yyzvoyageur

Wow, that's poor police work. I'm glad she sued. Stories surface every now and then about police executing warrants on the wrong house. Should all search warrants be denied because some dim-witted police officer in a different jurisdiction couldn't get the address right the last time?

studentff

Denied, no. Given extra scrutiny, yes. Strictly restricted as to when LEOs can use aggressive and destructive no-knock tactics, yes. Statutorily enhanced penalties against LEOs when they screw-up a search warrant resulting in destruction of life or property and it turns out the subject of the search was innocent (or the wrong house), yes IMO. If departments, prosecutors, and politicians swiftly and harshly punished screwups, then such screwups would become quite rare.

Google "Cheye Calvo dogs" or take a look at this article. Cops raided a guy's house (happened to be the mayor), slaughtered his two dogs (labs, not exactly an aggressive breed) while the dogs were running away from the cops (dogs were shot in the back and in the hind legs), spread dog blood all over the house, and held the mayor and his mother-in-law at gunpoint for several hours while one of the detectives laughed and joked on her cell phone while she made an appointment for one of her own dogs. It turned out the household was completely innocent.

The text of the warrant acknowledged that there was a good chance it was the wrong house (drug smugglers frequently ship drugs to innocent parties and intercept the package before delivery). The warrant did not justify no-knock procedures. The cops refused to apologize, refuse to release the internal report on the incident, and refuse to name the jack-booted pigs involved. (and I use that word specifically and intentionally to refer to those that are to blame for this incident)

IMO this case is a perfect example of what is wrong with the police in America. IMO every member of the departments involved should be shunned by their community, literally run out of town and denied service in businesses, and be shouted down in the street by citizens. If the law-enforcement community knew what was good for them, their members and their unions would stand up and condemn these cases. But instead, they close ranks and defend those involved in spite of overwhelming evidence. Until this scum and others like them are dealt with, shamed by their peers, and punished, I will never trust a LEO or even give one the time of day.

FliesWay2Much

Why not? Either it's illegal or it's not. Why did you not report what you suspected were bootleg DVDs? Doesn't the TSA realize that this is a multi-billion dollar illegal industry?

Either you participate in the warrantless dragnet or you don't. Screeners have very little judgement when it comes to screening. Why do you have all sorts of latitude when you happen to find "something?" You can't have it both ways.

pmocek

Of course there is. I'm not comparing them. Consider, though, that TSA doesn't know it has found cocaine in the course of a bag check unless it stops searching for dangerous items and tests whatever substance is suspected of being cocaine. The alternative is to give the subject of search the benefit of the doubt when something is found that is clearly not a weapon, explosive, or incendiary.

I have recently suggested that they give such benefit of the doubt:

Not really. Setting aside the fact that TSA doesn't know they have found cocaine until they have stopped searching to test whatever they found:
In the case of a car that is exceeding the legal speed limit, a police officer -- someone trained to enforce the law for us in a constitutional manner -- stops someone because he has observed wrongdoing, and we have granted no special exemption to the normal protections against abuse of power that exist. In the case of TSA searching people at airports, the search is not performed by a law enforcement officer and those performing the search have no reason to believe the subject of the search has done anything wrong. Under other circumstances it would be illegal for TSA to conduct such a search, but we have granted a special exemption because we are so concerned about the possibility of dangerous items being carried onto airplanes.


Sure. A dragnet would be the police officer stopping everyone who passes and searching them without reason to suspect wrongdoing. An underhanded dragnet like the TSA conducts would happen if we allowed the police to stop everyone to prevent dangerous items from being carried onto our highways, then they began to use the search to look for anything they want. See the difference?

Those aren't minor to local parking enforcement or to the Motion Picture Association of America. Regardless, in this discussion, people have expressed the belief that TSA have a duty to report to law enforcement any indications of wrongdoing that turn up in a search.

