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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (8738)	1/11/2006 4:27:47 PM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 541479

How so if you get the warrant after? After you're certain? OK. Works for me. As long as you recognize that it might be months or even years before you're certain. And you might only be certain after some dirty deed is done. But sure, we can get a warrant then if it makes you feel better. Let me back up for a bit and talk about warrants and the utility of warrants. We require warrants in the criminal justice system. If evidence is obtained without the use of a warrant, the evidence is excluded and the perp walks, so there's a compelling incentive to get a warrant. Warrants work in that scenario. But let's say you don't care about a successful prosecution. There are a couple of scenarios where you wouldn't care. One of them is a totalitarian system where cops don't bother with warrants. They don't bother with trials, either. They just find out who they think dunnit and that person disappears or reappears without functioning kneecaps. Another scenario where you don't care about a successful prosecution is in war. You aren't going to prosecute anyone except maybe show trials for the heads of state long after the fact. You either kill the enemy or detain him indefinitely or deport him. You don't prosecute him. So why bother with a warrant? You just go about your business of gathering intel whether a warrant is technically required or not. Who will ever know you didn't get one? Sure, maybe some whistle-blower will show up later, or maybe not. Probably, no one will ever know that you didn't get a warrant. You can get away with not getting one because the warrant is not an effective control. Whether we have laws that require warrants or not, any administration disreputable enough to spy on Joe Citizen won't give a damn about warrants. So it matters not in the least if we require one. It's just a worthless formality, even more so when they're given out willy-nilly. If you are relying on warrants to protect you from the big, bad government, you might as well hold up your hand to protect yourself from a gun. It's useless, just a feelgood exercise. If what you really want is oversight, clinging to the warrant as your tool is silly.