04/29/13 Terry Nelson

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4:20 Drug War News

Mon - Terry Nelson of LEAP: war on drugs is corrupt and deadly

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This is Terry Nelson of LEAP, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition reporting. Another failed drug raid on the wrong house has left death in destruction in it path. ABC news reports that in Lebanon Tennessee a man was shot and killed by police when they raided the wrong house. Police admitted their mistake, saying faulty information from a drug informant contributed to the death of John Adams Wednesday night. They intended to raid the home next door.
Has the war on drugs so conditioned our country so that some now will allow police into our homes without benefit of warrant and then acutally praise their actions as being necessary for public safety.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
The powers of the police are limited for a very good reason. And we need to insure that they use their powers for the public good and not to make their job easier. We have many exceptions to the warrant requirement, exceptions that have stood the test of time and court challenges. However, to break down someone’s door to prevent them from flishing a gram of cannabis seems to me like an aggregious deviation from the exceptions that are commonly accepted; sounds of distrees from within the structure, visual hot pursuit of a fleeing felon, etc.
Kurt Nimmo writes: Prior to the Revolution, British officialdom used general warrants under Writs of Assistance to search the property of colonists for contraband, a practice that so outraged the founders they made certain the Fourth Amendment became a bedrock principle of the Bill of Rights. English common law of the period considered it trespass when officials and soldiers invaded homes without legal authorization. “The house of every one is to him as his castle and fortress, as well for his defense against injury and violence as for his repose,” Sir Edward Cooke declared in 1604, nearly two hundred years before the American Revolution.
Now is not the time to close our eyes to the daily violations of this long established right of homeowners to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects against unreasonable search and seizure.
The war on drugs as other more new wars has and is seriously eroding our personal rights and we all need to educate ourselves and to be vigilant to protect our rights. Once a right is lost it is most difficult to regain. Just as once something becomes law it is very difficult to cancel that law.
The War on Drugs has corrupted and will continue to corrupt all that it touches. Let’s end it now! Let’s stop killing people in the name of the law and then sayings “oops sorry”.
This is Terry Nelson of LEAP, www.leap.cc, signing off. Stay safe. /tln/