Secret bill to authorize secret searches

Brett Bellmore

New member
www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment051800a.html

Fourth Amendment Sneak Attack
Reno's outrageous Secret Searches measure.
By Dave Kopel <http://www.davekopel.com>, of the Independence Institute <http://independenceinstitute.org>
he Reno Department of Justice is very good at being sneaky. The DOJ's lobbyists are on the verge of successfully sneaking into law a provision which will authorize federal agents to stealthily enter people's homes, search the homes, and not tell anyone.
The Secret Searches measure is so outrageous that it would have no chance of being enacted as a bill on its own, when subjected to public scrutiny and debate. So instead, the DOJ has nestled the Secret Search item deep inside a long bill dealing with methamphetimines. The measure is further disguised with the innocuous title of "Notice Clarification."
Subject to virtually no public discussion, the Secret Searches item has already passed the Senate, hidden inside the methamphetimine giant S. 486. Next week, the House Judiciary Committee will take up H.R. 2987, the House version of the Senate bill, which also contains the buried clause on Secret Searches (section 301). The federal bankruptcy reform bill (which has passed both houses, and is currently in a conference committee) likewise has the hidden Secret Searches language.
If the Secret Searches provision became law, it would apply to all searches conducted by the federal government, not just searches involving methamphetimines or bankruptcy.
When conducting searches, federal agents are currently required to announce their presence before entering, and to provide an inventory of any items they take. Because the person whose home or business is being searched knows about the search, he can exercise his Fourth Amendment rights, and make sure that the police have a properly-issued search warrant. He can also see if the search is being conducted according to the warrant's terms — i.e., the police are searching only for items authorized by the warrant, they are searching the right address, etc.
But under a Secret Searches law, federal police could enter a person's home surreptitiously, conduct a search, and not tell the homeowner until months later.
Even months later, the police would not have to provide an inventory of "intangible" items which were taken in a search. So if the police entered your home secretly, and photocopied your diary or made a copy of your computer hard disk, they would never have to inform you of their actions.
Should the Secret Searches item be deleted from the methamphetimine and bankruptcy bills, it is likely that Clinton will try to sneak the item into a gigantic budget bill, during the Congressional Republicans' annual fall appropriations surrender. Take note: In a previous Congress, Clinton was able to obtain authority for warrantless wiretaps — which had been defeated after public debate earlier in the year — by hiding the authority in the year's omnibus budget bill.

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This MUST be stopped!


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Sic semper tyrannis!
 
This is a common dirty trick. Burying major major stuff towards the end of a loooong bill on another subject. This particular bill is obviously unconst., but that's never stopped Congress before, so you're right, this crap needs to be exposed and stopped. If anything, current no-knock raids should be banned. We need to go the opposite direction here.
 
Well, I'm ready for another one of my "What the Hell is going on?" email/phone call to my Congressman, but I need help. Bold italics mine.

Using http://thomas.loc.gov/ I can't find anything. No hits on Sec. 301 in HR2987 and no hits on the phrase "Secret Searches". The nearest I can get is Sec. 301 in the Senate bill S486:

"SEC. 301. NOTICE; CLARIFICATION.

(a) NOTICE OF ISSUANCE- Section 3103a of title 18, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following new sentence: `With respect to any issuance under this section or any other provision of law (including section 3117 and any rule), any notice required, or that may be required, to be given may be delayed
pursuant to the standards, terms, and conditions set forth in section 2705, unless otherwise expressly provided by statute.'.

(b) CLARIFICATION- (1) Section 2(e) of Public Law 95-78 (91 Stat. 320) is amended by adding at the end the following:

`Subdivision (d) of such rule, as in effect on this date, is amended by inserting `tangible' before `property' each place it occurs.'.

(2) The amendment made by paragraph (1) shall take effect on the date of the enactment of this Act."

?????


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The New World Order has a Third Reich odor.

[This message has been edited by Oatka (edited May 18, 2000).]
 
Otka, I did the same at the same source. I followed the link for the artical and e-mailed it to my Rep.s office and asked her to check this out. She's (her assistant) is pretty good about answering so I hope I have a verification on this in the next 24. Will let everyone know if I do.
 
Interesting post please update us with new post and info. This turns my stomach as much as "MR."Reno's face does.This is a great country despite most of our current politicans.
 
Gentlemen and Ladies, I just got a call from my Representatives research assistant and she was finally able to pull up a summary. There is some validity to this article to the point that she is turning over to their legal advisor! It is tucked into the anphetemine section where it is proposed as a way to gain info before one of these drug houses is able to leave and start up somwhere else. It appears there may not be protection from such action for us. I would suggest you call your representative and send a link to the National review report. NOW! And ask them what the hell's going on! After they research this (estimated it would be the first of next week before they finished) the legal advisor will get back to me. It will be another week before we hear the final on this one!
 
