Thursday, September 9, 2004

Some remarkable reading coming... You may remember back in July that the Justice Department was trying to get libraries to destroy a series of documents related to asset forfeiture. Seems the Justice Department didn't want people to know their legal rights. Well, that move backfired and the order has been rescinded. Now FEAR (Forfeiture Endangers American Rights is working on putting those documents online! This could be very useful for those targeted by forfeiture proceedings and their attorneys. I can't wait. The National Review is giving Drug Lord Czar John Walters the opportunity to respond to last month's article by Ethan Nadelmann (full footnoted pdf version) and he accepted. And the National Review is giving Nadelmann rebuttal time as well. All will be posted here at Drug Policy Alliance. Closest thing we've had to Walters in a debate. This should be good. Or ugly. Or something. 7:04:53 PM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []

The police want to rub your knobs. TalkLeft posted about the case currently in a District Court in Utah (and Orin Kerr at Volokh Conspiracy discusses it some more). Basically it involves cases where the police swipe your front door knob and test it for microscopic traces of drug residue that might have come from your hand. If it comes up positive, the police use that as probable cause to search your house. The question is whether the the swipe of the doorknob requires a warrant. The legal question is quite interesting, academically. I lean to the notion that either the doorknob is private, in which case a warrant is needed to test it, or it's public, in which case there's no way to know who touched it and a positive test is not justification to search the house. And I envision a scenario of someone putting some cocaine on their hand and going around grabbing doorknobs of enemies. When it comes down to it, though, it's just plain ridiculous that these procedures are even being considered. In my mind, it's just one more in a long list of indignities (and intrusions on our freedoms) that the American people have been subjected to in the name of this failed war on drugs. Update: More excellent commentary on this at Farkleberries. 6:35:44 PM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []

Speaking engagement For those of you in Central Illinois, I'm going to be one of the featured speakers at a free festival tomorrow on the Illinois State University quad. The event is called "Who's Left" and it's a day-long progressive activism festival, with speakers, bands and information. The event goes from noon until 10 pm, and I'm scheduled to speak at 12:30 pm. I'll be talking about the drug war, naturally. 9:18:01 AM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []