10 ms·

Wow. Not only the obvious issues with this, but they used his shooting some cans (not exactly a crime) with a rifle as grounds for a warrant to search his house

Wow. Not only the obvious issues with this, but they used his shooting some cans (not exactly a crime) with a rifle as grounds for a warrant to search his house, for an unrelated crime (the one they really wanted to peg him on, drug trafficking; a diatribe in itself). That's all -manner- of wrong.

rayiner 12y ago
Shooting cans isn't a crime, but being an illegal alien and possessing a gun violates federal law. > A month later, police observed Vargas shoot some beer bottles with a gun and because Vargas was an undocumented immigrant, they had probable cause to believe he was illegally possessing a firearm. If they had seen him shooting cans when walking by on the street, and then gotten a warrant to search his house, this would've been totally legit. Edit: don't get the down votes. Do we not like gun control or what?
- lsaferite 12y ago
  If he was a known undocumented immigrant, why couldn't ICE step in and arrest him and in the process find a valid reason to search the residence? Mind you, I'm super glad the judgement was made in his favor, but only because of HOW they did it, not why.
  - rayiner 12y ago
    I think evidence of illegal firearms possession is a hell of a better reason to search his residence than his just being an undocumented immigrant.
    - morganvachon 12y ago
      It wasn't an "illegal firearm", it was illegal for him to possess any firearm because of his immigration status. There's a huge difference there. Edit: Reading your comment again, I think what you wrote can be taken either way (he was illegally possessing firearms, or he was possessing illegal firearms). So we may be in complete agreement here.
      - k-mcgrady 12y ago
        Could you explain the difference here? If he is undocumented and cannot legally purchase a firearm would it not satisfy both phrasings or does the latter (illegal firearm) refer to weapons banned from anyone possessing under law? Edit: Thanks for the clarification below.
        morganvachon 12y ago
        The first time I read rayiner's post, I took him to mean a firearm that is illegal for anyone to purchase or own, i.e. an "illegal firearm". Reading it again, I realized his phrasing was ambiguous and he could have meant "illegal possession of a legal firearm due to immigration status", hence my edit. So basically, it could be a legal firearm possessed illegally, or a banned firearm, based on his wording.
        talmand 12y ago
        Typically saying "illegal firearm" means it is illegal for anyone to own the firearm in question regardless of the person's status or how they got it. If a person is barred by law from possessing a firearm then it is possible for them to have a "legal firearm" in their possession; for example, if someone not barred by law owned the exact same firearm then there would be no issue. But I read the post in the manner that I'm guessing was intended, so I personally don't see it as a big deal.
      - logfromblammo 12y ago
        Any law making it illegal for him to possess firearms is likely unconstitutional. The only places where citizenship is explicitly mentioned in the US Constitution is in regard to eligibility for federal offices and jurisdiction of the federal courts. To a non-lawyer, it looks like a slam dunk. The feds and the states are simply not allowed to make laws restricting ownership or possession of firearms. And yet such laws get passed and enforced anyway. His defense would have to explicitly bring that up, and I doubt there are many attorneys that want to go there if they could possibly avoid it. That same argument has already been rejected at the appellate level by the 4th circuit, so it would likely have to go all the way to the SCotUS to stick, and unlikely they would decide to hear it. In any case, even if he ate babies in his spare time, I emphatically reject the idea that plinking cans is sufficient to generate sufficient suspicion for a search, as it is not a crime in itself when nothing else is known about the person doing it. It is, on its face, an innocent activity. If we want this country to not be a police state, we have to accept that fighting crime will have a minimum level of difficulty. The Blackstone Ratio suggests that this guy might have to go free in order to protect innocent people from bogus police tactics in the future.
    - lsaferite 12y ago
      I agree. However, the manner in which the evidence of the illegal firearm was obtained is a serious issue. So, my question was, if they had a reasonable suspicion he was a drug dealer but not enough evidence to obtain a warrant, then why not let ICE handle the matter since he was an illegal immigrant anyway? And to be clear so people don't get it in their head I have something against immigrants, I'm all for people immigrating to wherever they want to live, but it's 100% unfair to those immigrants who did it legally to treat illegals like anything other than an illegal immigrant who should be deported. P.S. Is using the term undocumented immigrant supposed to be the PC way of saying illegal immigrant?
