St. Louis: Muslim cabdriver pleads guilty to funneling money to jihad terrorists in Somalia

Guy,

Oh, we just HAVE to import muslims! Because, ummmmm, well, uhhhh. I mean, ahhhhh, cough,
ahem...

OK, I'll have to get back to you on that one...

dear guy,

poor george chocked on that one... (and understandably so)
because, the fish rots from the head.
and when you have a 'hussein' actually occupying the w.h....to quote ann barnhardt..."The rotors are spinning at full speed, the manure is loaded into the trebuchet and the slack is out of the firing trigger. "

Speaking in particular about Europe, Mark Steyn says that immigration was introduced to provide the kids "europeans couldn't be bothered having".
With immimgration comes muslims.
The rest is history, as they say.

"What happens when Somali Muslims get work *inside* airports"
Aren't they already there?
As far as I know there are no restrictions visavis Islam and sensitive areas of employment.
Mussies are in the police force and army (remember Fort Hood?) and in many government departments.
Insanity rules ok.
Well actually not ok!

You're right, Phoenix; I just can't come up with even ONE reason to import muslims into
any civilized society. And most surely not anywhere near airports or driving cabs & buses
full of infidels (read: potential victims).

It's not outreach that's needed. [As you're well(ington) aware!]
Never mind the "speak softly", just get to the "big stick"!
You don't chat with a rabid rotweiler. You kit up!
Churchill knew this about Hitler.
Others came around when it was too late.
Given the incorrigibility of the elite, I fear history will be repeated.
We will win. But at a terrible cost.
On the other hand there are many efforts being made to wake up the West. Jihadwatch is one. There are others.
I am still hopeful.
Also there is an article on JW about a prayer vigil. This also is encouraging.

"The government should not spend its time trying to convince the people to give up their 4th Amendment rights."

But this happens every day, mostly in traffic stops. The U.S. courts recognize that there is nothing wrong with a law enforcement officer ASKING people to waive their rights against being searched. That water went over the dam a half century ago, if not earlier. And the odious and nearly useless TSA searches are inherently based on the same legal principle: people may refuse to be searched at airports in exchange for non-admission to their flights.

If the FBI is ASKING Somali taxi drivers to waive their rights, then the taxi drivers are not being singled out in any waiver as a matter of law. They are only being singled out for what their compadres are doing, hence the need for evidence.

From a practical law enforcement viewpoint, the requests make some sense. U.S. courts, even the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, will likley not grant blanket warrants to obtain the phone records of many taxi drivers just so that call patterns can be established. Yet such patterns are necessary to determine if any jihadist activity is underway. The Air Force C-135 Rivet Joint aircraft can be used to determine such patterns, but only in combat theaters overseas.

Hi Tom - hope you're having a pleasant Saturday, friend.

Part of the article says:

"FBI agents singled out several dozen Somali cab drivers at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport for questioning, seeking to copy their cell phone memory cards and to examine their personal computers..."
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I had written:

"The government should not spend its time trying to convince the people to give up their 4th Amendment rights."
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and you wrote, in part:

"If the FBI is ASKING Somali taxi drivers to waive their rights, then the taxi drivers are not being singled out in any waiver as a matter of law. They are only being singled out for what their compadres are doing, hence the need for evidence.

I would answer first - ASKING to waive a right is an infringement on the right itself. Otherwise it wouldn't be a right. Also, I would ask, "how do the FBI know, exactly, what their "compadres" are doing? Why ask, if they knew, or strongly suspected. PProbably a huge dose of racial profiling in this one, Tom.
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finally...

While I agree that law enforcement needs to utilize "sources" of possible evidence, the wording of the article says "questioning" and "seeking to copy".

They can't have it both ways - law enforcement may have an "understood" legal option to intervene in the day-to-day affairs of a people, but it does not follow that they should feel justified in seeking to "copy" and "question".

Why "seek" to do anything if they have the legal right to do so?
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The real question in my mind, is that, if we allow unimpeded access to our God-Given Fourth Amendment rights, isn't that sounding vaguely like the Shariah creeping in?

I respect the stare decisis and all of that, but I still maintain that the authorities need to tell us, especially with our computers and cell phones, exactly what it is they are searching for - and they must provide written, reasonable cause to search in the first place, Somali Wannabe Jihadists or not.

They should not be seeking, or asking permission of us.

They should be getting warrants, if they feel strongly enough about the matter.

David:

"I would answer first - ASKING to waive a right is an infringement on the right itself. Otherwise it wouldn't be a right."

