http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LrbsUVSVl8

During the April 19, 2013, manhunt for Dzhokar Tsarnev, SWAT teams searched numerous houses in full combat gear and with guns drawn. Massachusetts State Police Colonel Timothy Alben claimed the searches were all voluntary.  However, the video shows people being chased out of their homes, with hands up and then being subjected to pat down searches.  

This is clearly unacceptable.  This is the sign of a police state.  We may not have much time left to reverse or challenge this practice.  The time is now to demand the State abolish or limit the use of such outrageous practices and compensate the people of Watertown who were subject to such involuntary and unconstitutional searches.  There is no reason to pat down people being chased out of their homes, there is no reason to search a home under these circumstances without the owner's presence (they claim they are looking for a person, but who says they wont look in drawers),

Please share this with your friends, family and acquaintances.  Demand action. Put pressure on your representatives. If the US allows this to happen without any objection, it will become the norm and if it becomes the norm, it will happen in your neighborhood and I hope for your sake you don't have anything embarrassing in your closets.

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you want men like these to have potential safehavens?
it was a state of emergency.
if he'd hid in a house and attacked again youd be complaining the police didnt do enough.

Even if we assume there is some exigent circumstance for police to go door to door.  What is the excuse to pat down everyone flushed out of the houses, what is the excuse to prohibit the home owner or occupant observing the search?  There is no reason for government agents to just march in treat everyone like a criminal and go away without even the slightest acknowledgement that a constitutional issue existed.  Apparently, the Massachusetts State Police did not think the need to capture the suspect was grounds enough to just barge into people's houses, they are claiming the searches were voluntary and because they were voluntary, they did not violate the constitution. 

What do they have to hide?  If there was no exigent circumstance to bypass the 4th Amendment, why ignore due process?  If there was a exigent circumstance, why deny it?  There is no reason for the government to storm people's houses, lie that the invasion was consensual, but adopt a practice to violate the 4th Amendment in the name of a manhunt.  The public deserves a right to know what policies its government implements and they should have the right to redress their grievances with those  policies.   

"It was a state of emergency."

Tyrants use that excuse to violate a little more of our rights every day. "Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both". Btw, how many terrorists/would be terrorists has the (unconstitutional) TSA caught so far?

'There is no reason to pat down people being chased out of their homes". And searching for two men who have just blown up some people with the ability to do it again is NO reason?

It is a reason, perhaps not one that you feel is enough, but it still is a reason.

I don't mind the 'state of emergency" use in this situation. A criminal terrorist who killed and injured many men, woman, and children in a pointless act of horror is hiding in my house, because for some twisted reason I want to help him... but the authorities cannot search it because my privacy is more important than preventing further violence? I am a private person, but if it helps catching an armed and dangerous murderer that may disappear in a matter of hours, screw the right to privacy.

Light Knight :

The police know the suspect's identity and had been engaged in a hot chase, on what grounds do the police have the authority to frisk anyone who does not look like the suspect?  Is there probable cause to think every homeowner and occupant is an accomplice or bears ill will to the government in general or the police specifically? Is there a reasonable suspicion to think a person inside their own home is engaged in criminality, giving the police license to frisk mere bystanders?  We both know that frisking bystanders is a vulgar display of power and  shows the police in Watertown believed their convenience is more important that the citizen's rights.

dingobaby12 : it's obvious you feel "frisking" is a much bigger crime against human rights than I do.

I don't live in America but I have never bothered to ask why am I getting frisked for or what  legal grounds they have to do so. It takes only a short while and the just ask you if you have weapons and/or needles or something other that might hurt the officer doing the frisking. In 30 seconds tops it is usually over. Usually. And if you don't have anything on you, that is the end of it. Mostly.

In some paranoid state of emergency the cops will always and everywhere go a bit overboard. There is nothing you can do about it. No matter what it says on any law books they can always, if necessary, forge documents for a warrant and claim anything that is against your own common sense and what you actually saw happen. That is just the way it is.

But in this case if somebody`s feelings got hurt when they tried to catch two guys with bombs, guns and a death wish, all I can say is tough luck.

Brigand :

That is a very myopic view.  Maybe you enjoy having someone rub you up based on claims of authority or emergency, but I try to avoid being groped against my will.  The issue is the dignity of the individual and the social contract.  The government has an obligation, at least in the US, to not impose an unreasonable search on a person; our law has made clear that unless there is reasonable suspicion that criminality is afoot a government agent cannot frisk a person without their consent.  Frisking someone is a very personal confrontation, especially when the person doing the frisking is in full combat gear, brandishing an automatic weapon, and has to power to arrest and imprison. 

I am not saying this as a person who has not consented to any searches; I have tolerated many pat downs, but each time I was aware of the possibility of a search and made sure I did not have any contraband or embarrassing items on me, I understood the consequences and I let it happen.  This is just random searches one would expect in a totalitarian police state.  There are some places a person should be given the paramount dignity, and the person in their home is one of those places.  Maybe you are without flaw and have nothing to hide, but I am a flawed human and I have many embarrassments I would prefer to keep to myself.

dingobaby12 :

Well mister Aryan. I think we agree on the latter part of your reply pretty much. Don't you go on thinking I enjoy getting groped or patted down by cops but speaking of dignity, I will always have that and have had one whether I have been doing something "flawed" or not. I haven't gone around crying oh poor little me in any case. If they want to treat me like a "female dog", the last thing I have given them in that situation was to act like one.

And no, I have hardly ever been a person without flaw or with nothing to hide either. When the cops have come without actual reason for me, I have felt pretty good once they got the fact right I have nothing on me except in their own little heads. And if they have had (not so many times), I haven't bothered to struggle either. Fair and square in that case, so what use is for there to scream and shout in that situation?

And dude, I am not asking you what you did nor I will tell what I did. It has nothing to do with the issue here. All I say is that calling out police state if you get frisked in a state of emergency is ridiculous, also if you get frisked for contraband and you have something on you and no matter what, cops are always cops. If you haven't got stomped in some cell somewhere, consider yourself lucky.

With all due respect, ofcource.

It's an interesting dilemma, one that's worth taking a look at both sides and really analyzing what's going on. The only problem I have with the video is that it depicted only one house, and that's important if the FBI or the police force had received a tip from someone about that house, or even that set of houses. Considering the high-stress scenario, I'm not sure what should have happened or what I would have done if I was either a citizen or an officer. It's something worth thinking about, for sure.

That being said, let's assume that we were lied to about the voluntary house searches. What are the potential ramifications for that?

It's really a slippery slope, but I think this connects with the issue on background checks on guns. If the federal government knows that you have a gun, and they decide that you fit in a certain block of people who are deemed potential threats, such as the Tea Party is by our government, then it's possible that they could bust into your house and take your weapons, no questions asked. Is it likely? From what a lot of people think, no. Is it possible? Absolutely. And I don't think that's something we should even play around with.

I don't think there's a clear-cut solution to this issue. That's a good thing. We need to have a national discussion about this, because it gets people thinking. It gets them paying attention. I think the same can be said for the scenario in which the government is going to try the bomber as an American citizen and not a foreign combatant. I disagree with the measure, for sure, but I think it gives us pause to consider what we should do moving forward. I expect there to be some kind of court case at some point in respect to this or another issue, perhaps going all the way up to the Supreme Court. What I see is a very good possibility that we'll have a historic case come up, something along the lines of Brown v. Board of Education, Roe v. Wade, McCullock v. Maryland, or or even Miranda v. Arizona, where our Miranda Rights come from.

It's important that we really pay attention and discuss these things, civilly of course, so that we can come to a solution of some kind. While we do have rights ourselves, where does the potential violation of another's right to life stand in respect to our rights? Is the situation such that in order for a person's rights to be impeded, it must be proven that there is imminent danger? Or perhaps there should be a hierarchy of rights, in which some things take precedence over others? And you could always argue from the perspective that in no way, shape, or form should a person's rights be taken from them. I'm not sure what I think, because I know that when lives are at stake, I want those lives to be protected.

