was convicted of a misdemeanor on Friday in the shooting death of a 22-year-old man in distress who had called 911 for help after his car got stuck in a small mountain community.

Andrew Buen was also charged with second-degree murder and official misconduct in the 2022 death of Christian Glass, which drew national attention and prompted calls for police reform focused on crisis intervention. But jurors could not reach a verdict on those charges and only found him guilty of reckless endangerment, which is typically punished by a maximum four months in jail, The Denver Post reported.

A second-degree murder conviction would have carried a sentence of years in prison. A second officer indicted in Glass’ death previously pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor. Six other officers have been charged with failing to intervene.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/christian-glass-killing-former-colorado-sheriffs-deputy-convicted-misd-rcna149646

[Skeletor]

A police youth program is plagued by sexual abuse allegations across the U.S.

The last known person to see Sandra Birchmore alive was a police officer.

He stopped by her apartment days before the elementary school teacher’s aide, 23 years old and newly pregnant, was found dead in February 2021. The medical examiner later ruled her death a suicide.

The officer worked for the Stoughton Police Department, near Boston, where he first met Birchmore about a decade earlier through the agency’s Explorer post — part of a youth mentorship program run by local departments across the country.

He acknowledged having sex with her when she was 15, according to a court ruling citing the officer’s text messages. That document indicates that his twin brother — also an officer and Explorer mentor — and a third Stoughton officer, a veteran who ran the program, eventually had sex with her, too.

These assertions, disclosed in an internal police investigative report and through an ongoing lawsuit filed by Birchmore’s family, have sparked demonstrations and an online petition asking for further investigation into her death. The three men, who did not respond to requests for comment, have denied any wrongdoing and have not been charged with a crime.

The youth program that introduced Birchmore to the officers is among hundreds of such chapters at police agencies around the country. Created by the Boy Scouts of America decades ago, law enforcement Explorer posts are designed to help teens and young adults learn about policing.

Birchmore’s case is among at least 194 allegations that law enforcement personnel, mostly policemen, have groomed, sexually abused or engaged in inappropriate behavior with Explorers since 1974, an ongoing investigation by The Marshall Project has found. The vast majority of those affected were teenage girls — some as young as 13.

Lack of oversight was partly responsible for the abuse, The Marshall Project investigation found. In many programs, armed officers were allowed to be alone with teenage Explorers. In a few instances, departments minimized or dismissed the concerns of those who reported troubling behavior, records show.

The officers accused of abusing teenagers spanned the ranks, from patrolmen to police chiefs. Some were department veterans cited in news articles for their community work. A handful had served their agencies for barely a year. And some were married men with families of their own.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/police-explorer-boy-scouts-sexual-abuse-allegations-rcna145347

[Skeletor]

Top FBI Official Urges Agents to Use Warrantless Wiretaps on US Soil

A top FBI official is encouraging employees to continue to investigate Americans using a warrantless foreign surveillance program in an effort to justify the bureau’s spy powers, according to an internal email obtained by WIRED.

Known as Section 702, the program is controversial for having been misused by the FBI to target US protesters, journalists, and even a sitting member of Congress. US lawmakers, nevertheless, voted to extend the program in April for an additional two years, while codifying a slew of procedures that the FBI claims is working to stop the abuse.

Obtained by WIRED, an April 20 email authored by FBI deputy director Paul Abbate to employees states: “To continue to demonstrate why tools like this are essential to our mission, we need to use them, while also holding ourselves accountable for doing so properly and in compliance with legal requirements.” [Emphasis his.]

Added Abbate: “I urge everyone to continue to look for ways to appropriately use US person queries to advance the mission, with the added confidence that this new pre-approval requirement will help ensure that those queries are fully compliant with the law.”

“The deputy director's email seems to show that the FBI is actively pushing for more surveillance of Americans, not out of necessity but as a default,” says US representative Zoe Lofgren, a Democrat from California. “This directly contradicts earlier assertions from the FBI during the debate over Section 702’s reauthorization.”

Following publication, FBI spokesperson Susan McKee provided a statement from the bureau that mischaracterized WIRED's reporting, inaccurately claiming it “alleged that that the FBI instructed its employees to violate the law or FBI policies.” The statement added that Abbate's email “emphasized Congress’ recognition of the vital importance of FISA Section 702 to protect the American people and was sent to ensure that FBI personnel were immediately aware of, and in compliance with, the privacy enhancing changes the law has put in place.”

https://www.wired.com/story/fbi-section-702-us-person-queries-email/

[Skeletor]

Another shameful decision on the issue by the Supreme Court. The argument about not requiring a separate preliminary hearing is a cop out, since the "timely forfeiture hearing" took almost 2 years for one of the victims.


Supreme Court Rules No Due Process Right to Preliminary Hearings in Civil Asset Forfeiture Cases

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the due process rights of two Alabama women were not violated when they both had to wait over a year for a court hearing to challenge the police seizure of their cars.

In a 6–3 decision, the Court's conservative majority held in the case Culley v. Marshall, Attorney General of Alabama that property owners in civil asset forfeiture proceedings have no due process right to a preliminary court hearing to determine if police had probable cause to seize their property.

"When police seize and then seek civil forfeiture of a car that was used to commit a drug offense, the Constitution requires a timely forfeiture hearing," Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in the majority opinion, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, and Amy Coney Barrett. "The question here is whether the Constitution also requires a separate preliminary hearing to determine whether the police may retain the car pending the forfeiture hearing. This Court's precedents establish that the answer is no: The Constitution requires a timely forfeiture hearing; the Constitution does not also require a separate preliminary hearing."

Under civil asset forfeiture laws, police can seize property suspected of being connected to criminal activity, even if the owner is never charged or convicted of a crime. Law enforcement groups say it is a vital tool to disrupt drug trafficking and other organized crime.

Those criticisms have been echoed in the past by not just the Supreme Court's liberal justices but also Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, giving forfeiture critics hope that a skeptical majority on the Court would clamp down on civil forfeiture.

However, despite writing in a concurrence that "this case leaves many larger questions unresolved about whether, and to what extent, contemporary civil forfeiture practices can be squared with the Constitution's promise of due process," Gorsuch, joined by Thomas, both agreed with the majority opinion.


https://reason.com/2024/05/09/supreme-court-rules-no-due-process-right-to-preliminary-hearings-in-civil-asset-forfeiture-cases/