Monday, January 20, 2014

Appeals Court throws out warrantless searches of hotel records

You may recall that in June, the Encinitas City Council unanimously voted to force hotels to turn over their guest records to police without a warrant. Council Member Tony Kranz expressed reservations about privacy and intrusiveness at the time, and in July the Council voted to hold off on the proposal. Solana Beach had such a law in place, as did many other cities in California.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals just threw the law out.

17 comments:

  1. They have so many other areas within the scope of their jobs where they could do something possitive instead of supporting Gus Vina's police state! How about holding City employees responsible and firing the RIGHT people like those involved in fake accounting practices or wasting millions of dollars. Oh, that's right! These are the type of disasterous results that Gus Vina supports. He has his Statigic Plan to deliver this level of "customer service."

    I want a forensic audit of the golf course, the Planning Department, and the Community Park right now! As bad as our city employees may be, there is nobody who can be their best with a crook in charge!

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  2. How can a City Manager who holds a degree in accounting and who was the Finance Director in 2 big cities avoid being responsible for the glaring appearance of bad accounting practices and misused funds? What do we get in return for the quarter million dollar annual salary that we pay him??

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  3. 10:40-Ask the new PR person. Oh that's right, she isn't ready yet.

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  4. I'm glad the ordinances that other cities, including Solana Beach had enacted were struck down. I agree with the majority of judges that it was overstepping the bounds of our inalienable rights of privacy, including the privacy of the hotel and motel owners. Searches, including "administrative searches," should require a warrant, according to our Constitution.

    The first reading of the ordinance was heard after 11:00 p.m. at night, after a very full agenda. No members of the public were present to argue against it. I did write all of Council, afterwards, and emphasized that I agreed with Tony Kranz' objections. I asked them all to reconsider.

    When it came back for its second reading, Lisa Shaffer echoed a question I had written to Council. Are guests informed, by disclosure, that their personal information can be shared with police authorities without a warrant? The Deputy Sherif said "No." I can't recall the vote, but I know that the ordinance failed on its second reading. Had we enacted it, we would have had to "throw it out," by amending the ordinances, after two more readings. Solana Beach will have to throw out their law. It was bogus, to begin with, in my opinion. Police authority, including government spying on phone calls, is far overreaching, doing unreasonable searches and seizures, which are Unconstitutional, on their face. The Patriot Act is not patriotic if it sets itself up as "trumping" our Constitution and our inalienable rights.

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  5. If Gus Vina's Strategic Plan is for the purpose of customer service, he must consider himself the customer since the only thing that it does is push his personal agenda of complete control over staff, funds, the council and if he could--citizens. The only thing I can figure is he must see himself as the "customer," and the taxpayers as chumps!

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  6. Completely correct Lynn. Unfortunately, nobody in the U.S. has any privacy, from our "personal" computers to our valuable infomation shared with corporations like Target. Probable Cause? Sounds good on the surface, but that's a joke too. Any San Diego police officer or prosecutor can fabricate probable cause, falsify forensics, supply known to be false information to judges and get away with search warrants. There is NO right to privacy and that's a good reason for the anonymous folks here to post their own names. Although I must agree that the dimwits at the 9th circuit did the right thing at least with their dog and pony show "throwing out warrantless searches of hotel records" this time.

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  7. If anyone doesn't know what a "4th waiver" is, that's any felon in the US. 4th waivers all have waived their right to the 4th Amendment and can be searched at any time without a search warrant - no matter where they happen to be. So be careful who invite into your home if you don't want it turned upside down and your computers taken indefinately. Neat huh? How many felons are staying at Holiday Inns so far this year? Don't know how that would apply to a felon staying at the Holiday Inn, but I imagine they get their fair share every day of the year.

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  8. Fred_Unfortunately, a 4th waiver can also be applied to misdemeanors as well.

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    1. From the SD County DA's office..

      http://www.sdsheriff.net/legalupdates/docs/search2012.pdf

      http://www.legalupdateonline.com/4th/900

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    2. Yikes. Where's the part about misdemeanors?

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    3. Oh, probably page 325.1.3.b. Yeah, no wonder the law is confusing.

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    4. Tell me about it! That book would take years to read all the references and comprehend them. Glad some people take the time to do that, regardless of "interpretations" screwing up justice sometimes. Hey, why not just love our neighbors and use legal paperwork for the last 100 years for kindling? Naw, that's too easy.

      I could only find wire-tap info on page 325. And now you've done it. here comes my wire tap story.

      After my sister's conviction and we received alll of the documentation and crap associated to her case, we found two telephone conversations the cops recorded.. They coerced Charles Vary of Leucadia into calling us from the Carlsbad PD (unbeknownst to us) so they could record the call and hopefully use it to explode Cheri's alibi. Their plan was simple. They wanted to "catch" Mom in the act of trying to bribe Vary as a defense witness! Ridiculous. And of course during the call no chicanery like that happened (or at any other time). They ended up finding a better plan to destroy her alibi. Don't have the defense bring it up at all, but make the family believe her side of the story will be told.

      Felons were among those living at Mr. Vary's house and it was not only turned upside down with a search warrant, they made sure the press was there to cover the story - so naturally when police later called Vary in for a favor what's he going to tell them? Pound sand? No. He's going to bend over backwards for them.

      The search warrant was based on the fabricated Probable Cause from Roberto Franco; another malleable felon who feared the cops and wanted to tell them whatever they wanted to hear. Franco had a big fat bloody tale for them that coincidentally couldn't have served them better. He said in an interview that he saw Vary "washing out Cheri's bloody clothing - only a day after the murder of Susan Taylor back on 1-25-90". Damning info, or what? The problems with that story were: Franco was already in jail for 3 months at the time of the murder and in the beginning of his 2 year sentence! Another problem is DDA Thomas Manning and CPD detective Robert Wick KNEW Franco was incarcerated at the time and that his story was not only not credible but impossible. Why defense attorney Michael Berg never exposed these facts to Cheri's judge and jury is curious. (I have Franco's interview, his rap sheet and a later admission at trial by the prosecutor himself that he believed Franco was incarcerated at the time of the murder). Still, they presented Vary's search warrant to judge John Thompson based on Franco's wild tale for Probable Cause as "true and correct" to not only search Vary's house, but to present Franco's tale to the press as well and even at trial to judge David Gill, all to make Cheri look like a vicious axe murderer. Of course no such bloody clothing was ever found, no DNA, no hair, no fingerprints, no eye-witnesses, no opportunity, no motive, no transportation etc. But "When you look good and speak well, people will buy anything" - as psychic Kriswell used to say. And just try to unweave that tangled web when it makes the front page of the Blade Citizen.

      If there's a segue here to this thread, it's the fact that both the 4th and 9th Circut court of appeals saw a very narrow view of Cheri's case and were no help at all. You'd like to take each judge to lunch and ask: "Can we just get real for a minute?" But getting real with myself, there will again be fishing at Fukushima before that would happen.

      Sorry for the diversion. But you know me.

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  9. Warrantless searches are unconstitutional prima facie. That's Latin and fancy lawyer talk for "on its face."

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  10. It nice that Tony Kranz is watching out for the rights of the dirt balls and criminals!!!

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  11. I'll post it here as well, for all the man trolls on this blog. And I'm a dude. Let's try and up the dialogue, people...

    http://www.laobserved.com/archive/2014/01/the_next_civil_rights_iss.php

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