      - rayiner 12y ago
        > So, my question was, if they had a reasonable suspicion he was a drug dealer but not enough evidence to obtain a warrant, then why not let ICE handle the matter since he was an illegal immigrant anyway? That effectively lowers the standard for searching homes of illegal immigrants from probable cause to reasonable suspicion. That's probably a harder political sell than trying to get enough evidence to find probable cause for violating of a gun control law.
        lsaferite 12y ago
        I worded it wrongly I guess. In the article it wasn't a question whether he was an illegal, they knew he was an illegal. I'll agree, letting ICE search the home would be a slippery slope and probably a bad idea as well. But at the very least, if they want to address the problem of him being a drug dealer then they should be able to use the fact that they know he is an illegal to at least deport him and solve the drug issue in a lateral manner, right?
      - talmand 12y ago
        Yes, changing illegal to undocumented is just a language tactic to downplay the issue. I'm not sure it works that way because any negativity the change was likely to alter just gets transferred to the new word.
        12y ago
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - revelation 12y ago
    Presumably because there are so many of them. The whole situation has gone so completely wrong that they are now handing out driving licenses to undocumented immigrants: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/15/california-undocumented-immigrant-drivers-license_n_6330608.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/15/california-undocume... (Theres no judgement here, it's just a very strange way of dealing with the problem at hand)
    - lsaferite 12y ago
      I love how we legitimize the past and current commission of a crime by saying "here, let me give you identity documents". They make it sound like the poor "undocumented immigrants" are being unfairly punished by having their cars impounded. WTF, really? They are here illegally. They should be deported. If they want to immigrate then do it LEGALLY like millions of other people. Do I think we should change the immigration laws to make free movement of people easier? Hell yeah. Do I think we should be obliged to follow the laws as currently written? Of course. If you do something illegal you get punished, simple enough.
      - alasdair_ 12y ago
        The problem occurs with children. Imagine you spent seventeen years of your life growing up in the USA and then someone tells you you are not here legally. You consider yourself american in every way and know no other country. Committing a crime requires you to have awareness that what you are doing is likely something illegal. Children like these have no idea.
        Domenic_S 12y ago
        Children have to pay for their parents' mistakes all the time. Is this somehow different?
        DanBC 12y ago
        Yes. Children have rights enshrined in the UNCRC. People have rights in the UDHR. Article 2 of UNRC says: > 1. States Parties shall respect and ensure the rights set forth in the present Convention to each child within their jurisdiction without discrimination of any kind, irrespective of the child's or his or her parent's or legal guardian's race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national, ethnic or social origin, property, disability, birth or other status. > 2. States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to ensure that the child is protected against all forms of discrimination or punishment on the basis of the status, activities, expressed opinions, or beliefs of the child's parents, legal guardians, or family members. Article 7 says: > 1. The child shall be registered immediately after birth and shall have the right from birth to a name, the right to acquire a nationality and. as far as possible, the right to know and be cared for by his or her parents. Article 8 says: > 1. States Parties undertake to respect the right of the child to preserve his or her identity, including nationality, name and family relations as recognized by law without unlawful interference. > 2. Where a child is illegally deprived of some or all of the elements of his or her identity, States Parties shall provide appropriate assistance and protection, with a view to re-establishing speedily his or her identity. Article 15 of the UNDHR says: > (1) Everyone has the right to a nationality. > (2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality. http://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/CRC.aspx http://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/CRC.aspx https://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/ https://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/
- ynniv 12y ago
  If they had seen him shooting cans when walking by on the street, and then gotten a warrant to search his house, this would've been totally legit. Which is going to increasingly be a problem. This whole thing could have been whitewashed by having someone "walk by" the house after seeing the warrantless surveillance (a la the NSA to DEA "tips"). I'm not sure what the answer should be, but the police can easily circumvent this ruling in the future.
  - gr3yh47 12y ago
    ahh yes, good old 'evidence laundering'
    - alexqgb 12y ago
      The term of art is "parallel reconstruction." In presenting law enforcement with ill-gotten information, the intelligence service also provides a plausible account of how law enforcement could have gotten the information in another Constitutionally sound way, including the all-important articulable cause for suspicion that would make this entirely fictional series of events legally admissible in court. In essence, it's a process whereby intelligence services and law enforcement agencies conspire to knowingly violate the civil rights of the people they target while perpetrating an overt fraud upon the court - all in the name of "protecting national security."
