Ok, now this is scary

[Guest Brian@GunDepot]

And speaking of law enforcement in D.C.: A federal judge has issued a ruling about checkpoints in the District of Columbia that ought to alarm conservatives and liberals alike. U.S. District Judge Richard Leon said the public interest in deterring crime in the manner D.C. had chosen -- drawing a cordon around the Trinidad area of Northeast Washington and demanding that motorists driving into the area present a "legitimate reason" for their presence there -- was overwhelming.

The ruling does not settle the question. It concerns only a request for a temporary injunction, and does not make a final determination on the constitutionality of the checkpoints.

That constitutionality certainly deserves robust challenge. The checkpoints circumscribe the right of citizens of the District to move about freely. They affect drivers but not pedestrians. They give the police the authority to decide whose presence is legitimate and whose is not. And they treat citizens as potential criminals without any reasonable individual grounds for suspicion.

In important ways the checkpoints resemble the District gun-control law struck down by the Supreme Court in its landmark Heller decision. Like gun control, the checkpoints circumscribe the rights of a large number of law-abiding citizens in the hope that doing so will foil the far smaller percentage of individuals who harbor some criminal intent. If the rationale for the checkpoints is upheld, then it could be applied with equal validity to random strip searches, racial profiling, or house-by-house sweeps for illegal weapons and drugs.

The public does indeed have a strong interest in deterring crime. But that interest does not confer upon government the authority to do anything it pleases in the name of law enforcement.

link:

http://www.inrich.com/cva/ric/search.apx.-content-articles-RTD-2008-11-04-0009.html

Did we convert to Nazi Germany overnight and no one caught this? And media asks why US citizens are 'arming' themselves....

Edited November 8, 2008 by Brian@GunDepot

[Mike.357]

that is old. Think i first read this a few months ago. I wonder if it still goes on.

Pretty f'd up for sure.