SgtScott31 wrote:

First of all, let's not use the term "pirated" unless we're talking about someone who forcibly boards a ship and steals a shipment of DVDs. There's no plundering going on when someone copies information without permission. Use of the term "pirate" to refer to someone who copies information without permission of the copyright holder is pushed upon us by those who profit from restricting the copying of information and have a vested interest in elevating our perception of the wrongness of the act.

But whatever we call copyright infringement, unless you investigated thoroughly, you cannot know what you claim. You are probably guessing based on the appearance of the discs you saw. Please assume that people prefer not to take their legally-obtained originals with them traveling and have made copies in order to avoid the risk of having their discs stolen or damaged. There's no reason for you to suspect wrongdoing, and it's no more important to airplane security than finding crack pipes, cocaine, stolen credit cards, pornography, unvaccinated pets, or undocumented immigrants.

HSVTSO Dean

Because:

As you just pointed out, we work within the boundaries of our SOP. There's nothing within it that calls for us to notify authorities of pirated movies or pirated software. By the same token, if I hypothetically stumbled across some documents in checked baggage that outlines some corporation's plan for circumventing government safety regulations via illicit means, I would do the very same thing I do for pirated DVDs: finish screening the bag, and send it on its way.

As so many have pointed out: it's not my business.

Have you ever stopped to consider that it's not exactly the big warrantless dragnet that it's made out to be? There's actually very little outside of the scope of weapons, explosives, and incendiaries that we are supposed to report to the authorities (especially in the scope of working in checked baggage screening). Unpaid parking tickets aren't it. Pirated DVDs aren't it.

It basically boils down to drugs, drug paraphernalia, and large sums of cash.

There are other things that we report to law enforcement authorities, of course, but they are things that do fall within the scope of weapons, explosives, and incendiaries. Such as an undeclared firearm, for example.

HSVTSO Dean

I'm an avid video gamer, so I've grown up with that particular terminology. :P And, either way, it is considered proper usage of the word (see: this)

And, if absolutely nothing else, "piracy" is quicker to say and to type than "copyright infringement," and I always try to go for the open, shortest path first.

Nah. I've been doing this job too long to place assumption blinders on for some things, man. Of the many thousands upon thousands of checked-in luggage that I have screened, personally, and physically (we don't have neat little x-ray machines here in HSV for the checked baggage; everything is inspected by hand), from people that identify across the strata of human society from every level and from multiple countries, people don't seem to have a problem with taking their original DVDs with them.

You ain't gonna' convince me on this one, Phil. They were pirated.

However, you and I do agree on this point:

Global_Hi_Flyer

And the incident in the Oakland subway this week will get a FAR more public airing and accountability.

Why?

Because the local citizens have rioted and are considered "minority". In the case you cite, it's an upstanding town mayor in a nice, middle-class, majority community. "Don't make waves".... "It's for our security".... "We must fight the war on drugs".... The mayor is in a tough spot given that he is an elected official and an opponent can make hay if he decides to sue the police. That is part of my definition of police state.

T-the-B

And yet - to return to the original topic of this thread - it appears that reporting large sums of cash is within the scope of screeners' duties. This despite the fact that carrying large sums of cash domestically is perfectly legal; and carrying large sums internationally is also legal, provided the proper paperwork is done.

As long as TSA policy required screeners to report perfectly legal activity to LEOs the screening process is exactly a big warrantless dragnet.

Boggie Dog

Warrantless or not it does demonstrate that TSA is interested in more than what their enabling directives state they should be doing. For an organization that fails in its base mission I think TSA should review their objective and refocus on what they are chartered to do.

Regardless, TSA has made the possession of large sums of case illegal for all practical purposes in this nations ariports.

I routinely archive my CD/DVD's and use a copy in order to protect my original investment. According to Dean I must be pirating my discs.

In reference to Sgt. Scott, if a uniformed police officer came up to me and started asking questions I would consider myself to be detained regardless if the officer said so or not. The officer is most likely not just passing the time of day.

