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#fourthamendment

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The Register: Sacramento cops scoured energy records to target suspected weed growers, and the EFF has sued . “The Electronic Frontier Foundation has advanced a lawsuit in which it alleges the City of Sacramento misused energy records to accuse residents of growing cannabis, often with disastrous results.”

https://rbfirehose.com/2025/07/24/the-register-sacramento-cops-scoured-energy-records-to-target-suspected-weed-growers-and-the-eff-has-sued/

ResearchBuzz: Firehose | Individual posts from ResearchBuzz · The Register: Sacramento cops scoured energy records to target suspected weed growers, and the EFF has sued | ResearchBuzz: Firehose
More from ResearchBuzz: Firehose

A federal judge’s ruling on ICE raids in Los Angeles should be required reading – MSNBC

U.S. District Judge Maame E. Frimpong refused to be deceived by the administration’s smoke and mirrors.

July 14, 2025, 2:47 PM PDT

By Austin Sarat, William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science at Amherst College

Los Angeles is a city under attack. Spurred on by White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller’s outrage that Immigration and Customs Enforcement has not been deporting enough people, ICE agents have been sweeping through the city, often clad in full military attire like a conquering army. Photographs and videos document ICE’s “arrest first and ask questions later” approach on a daily basis.

On Friday, U.S. District Judge Maame E. Frimpong ordered ICE to stop “conducting roving patrols without reasonable suspicion and denying access to lawyers.” She refused to be taken in by the Trump administration’s fog of deception and disinformation. “The federal government agrees: Roving patrols without reasonable suspicion violate the Fourth Amendment and denying access to lawyers violates the Fifth Amendment,” she wrote. “What the federal government would have this Court believe — in the face of a mountain of evidence presented in this case — is that none of this is actually happening.”

Frimpong’s ruling should be required reading for every American. She modeled the kind of resistance that is essential in the face of the administration’s concerted attack on facts, truths and common sense. Her “believe what you see, not what they say” response sets an example for all Americans who wish to resist an authoritarian takeover in this country.

The Courthouse News Service reports that, at a hearing held Thursday, the government wanted the judge to believe “that the ICE raids were sophisticated operations, based on surveillance and information from other law enforcement agencies targeting specific individuals.” According to CNS, lawyers for the Justice Department argued that ICE could “also stop and question other individuals there who they suspected were immigrants without legal status….” That would be acceptable, a DOJ lawyer argued, based on the “totality of the circumstances.”

The government offered these claims against the weight of the evidence and out-of-court statements. In an appearance last week on Fox News, the administration’s border czar Tom Homan included “physical appearance” in the list of things that ICE takes into account during their patrols in Los Angeles. At the Thursday hearing, the American Civil Liberties Union argued that ICE was engaging in racial profiling, targeting members of the Hispanic community and ignoring people of European ancestry who might be in the country illegally. “The evidence is clear that they’re looking at race,” Mohammad Tasjar, an attorney for the ACLU of Southern California, told Frimpong. Even a lawyer for the government acknowledged that “agents can’t put blinders on.”

Editor’s Note: Read the rest of the story, at the below link.

Continue/Read Original Article Here: A federal judge’s ruling on ICE raids in Los Angeles should be required reading

#US #Spy Agencies Are Getting a One-Stop Shop to Buy Your Most Sensitive Personal Data
US intel is buying up vast volumes of sensitive information that would have previously required a court order, essentially bypassing #FourthAmendment. But #surveillance state has encountered a problem: There’s simply too much data on sale from too many brokers.
Government wants to build a centralized platform where spy agencies can more easily buy private info about millions of people.
theintercept.com/2025/05/22/in

The Intercept · U.S. Spy Agencies Are Getting a One-Stop Shop to Buy Your Most Sensitive Personal DataBy Sam Biddle
Continued thread

The ever-growing market for #personal #data has been a boon for American spy agencies. The US #intelligence community is now buying up vast volumes of sensitive #information that would have previously required a #CourtOrder, essentially bypassing the #FourthAmendment. But the #SurveillanceState has encountered a problem: There’s simply too much data on sale from too many corporations & brokers.

So the government has a plan for a one-stop shop.

#Trump#law#privacy
Continued thread

Media sources have obtained a March 14th Department of Justice memo the Trump regime released after a FOIA request, revealing that the Pork Reich wants ICE agents to ignore the Fourth Amendment to fight a fake war against "narco-terrorist gangs." If they get away with this, we'll truly be in the V for Vendetta era of Trumpism.

Nina-Bytes: Jackboots at the Door

ninaillingworth.com/2025/04/29

"As someone who has spent many years studying fascism, authoritarianism, and police states however, I’m pretty sure you don’t issue a Department of Justice order like that unless you intend to use ICE to start going house to house in American communities; and once a fascist government grants itself the power to do that, it really doesn’t matter why they claim they’re doing so anymore. This is quite literally the beginnings of the dystopian police state winger prepper reactionaries are always going on about guarding against, and in anything resembling a functioning democracy US Attorney General Pam Bondi would be arrested immediately for even signing it. As both the article and your middle school civics class will tell you, absolutely none of this is legal no matter what ancient laws Trump tries to invoke and Bondi’s Justice Department is basically telling ICE to ignore the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution, “because we say so.”

Nina Illingworth Dot Com | "When the revolution is for everyone, everyone will be for the revolution" · Nina-Bytes: Jackboots at the Door | Nina Illingworth Dot ComA recent DoJ directive reveals that the Trump regime is ordering ICE to violate the constitution to fight a made up war against "narco-terrorist gangs."
#Fascism#Trump#ICE
Continued thread

Honestly my friends, I'm running out of new ways to say that the Trump administration are a bunch of lawless fascists whose maximalist views on power put them in direct opposition to a US constitution and American legal tradition that is on the whole, extremely friendly to the exercise of executive power. There appears to be no article of law, no regulation, no rule they won't violate in their objectively nazi quest to create a white ethnostate; at this point I half expect the Trump regime to try to find a workaround to the rarely-remembered Third Amendment so they can force every American family to quarter an ICE agent in their home.