  - anigbrowl 12y ago
    Such claims are subject to cross-examination, though. In this case, the obvious question would be 'how did you happen to be passing by?' and looking for verification of someone having been there at the time and ate in question, eg dispatch communications.
- morganvachon 12y ago
  > If they had seen him shooting cans when walking by on the street, and then gotten a warrant to search his house, this would've been totally legit. The article states this was a rural area, so it's quite possible that his front yard isn't even visible from the road, which is why they had to install cameras (possibly even on his property) instead of parking across the street for a stakeout. Especially given that he was shooting bottles or cans in his front yard, I'm willing to bet it was off the beaten path. I don't know the laws in Washington, but here in Georgia there are laws about shooting near public roads and other people's property. Even though my own home is in a semi-rural area, I'm not quite far enough from the road to do that.
  - fluidcruft 12y ago
    According to the EFF, the camera was installed on a "utility pole overlooking his home" but doesn't mention how high off the ground the camera was or how far the pole was from the front of the house.
    - morganvachon 12y ago
      Exactly. We need more information. There is a utility pole that is clearly on my property, but I'm not allowed to cut it down or use it for anything, because technically it belongs to the utility company, not me. So when the cops put a camera on the pole in question, did they have to get the permission of the utility company? I can't imagine that going over well without a warrant, if for no other reason than they don't want some third party disrupting their power or communication lines.
- hondafan 12y ago
  >because Vargas was an undocumented immigrant Why did they need to wait for a gun to appear? If he's an illegal immigrant.. isn't that, well, illegal?
  - cowsandmilk 12y ago
    > If he's an illegal immigrant.. isn't that, well, illegal? Not all crimes allow for a warrant to search property. Determining his immigration status does not require a search of his house. Charges for illegally possessing a firearm would usually involve obtaining the firearm as evidence of possession, hence a warrant would be issued.
vilhelm_s 12y ago
I feel maybe the sketchiest part of the story was that they carefully turned off the video recording for exactly the period of time when they were executing the warrant. Of course we can't have _police officers_ being recorded on video...

rayiner 12y ago

Shooting cans isn't a crime, but being an illegal alien and possessing a gun violates federal law. > A month later, police observed Vargas shoot some beer bottles with a gun and because Vargas was an undocumented immigrant, they had probable cause to believe he was illegally possessing a firearm. If they had seen him shooting cans when walking by on the street, and then gotten a warrant to search his house, this would've been totally legit. Edit: don't get the down votes. Do we not like gun control or what?

lsaferite 12y ago
If he was a known undocumented immigrant, why couldn't ICE step in and arrest him and in the process find a valid reason to search the residence? Mind you, I'm super glad the judgement was made in his favor, but only because of HOW they did it, not why.
- rayiner 12y ago
  I think evidence of illegal firearms possession is a hell of a better reason to search his residence than his just being an undocumented immigrant.
  - morganvachon 12y ago
    It wasn't an "illegal firearm", it was illegal for him to possess any firearm because of his immigration status. There's a huge difference there. Edit: Reading your comment again, I think what you wrote can be taken either way (he was illegally possessing firearms, or he was possessing illegal firearms). So we may be in complete agreement here.
    - k-mcgrady 12y ago
      Could you explain the difference here? If he is undocumented and cannot legally purchase a firearm would it not satisfy both phrasings or does the latter (illegal firearm) refer to weapons banned from anyone possessing under law? Edit: Thanks for the clarification below.
      - morganvachon 12y ago
        The first time I read rayiner's post, I took him to mean a firearm that is illegal for anyone to purchase or own, i.e. an "illegal firearm". Reading it again, I realized his phrasing was ambiguous and he could have meant "illegal possession of a legal firearm due to immigration status", hence my edit. So basically, it could be a legal firearm possessed illegally, or a banned firearm, based on his wording.