It's a tough situation, and it needs to be evaluated thoroughly. We need to be asking ourselves what we would do in the shoes of those whose houses were entered, those police officers who entered the houses, and the government officials whose responsibility it is to keep our citizens safe. There isn't one possible solution to the problems, but we need to come to a conclusion in which the feelings of most people have at the very least been addressed.

Since we're on the topic of rights, I'm going to bring up the issue of the constitutional rights of the bomber.

We know he is a United States citizen, having been granted his citizenship of September 11, 2012 (the same date of the Benghazi attack and the anniversary of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks). He was on American soil. Should he be tried as a United States citizen? Should he be given the legal rights that are afforded to all United States citizens upon their arrest? Or should we try him as a foreign combatant? Then there is the option Lindsey Graham, Senator of South Carolina, in which he believes that we should try him as a U.S. citizen but until we interrogate him and extract whatever information he has, we should hold him as an enemy combatant.

Personally, I like the last option the best. We give him his legal rights, but I think it's vital that we get whatever information we can get from him. They have their ways of doing this, even without torture, although I think that waterboarding would be very effective. When we get the information from him, then we can proceed with a trial of sorts. Is this according to the laws we have today? Probably not. Could there be legal ramifications? Yes. But at the very least, if they proceed in this fashion, something could make it to court that would help us establish guidelines for if and when another situation like this arises.

Yes, I say "when." My reason behind that is pretty simple: terrorists of today's day and age blend in society before making their move. We aren't going to know who they are when they strike, at least not at first. There will be times, like the case with Tamerlan, where hindsight is 20/20. If you don't know, there are reports that the FBI had approached Tamerlan about his "radicalism" upon his return to the United States after spending half a year in Chechnya. Apparently, they found nothing wrong. I'd say that I find that hard to believe, but I've been fooled by people before. This guy was trained to lie, trained to blend in. He's like the 9/11 terrorists in that respect. Nobody knew that they were terrorists up until the moment they performed that heinous act. And if there was suspicion of it, hindsight is 20/20. Perhaps we should have pursued any leads more, but there's nothing we can do about it now. All we can do is move forward and adapt as we go along.

I also like the idea that we charge him as an enemy combatant if we find that he has ties to other terrorist organizations, which I believe what will happen. Like his brother, I believe he was trained, perhaps by his brother, to carry out the attacks. Especially when the possibility is that he carried out the attack using a detonator on his cell phone, I don't see it possible that these two acted alone. As such, their being branded enemy combatants really doesn't bother me in the slightest. A military trial will expedite the process, and we get to take a few extra liberties in extracting information from this guy. Does this seem like a callous view? I think so, but the lives of American citizens come first. If a guy is willing to maim close to 200 people and has knowledge that can prevent more from being in harm's way, I think we have no choice but to use whatever means necessary to learn what he knows.

A final idea that I've heard about and like is that we can try him as an American citizen and charge him with treason. I do not know the whole of treason, but I know that the penalty is severe if you commit it. That being said, I'm still not sure about how we'll get the information from him if we give him the rights of a citizen (at least, not without harsh interrogations that are swept under the rug), but we'll be sure he gets the harshest of penalties for his atrocity.

With all that being said, the federal government was a bit hasty, in my opinion, to err on the side of calling him a citizen without first reviewing more about this kid's history of radicalism. I believe we could be missing a golden opportunity to protect American citizens by getting what this guy knows and catching his accomplices before there is another horrible strike. Whatever the case is, it goes without saying that there is a huge debate coming, and it's important that we analyze all sides, taking nothing at face value.

pray75 :

My opinion the subject that the guy who is alive so far, he did not deserve his Miranda rights read to him. American citizen or not, what he did could be considered at treason at best.

Maybe all that can come later if it seems he deserves to be judged in front of an civil court but in a case like this it should be investigated first what actually happened before he should be given rights as a civilian charged with "only" mass murder.

On an another subject: How about if I would be an American citizen and I would be a member of some communist party and a hardcore Muslim but I would be an American citizen (and a WASP that I actually am otherwise) nonetheless, would you also defend my rights to keep and bear arms?  I would not even mind a few weeks waiting period if I could just get all the guns and ammo I wish?