HSVTSO Dean

Hooo-boy. Let's get technical for just a second.

Dependant upon what it is, you may still be.

Last time I checked (which, admittedly, was several years ago and I don't have time before I start my shift to look it up, so correct me if I'm wrong!), the FBI warning stated any unauthorized reproduction is illegal.

I know most video games I've played in the past several years have a stipulation in the EULA that states the owner can make one copy for back-up archival purposes, but I'm not aware of any DVDs with the same authorization.

studentff

I hope it does get a lot of public airing and some real accountability. As much as I detest what happened in the Calvo case, shooting an unarmed and restrained person in the back is much worse.

Perhaps ironically, I'm pretty sure that Mayor Calvo is himself Hispanic. I give him a lot of credit for not exploiting that fact in the press, because in his case I think his race was truly irrelevant. He seems to be taking steps to generate some accountability, but he's not using race baiting in the process. Calvo has also taken pains to point out that the department that invaded his home has a history of doing the same things in poorer neighborhoods where the citizens don't have his means of fighting back.

IMO there is a serious mentality problem pervading much of our law-enforcement community which has been aggravated by terms like "war on drugs" and aggravated further by the checkpoint, police-state, anything-for-security philosophy touted by the Federal government since 9/11. TSA turning citizens with large amounts of legal cash over to LEOs for possible/probable seizure of their cash is just one small example of the problem. A very insightful poster in another FT discussion a while back pointed out that the root of the problem was when police stopped being "peace officers" and started being "law-enforcement officers."

Superguy

The only problem is that it conflicts with fair use doctrines, which muddies the whole thing. I'm not going to get into that argument here. However, in a lot of cases certain clauses in EULAs aren't enforceable, such as shrink wrap licensing where if you open the software, you agree to the license before you have a chance to read it.

I think with DVD's, if you can find a way to copy the whole DVD and not the copy protection, you may not run afoul of the law. Breaking the CSS protection on it is illegal, but I haven't seen any rulings that copying an entire DVD you own for backup purposes is breaking the law.

In the gaming world, the whole DRM and copyright thing's starting to come under fire with hearings on the DRM and stuff in March.

Global_Hi_Flyer

I agree, although I'd attribute the timing to the point where they became quasi-military forces (SWAT teams and the like). In some police departments, there is a huge amount of gear that used to be reserved for the military - even the LAPD is using "drone" aircraft now to spy - er - surveill people & groups. Likewise, when it became commonplace to allow police to lie and break the law themselves in order to conduct a sting/entrap people, that added to the change (yes, I understand that there may be certain times where deception is legit, but I put most "stings" into the "entrapment" category).

I have no problem with training the police to fight crime, but I draw the line at "shows of force" like Amtrak police routinely do at Union Station in DC (dogs, semi-automatic weapons, body armor, riot masks, etc). Once upon a time children were trained that the police were friends and officers were to be trusted. With today's "anything to keep control" attitude amongst many (note to the Sgt, I'm saying "many" - not "all"), a citizen has to look at an officer with a certain level of suspicion. The Maryland case of infiltrating, gathering intelligence, and putting the people who were observed on the Watch List as possible terrorists is a prime example of going too far.

Mayberry left the station a long time ago.

ND Sol

I think that the TSA is flirting with the boundaries of the Constitution when it puts out directives of what items are to be reported to LE. For items that are not related to transportation security and, as such, are not the object of the administrative search, why should some be reported and not others?

That brings into question the validity of the search when favorites are being picked because the TSA (by itself) has decided certain illegal matters are more important that others based not on the potential punishment, but more on its belief as to social mores.

And do you know the reason that TSO's are not taught anything about drug identification, but yet are expected to report suspected drugs?

LessO2

How about simply taking the energies used on finding $10k and drugs and use that to pass a Red Team test or two? You know, what's supposed to be the basic principle and function of the TSA?