      - talmand 12y ago
        Typically saying "illegal firearm" means it is illegal for anyone to own the firearm in question regardless of the person's status or how they got it. If a person is barred by law from possessing a firearm then it is possible for them to have a "legal firearm" in their possession; for example, if someone not barred by law owned the exact same firearm then there would be no issue. But I read the post in the manner that I'm guessing was intended, so I personally don't see it as a big deal.
    - logfromblammo 12y ago
      Any law making it illegal for him to possess firearms is likely unconstitutional. The only places where citizenship is explicitly mentioned in the US Constitution is in regard to eligibility for federal offices and jurisdiction of the federal courts. To a non-lawyer, it looks like a slam dunk. The feds and the states are simply not allowed to make laws restricting ownership or possession of firearms. And yet such laws get passed and enforced anyway. His defense would have to explicitly bring that up, and I doubt there are many attorneys that want to go there if they could possibly avoid it. That same argument has already been rejected at the appellate level by the 4th circuit, so it would likely have to go all the way to the SCotUS to stick, and unlikely they would decide to hear it. In any case, even if he ate babies in his spare time, I emphatically reject the idea that plinking cans is sufficient to generate sufficient suspicion for a search, as it is not a crime in itself when nothing else is known about the person doing it. It is, on its face, an innocent activity. If we want this country to not be a police state, we have to accept that fighting crime will have a minimum level of difficulty. The Blackstone Ratio suggests that this guy might have to go free in order to protect innocent people from bogus police tactics in the future.
  - lsaferite 12y ago
    I agree. However, the manner in which the evidence of the illegal firearm was obtained is a serious issue. So, my question was, if they had a reasonable suspicion he was a drug dealer but not enough evidence to obtain a warrant, then why not let ICE handle the matter since he was an illegal immigrant anyway? And to be clear so people don't get it in their head I have something against immigrants, I'm all for people immigrating to wherever they want to live, but it's 100% unfair to those immigrants who did it legally to treat illegals like anything other than an illegal immigrant who should be deported. P.S. Is using the term undocumented immigrant supposed to be the PC way of saying illegal immigrant?
    - rayiner 12y ago
      > So, my question was, if they had a reasonable suspicion he was a drug dealer but not enough evidence to obtain a warrant, then why not let ICE handle the matter since he was an illegal immigrant anyway? That effectively lowers the standard for searching homes of illegal immigrants from probable cause to reasonable suspicion. That's probably a harder political sell than trying to get enough evidence to find probable cause for violating of a gun control law.
      - lsaferite 12y ago
        I worded it wrongly I guess. In the article it wasn't a question whether he was an illegal, they knew he was an illegal. I'll agree, letting ICE search the home would be a slippery slope and probably a bad idea as well. But at the very least, if they want to address the problem of him being a drug dealer then they should be able to use the fact that they know he is an illegal to at least deport him and solve the drug issue in a lateral manner, right?
    - talmand 12y ago
      Yes, changing illegal to undocumented is just a language tactic to downplay the issue. I'm not sure it works that way because any negativity the change was likely to alter just gets transferred to the new word.
      - 12y ago
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- revelation 12y ago
  Presumably because there are so many of them. The whole situation has gone so completely wrong that they are now handing out driving licenses to undocumented immigrants: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/15/california-undocumented-immigrant-drivers-license_n_6330608.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/15/california-undocume... (Theres no judgement here, it's just a very strange way of dealing with the problem at hand)
  - lsaferite 12y ago
    I love how we legitimize the past and current commission of a crime by saying "here, let me give you identity documents". They make it sound like the poor "undocumented immigrants" are being unfairly punished by having their cars impounded. WTF, really? They are here illegally. They should be deported. If they want to immigrate then do it LEGALLY like millions of other people. Do I think we should change the immigration laws to make free movement of people easier? Hell yeah. Do I think we should be obliged to follow the laws as currently written? Of course. If you do something illegal you get punished, simple enough.
    - alasdair_ 12y ago
      The problem occurs with children. Imagine you spent seventeen years of your life growing up in the USA and then someone tells you you are not here legally. You consider yourself american in every way and know no other country. Committing a crime requires you to have awareness that what you are doing is likely something illegal. Children like these have no idea.
      - Domenic_S 12y ago
        Children have to pay for their parents' mistakes all the time. Is this somehow different?
