High Utility Bill Sparks TSOG Raid, Grass Stains, Not a Pot Farm, Blamed for Bills

"Honest men have nothing to hide."

Not only is this statement false; it is dangerous.

If an honest man comes up with a new, beautiful, invention, shouldn't he hide it until the patent forms come out?

If an honest man writes a personal email to an honest woman, thanking her in detail for the honest sex they had last night, would he be suddenly dishonest if he didn't want those details accessible to any snoop a few years later?

If an honest man writes an email to his honest colleague, and makes some honest fun about the way that his honest customer dresses, just the way that colleagues often jest and jape, is it that big a stretch that he wouldn't want that email to surface years later in some lawsuit?

If you are living your life in such a way that you never write or say anything that you would like to keep private, I wouldn't call you "honest," I would probably call you "bland." And I don't believe that being bland is a virtue to which we should aspire.

Heck, your an honest man -- post your credit card information on the BBS please. Don't worry, you should not have to hide anything if you are honest, right?

 

Great post, andymoon.

 

so you wouldn't mind your neighbors seeing several police cars and drug dogs searching your house and yard for no reason?

the electric company shouldn't treat its customers as criminals. it is not their job to report to the police about suspicious activity.

if you buy a bunch of cleaning supplies from the grocery store, should they report to the police you could be making a chemical weapon or bomb?

 

Well, I spend $300 to $400/mo in the summer in Houston, but only a little over $100 in the winter...I thought everything is expensive in Cali, so the $200 - $300/mo. didn't seem that bad...

 

The gvt. can check whatever they want.

Why aren't all you protesting that random audits (of businesses and personal taxes) are not just. if the feds don't have any proof you are cheating why do they have the right to do an audit?

Why don't all of you go claim that the Bureau of Workers comp shouldn't be allowed to inspect payroll records? I mean unless they suspect something they shouldn't be doing audits right?

Also both the IRS and the BWC find certain "hot topics" to audit each year (certain industries and in some instances certain geographic areas).

So for anyone saying the goverement/authorities has no right to come into your house and your business. Well you're wrong. The gvt has and will investigate irregularities.

So quit crying and screaming that your freedom is disappearing. You have the same freedoms you have always had to live a happy, law-abiding life in the US.

 

mar1juana is illegal. So regardless if they find a gram or a ton they have found an illegal substance. Good for them.

 

I never said I was honest just I'm not doing anything illegal.

 

My defense - The goverenent should do everything within their power to win the war on drugs.

Tehy have found a pattern (with 75% success in this instance) to find dope in peoples houses.

From their they try to get probably cause, if they do they goto the judge and get teh warrant.

I'm ok with that.

 

Hell, they could just do random searches of everyone's homes and find something. I can't believe you and StupidMoniker are so hung up on tossing your rights into the crapper. Just be sure to leave our rights alone, OK?

Oh, by the way, I loved it when the Chuckster was with the Rocks.

 

I don't have any drugs in my home. If the cops got a tip that I was growing mar1juana in my home, since it is currently illegal, I would hope that they would investigate, including a search if there was some sort of evidence to indicate probable cause (eg irregular utilities bill). I don't know what magical right you are referring to when you say that the government is not allowed to see if there is an irregularity in a suspected drug manufacturers utilities that can predict drug finds with a 75+% chance. I am actually for the legalization of drugs, but that doesn't mean I think it is unreasonable for the police to enforce laws on the books.

If the police get a tip, they should be able to tap my phone (and are) and probably monitor email (not sure if they can do that yet) with a warrant. As for a police state, I guess you missed my post in the no warrant search thread, where I said that we should protect the fourth amendment. We just disagree on what constitutes an unreasonable search.


All those decrying this,
Here is a hypothetical situation: The police recieve a tip that a couple of people are planning a terror attack, one of the people is in Houston and the other is in Los Angeles. Do you think the FBI should be able to monitor their phone conversations, email, etc.? How about check their phone bill to see if they were calling the other city?

 

WTF?


I guess I will have to stop washing clothes when I start growing my plants next year

 

Nice troll, but I'll bite. I think that if some jack@ss consistently called in fake tips on you and the cops kept coming you would be a little irritated over time. Especially if you were not there, and they broke down the door; or if you were at work and they showed up to have you come open your house for them (almost happened to the lady in the story). I assume your boss would think that odd...

Yes, they should be empowered to enforce the laws. But they should not be allowed to just assume I broke the law through some miscellaneous data! It should be reasonable. Corellating a high electricity bill with drug production is really insane.

Guess again. They no longer need a warrant for that stuff. The FBI has the right to wiretap and email monitor via the PATRIOT act and the PATRIOT II, which was cleverly hidden in another bill since the public did not like it. They can even monitor your financial records without warrant. I hope you did not buy halogen lights with your credit card recently, they can be used to aid in growing pot I hear...

See: http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,61341,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_1

What was that you were saying about a police state again?

I think that anyone who ever uses this rationale should automatically lose the argument in question. Not only are you surrendering your American civil liberties, you are willingly doing it out of fear. You are a coward and a slave to ignorance and obediance.

There's a reason these protections were put into place. It has been shown that if you give these agencies this power they will abuse it. For any investigative agency, once you tell them that they must make sure that they protect the country from subversives, it inevitably gets translated into a program to silence dissent. Ever hear of COINTELPRO?

Dissent is the most patriotic thing an American can do, IMO. The whole country is founded on it!

The FBI already has all the tools to stop crime and terrorism. The only thing the act accomplishes is the removal of judicial oversight and the transfer of more power to law enforcements agents. The erosion of checks and balances, in other words.

If I was ok with a government that could call me a terrorist and then invade every part of my personal life, or just wisk me away to some concentration camp, I would not have stayed in the United States. I expect due process, and for damn good reason. This is a representative democracy, NOT A FASCISM*.

I'm getting irritated now. It is such a cop-out to just yell "TERRORISM!" and then cover your ears and eyes to the erosion of your rights. I did not want to get into this aspect of the "law", but you brought it up, not me.

Sorry to rant...

*The American Heritage Dictionary defines fascism as "a system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with belligerent nationalism." Just on its surface, the Bush regime is following the above definition...

 

I agree. But the rest of that definition makes me queasy.

 

This is getting a little annoying. The investigation of these people's home was initially inspired by the electricity bill. But, their suspicions were reinforced by a postive test from a drug-sniffing dog. Obviously, even dogs make mistakes, but it isn't like they were going on only one piece of circumstantial evidence.