Clark way off base about our rights
This is in reference to Mr. James Clark’s article entitled “Drug users welcome to Warren County.” As usual, Mr. Clark is entitled to his opinion, and as usual Mr. Clark is so far off target it is not even funny.
He points to these people arrested as being guilty without a trial and he also points to the Mexicans in Warren County.
Let me challenge your statements about these drug users. How did the law know they had drugs, and under the Constitution of the United States what gave the law enforcement the right to ask about drugs or to search these people?
Let me clarify my position. I despise drugs and drug dealers. If the law enforcement was given a complete free hand, what would keep them from coming to your home tonight, searching you, your property and your home, planting drugs on your property then arresting you on drug charges? The first thing you would say is law enforcement would not do it.
The Constitution of the United States was written to protect the rights of the people. If I remember what the Constitution says, it says no search or seizure without a warrant.
If you read your own articles on these big “drug busts,” the law violates people’s civil rights all the time. When an arrest is made without a search warrant, unless the law has been changed, the officers cannot look through the house and only have the right to see what is open to plain sight in the area the arrest was made.
I have often wondered if every person who has had charges made in this manner got together and filed a class action lawsuit for civil rights violations, how much of this law would be around after these proceedings were heard in federal court?
Of course you, “The Scoop” would say they were convicted in court and have no right to sue in civil rights cases. If rights violations are proved, a conviction won’t even be considered. I’ve seen it happen.
One more point I would like to make. The judges have taken the responsibility to protect my rights as well as your rights. And you had better hope it always happens.
Each time you give up any right you have, you inch closer to a dictatorship here in the United States. We are very close to a police state now. Stop, look around, listen and think.
Miles Snider
377 Victor J. Young Road
Rock Island