I'm an old fashioned kinda guy so I think our elected representatives out to read legislation that they vote on. I find it intolerable that a talk radio and newspaper articles are used to blow the whistle on clearly dangerous provisions of the law.

To quote others in this thread, "What the hell is going on up there?????"

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Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.

Barry Goldwater--1964
 
Waitone:

I agree, in a perfect, or even significantly imperfect world, Congressmen would read the bills before they voted. Unfortunately, this has been made impossible.

1. The sheer volume of legislation going through Congress is humanly impossible for one man, or even a small staff of men, to read... Especially in time to catch stuff like this before it's voted on.

2. The actual text of legislation often isn't released to most members before the vote, anyway.

3. Sometimes, the leadership takes advantage of this fact to write provisions into bills AFTER they've been voted into law!

Can't read ten thousand pages of an omnibus spending bill in the two days before it's voted on, when they won't give you a copy, and they change it after you vote anyway!

Basically, the system has been set up like this to allow the "leaders" to force through stuff the members don't want, and to allow the members to plausibly deny that they knew what they were voting on.

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Sic semper tyrannis!
 
Okay. Now combine this information with that given at the "Why we should fear the census" thread. Then factor in guncontrol/civilian disarmament.

Worried?
 
Shin Tao: I've been worried since the beginnings of the debates of the GCA of 1968.

All I've gotten for several thousand dollars to "our" lobbying groups and several hundred letters to editors and "our" elected representatives is a modicum of delay in the unending disarmament process.

Well, I guess delays by the Barrs, et al, are better than the Democrats' hurryings--but I'm tired of such sellouts as Dole's on the Brady Bill...

:(, Art
 
YEHA!!!! Folks I think we may have started a fire! Bob Barr is on the hunt now, and he's not happy! Check this out! http://www.worldnetdaily.com/bluesky_exnews/20000524_xex_barr_pleads_.shtml Sorry about the html, I haven't figured out how to turn it on. If nothing else got to www.worldnet daily and check it out. If you haven't called your rep. do so! According to this article, this thing passed the Senate unanimously in November! Time for some big changes! Liberty is vigilance!
 
Brett, what really bothers me is the apparent willingness of our "legislator" to constantly shave the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. I fully understand the problem with the sheer volume of legislation, the need to carefully and briefly refer to previous legislation, log-rolling, and plausable deniability. All that goes into making law.

But at the end of the day, my Constitutionally protected rights are constantly being shaved. The popular expression is, "Death by a thousand cuts." One day we will wake up and find the Bill of Rights being used to line a bird cage. When trying to find out what happened, we will never find a specific point where we crossed the line. All we will know is our protection from a tyrannical gov't is gone. All this done by people who are committed to constitutional govenment. The Second Amendment is the clearest example. The First Amendment is under assult with politically correct speech. The Fourth Amendment was fortunately assulted where we have pictures, but now we find provisions being put into crime legislation which allow for black bag operations ostensibly for use against crime operations. Clinton wanted roving wire taps which do not specifically exclude use against normal, law-abiding citizens (such as gun owners for example).

Where does it stop? Better yet, when do we begin reversing the distortions already in law?

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Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.

Barry Goldwater--1964
 
Darn, I have been lax. I forgot to get back here until tonight. I found this out yesterday afternoon. I got a call from Rep. Sue Myricks office to say that they had effectively killed the section 6 allowing the illegal search in the house's bill! She did say we might want to contact our Senators and ask them why they let this one get past them. It appears some legal advisors aren't (?) doing their jobs. I know Jessie Helms won't be pleased with this one! For all of you who took the initive to contact your Rep.'s "Well done"! I think we did it. One small skirmish, NOW the WAR.
 
Read about this little "cuttie" at The Independence Institute web site. Copied and pasted data from there to my senators, my congress critter doesn't accept e-mail, and doesn't reply to written comment, except very rarely. He is, was and always will be, anti gun, which translates to anti civil rights, in my view. He keeps getting re-elected though. Just pull that DEMOCRATIC lever, which is not to say that there aren't some real rotten REPUBLICANS too. The battle is endless.
 
Has anyone yet found the House bill that contains this provision? I'll call my congresscritter's office tomorrow, but it would be nice to have a bill number.

Of course, he's anti everything and will probably support it. Even though he authored a "personal privacy act" bill.

Dick
 
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