If you think I'm being hyperbolic, keep in mind that I'm only going off the information the Trump regime writes down in its own internal memos. Take for example this Department of Justice guideline arguing that ICE has the legal authority to conduct warrantless home invasions in search of "suspected" Venezuelan gang members, because Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act as a kind of Uno-reverso card to every piece of civil rights legislation in US history.

commondreams.org/news/ice-warr

DOJ Memo Shows Trump Admin Ordered ICE to Conduct Warrantless Home Invasions

"Lee Gelernt, the ACLU's lead counsel in cases challenging use of the AEA, told USA Today: "The administration's unprecedented use of a wartime authority during peacetime was bad enough. Now we find out the Justice Department was authorizing officers to ignore the most bedrock principle of the Fourth Amendment by authorizing officers to enter homes without a judicial warrant."

Monique Sherman, an attorney at the Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network, expressed alarm over the DOJ memo.

"The home under all constitutional law is the most sacred place where you have a right to privacy," Sherman told USA Today. "By this standard, spurious allegations of gang affiliation means the government can knock down your door."

As Georgetown University Law Center professor Steve Vladeck said, "There's no Alien Enemies Act exception to the Fourth Amendment."

As I've indicated elsewhere, I'm not a lawyer; but as someone who has spent many years studying fascism, authoritarianism, and police states, I'm pretty sure you don't issue a Department of Justice order like that unless you *intend* to use ICE to start going house to house in American communities; and once a fascist government has granted itself the power to do that, it really doesn't matter why they claim they're doing so anymore. This is quite literally the beginnings of the dystopian police state winger prepper reactionaries are always going on about, and in anything resembling a functioning democracy US Attorney General Pam Bondi would be arrested immediately for even signing it. As both the article and your middle school civics class note, absolutely none of this is legal no matter what ancient laws Trump tries to invoke and the DoJ is basically telling ICE to ignore the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution, "because we say so."

The question then remains, does the Trump regime even care if the fascist bullshit they're doing is legal? Even under a Calvinball winger interpretation of US law? Signals on that front are so far mixed; on one hand the regime continues arguing its nonsensical theories in court, but on the other hand they stand in violation of several court orders already and are for example, making no effort to bring Abrego Garcia home from a torture prison in El Salvador, despite a 9-0 SCOTUS ruling that they must do so.

On some level I imagine that ICE goons might ignore a DoJ order that tells them to violate the Constitution, but the reason Trump has always used ICE as his personal Gestapo gives me pause. The agency self-selects for nativists who don't mind authoritarian repression or violence, and Trump's vast power over immigration matters as president, means ICE is largely his to control - at least through a Department of Homeland Security the regime has stacked full of white nationalists and fascist freaks. In other words, I don't really know what happens if and when the Trump regime orders ICE to go for the full V for Vendetta experience; but it probably isn't good, and I'm not keen on finding out if Der Leader's private Gestapo cares about the Constitution at all.

I'm not a psychic, but it is increasingly becoming clear to me that the fascist Trump administration knows it cannot accomplish its goals without a loyal, empowered, and ideologically aligned force of police state thugs. The fact that they're casting about the margins of the US legal system to empower ICE to be that army of goons, tells you they have plans to use that power. For what? I don't know, but authoritarian police state powers to enter American homes to fight a made up war against "gangs," have far more potential uses to a fascist regime than just mass deportations.

Common Dreams · DOJ Memo Shows Trump Admin Ordered ICE to Conduct Warrantless Home Invasions | Common Dreams"There's no Alien Enemies Act exception to the Fourth Amendment," said one law professor.
Continued thread

#Trump lawyers have *determined* [made up from whole cloth] that an 18th-cent wartime #law Trump invoked to deport *suspected* [presumed] members of a Venezuelan gang allows federal agents to enter homes WITHOUT A WARRANT….

The disclosure reflects the Trump admin’s aggressive view of #PresidentialPower, including setting aside a key provision of the #FourthAmendment that requires a #CourtOrder to search someone’s home.

Continued thread

“This egregious act is in plain violation of the #FourthAmendment of the US #Constitution, which guarantees ‘the right of the people be secure in their persons, houses, papers, & effects, against unreasonable searches & seizures….’

#Newark will not stand by idly while people are being unlawfully #terrorized. I will be holding a press conference in alliance w/partners ready and willing to defend & protect civil & #HumanRights. Details to come.”

– NJ Mayor Baraka
#Trump #law #USpol #CivilRights

#Trump note:

if you live in #Northeast #USA like i do (#NewEngland, #NewYork, #NewJersey, #Pennsylvania, etc)

that square in east central New York is roughly the area around #SaratogaSprings #NY

it's nice. also rather pricey

a geographical artifact of the #USA #BorderPatrol's 100 mile zone in which it operates

for the rest of the Northeast, #US #Customs and #Border Protection has the #legal ability to suspend some of your #FourthAmendment #rights without a #warrant

aclu.org/know-your-rights/bord

Continued thread

2nd, & much more dramatically, the #FifthCircuit rules that bc the database of #geofence records is so large, & bc the whole database must be scanned through to find matches, the #FourthAmendment does not allow courts to issue #warrants to collect those records. In #legal terms, it is impossible to have a warrant particular enough to authorize the #surveillance. IOW, the govt can't gather these kinds of online records at all, even w/a #warrant based on #ProbableCause.