Forty Two wrote:Well, as someone who is a fan of the ACLU, and as someone who has followed its positions on civil rights issues for the better part of 40 years, I am surprised that they felt the need to issue a press release not only clarifying that there is a very narrow exception to the attorney-client privilege, but declaring that the issuance of a no knock warrant based on a sealed affidavit constitutes evidence that the rule of law is alive and well.
The ACLU has been working against "no knock" warrants for decades, and they have generally viewed them with skepticism and caution, suggesting that issuing warrants allowing cops to bust down the door guns drawn is a recipe for disaster, and questionable constitutionally.
With regard to warrants, the ACLU has fought hard to oppose the government's use of warrants which are more general in character, as the Fourth Amendment was in part designed to eliminate the British practice of "General Warrants" which allowed law enforcement to just go and root through your stuff. The point was that the State has to show a reason to search based on "probable cause" that the place searched contains actual evidence of a crime, and that the language of the warrant - the place to be searched and the stuff to be seized -- must be described with "the most scrupulous exactitude."
Further, sealing of warrants is something the ACLU generally opposes. “Under Virginia law and a long tradition of open judicial proceedings, warrants are public record,” said ACLU of Virginia executive director Kent Willis in a letter to judge asking that warrants be unsealed.
https://www.acluva.org/en/press-release ... h-warrants
Also there is a common law and constitutional right of access to search warrants, even pre-indictment, which are public records. If the court is going to seal them, then the court must do so on motion of the government articulating the specific need or reason to seal the documents, and that should be done on record.
There are many cases where the press and other interested persons have filed motions to unseal the documents, so that they can report on issues.
Here, we have the press not investigating what might be in the warrants, and not bringing actions to try to unseal the documents. Instead, they are writing articles defending the process, and suggesting that even though we don't know what the fuck is going on, the process "must" be on the up-and-up because somebody had to get a magistrate judge to issue the warrant.
I mean, such backwards logic is unbelievable. Of course! In every case where a warrant is issued, someone must get the judge to sign a warrant, but these fuckers sign warrants constantly and they simply rely on the representations of the prosecutor and the cops or FBI agents. They'll address anyissues of overreach later.
We have a special prosecutor here who is supposed to be investigating illegal collusion with Russia, if any. He is authorized, of course, to take action on other illegal stuff he runs across in the investigation too. They have that catch-all, but the purpose of the investigation at its core was supposed to be illegal collusion by the President with a foreign power, not whether he committed a campaign finance violation.
That being said, we have the special prosecutor allowing or authorizing his folks to secretly get a warrant, from a magistrate judge, to - under seal -- so nobody can see why they are doing this, and what the are searching for, issue a no knock warrant on the President's personal attorney, and the only possible crime we know of is that Cohen's payment of $130,000 to Stormy Daniels may have been a campaign finance violation which is punishable by a fine.
Surely, something smells funny here, doesn't it?