        DanBC 12y ago
        Yes. Children have rights enshrined in the UNCRC. People have rights in the UDHR. Article 2 of UNRC says: > 1. States Parties shall respect and ensure the rights set forth in the present Convention to each child within their jurisdiction without discrimination of any kind, irrespective of the child's or his or her parent's or legal guardian's race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national, ethnic or social origin, property, disability, birth or other status. > 2. States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to ensure that the child is protected against all forms of discrimination or punishment on the basis of the status, activities, expressed opinions, or beliefs of the child's parents, legal guardians, or family members. Article 7 says: > 1. The child shall be registered immediately after birth and shall have the right from birth to a name, the right to acquire a nationality and. as far as possible, the right to know and be cared for by his or her parents. Article 8 says: > 1. States Parties undertake to respect the right of the child to preserve his or her identity, including nationality, name and family relations as recognized by law without unlawful interference. > 2. Where a child is illegally deprived of some or all of the elements of his or her identity, States Parties shall provide appropriate assistance and protection, with a view to re-establishing speedily his or her identity. Article 15 of the UNDHR says: > (1) Everyone has the right to a nationality. > (2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality. http://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/CRC.aspx http://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/CRC.aspx https://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/ https://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/
ynniv 12y ago
If they had seen him shooting cans when walking by on the street, and then gotten a warrant to search his house, this would've been totally legit. Which is going to increasingly be a problem. This whole thing could have been whitewashed by having someone "walk by" the house after seeing the warrantless surveillance (a la the NSA to DEA "tips"). I'm not sure what the answer should be, but the police can easily circumvent this ruling in the future.
- gr3yh47 12y ago
  ahh yes, good old 'evidence laundering'
  - alexqgb 12y ago
    The term of art is "parallel reconstruction." In presenting law enforcement with ill-gotten information, the intelligence service also provides a plausible account of how law enforcement could have gotten the information in another Constitutionally sound way, including the all-important articulable cause for suspicion that would make this entirely fictional series of events legally admissible in court. In essence, it's a process whereby intelligence services and law enforcement agencies conspire to knowingly violate the civil rights of the people they target while perpetrating an overt fraud upon the court - all in the name of "protecting national security."
- anigbrowl 12y ago
  Such claims are subject to cross-examination, though. In this case, the obvious question would be 'how did you happen to be passing by?' and looking for verification of someone having been there at the time and ate in question, eg dispatch communications.
morganvachon 12y ago
> If they had seen him shooting cans when walking by on the street, and then gotten a warrant to search his house, this would've been totally legit. The article states this was a rural area, so it's quite possible that his front yard isn't even visible from the road, which is why they had to install cameras (possibly even on his property) instead of parking across the street for a stakeout. Especially given that he was shooting bottles or cans in his front yard, I'm willing to bet it was off the beaten path. I don't know the laws in Washington, but here in Georgia there are laws about shooting near public roads and other people's property. Even though my own home is in a semi-rural area, I'm not quite far enough from the road to do that.
- fluidcruft 12y ago
  According to the EFF, the camera was installed on a "utility pole overlooking his home" but doesn't mention how high off the ground the camera was or how far the pole was from the front of the house.
  - morganvachon 12y ago
    Exactly. We need more information. There is a utility pole that is clearly on my property, but I'm not allowed to cut it down or use it for anything, because technically it belongs to the utility company, not me. So when the cops put a camera on the pole in question, did they have to get the permission of the utility company? I can't imagine that going over well without a warrant, if for no other reason than they don't want some third party disrupting their power or communication lines.
hondafan 12y ago
>because Vargas was an undocumented immigrant Why did they need to wait for a gun to appear? If he's an illegal immigrant.. isn't that, well, illegal?
- cowsandmilk 12y ago
  > If he's an illegal immigrant.. isn't that, well, illegal? Not all crimes allow for a warrant to search property. Determining his immigration status does not require a search of his house. Charges for illegally possessing a firearm would usually involve obtaining the firearm as evidence of possession, hence a warrant would be issued.

vilhelm_s 12y ago

I feel maybe the sketchiest part of the story was that they carefully turned off the video recording for exactly the period of time when they were executing the warrant. Of course we can't have _police officers_ being recorded on video...