This argument is just not valid. Case law specifically states that people may waive their right to remain silent. Constitutional law dating back to the beginning of the Republic says that people may waive their right to trial by jury. So these rights really aren't rights? Hardly.

This argument also implies that people are a bunch of wimps who don't know their rights and can't push back on improper police action. Even if that is true, it ought not to be so.

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"Also, I would ask, "how do the FBI know, exactly, what their "compadres" are doing? Why ask, if they knew, or strongly suspected. Probably a huge dose of racial profiling in this one, Tom."

I object to your use of the word 'exactly'. I think it obvious that the FBI knows very little, believes that the circumstances of this case require that the FBI learn more, and so they are simply fishing for evidence. I thought of putting that in my original post, but I saw doing so as, in a very small sense, possibly aiding and abetting the enemy. Too bad I had to reverse my decision.

The fact is that the FBI needs to collect information without warrants. My uncle was the subject of an FBI investigation prior to his posting aboard Air Force One. They interviewed his first grade teacher! Should she have demanded a warrant prior to answering questions? Perhaps you think so, since the FBI could be lying to her about their reasons. If you do then be aware that we would need many more judges to sign such warrants - given the large number of such investigations - and it wouldn't solve the underlying issue, since the FBI could just lie to the judges, couldn't they? More warrants also means less review of any one warrant, which is not good for liberty.

No, unless the citizen is himself the subject of a criminal investigation, he has a civic obligation to consider - just to consider - that the FBI request is for legitimate purposes and so to consider helping his country. This is why I emphasized the word ASK in reference to my assumption of the FBI's actions. If the immigrant taxi drivers can't see this then I question their allegiance.

Of course there are limits to this. My father once told me that he was approached by the CIA with a request to turn over health records of a foreign head of state to which he had access, and he refused on grounds of professional ethics. I think he was right in his case. I tell this just so you don't think I'm a mindless robot on this subject.

And yes, there have been cases where federal investigators have misrepresented who the real target is, so as to fool the target into cooperating. This has become common in Wall Street white collar crime investigations. We need to stop this practice. I mention it because, yes, I will admit this problem could apply here. If we stop this practice it will no longer be a concern.

One thing that I find funny about all this is that cell phones use the electromagnetic spectrum, which has long been recognized to be a public domain under the law. There is no expected privacy in a public domain unless a law specifically states there is. You may recall many years ago that a pair of Democratic party operatives taped cell phone conversations between Newt Gingrich and his attorneys and then turned the tapes over to the media. At that time it was not illegal for average citizens to listen to such calls, it was only the conveyance of the information to third parties that was illegal. The Gingrich incident prompted the U.S. to make the actual interception of cell phone calls illegal, and to date is still one of only a very few countries to do so.

While the FBI today cannot by law listen in to a particular cell phone call without a warrant, it could conceivably set up receivers that would record which numbers call which other numbers. As long as no names are attached to the numbers and the content is not recorded no privacy law would be broken. If a pattern became obvious and was of a concern (e.g., linked to a known terror suspect), then warrants could be requested to find out who was using the other numbers in question.

It appears to me that the current "questioning" by the FBI has the same goal without the expense of such receivers: to detect patterns. I read your view as basically arguing that the FBI needs warrants to collect the information needed to determine who it really needs to get warrants in order to surveil. I find that idea to be unnecessary and counterproductive. Again, I believe that the FBI should not be "questioning" anyone along these lines who is a reasonable target of a criminal investigation, and should they mistakenly do so then our constitutional order can handle it by granting the target immunity or by enforcing the exclusionary rule of evidence, which the FBI adopted long before the U.S. Supreme Court mandated it.

Other than that, I see no problems. The potential threat to our liberties by this FBI action is nothing compared to the potential threat of sharia.

David, you really got me thinking about this issue concerning rights. Here's another way to see it.

Fundamental rights are inalienable. You are correct to use the term "God-given". You cannot surrender them even if you wanted to do so. Another word used in law instead of fundamental is 'substantive'.

Other rights can be waived. These are often referred to as procedural rights. So, for example, your right to presumption of innocence is a fundamental right. Your right to trial by jury is a procedural right. In practical use of the law there is a wide spectrum here: for example, a legislature may decide that you have no right to a jury of twelve peers in a non-capital case, but merely to a jury of six peers. I personally don't like that example, since I believe that felony trials should require a full twelve erson jury, but it is the law in many states.

So, is the 4th amendment right to unreasonable search and seizure fundamental or procedural? I'd argure that it does have fundamental aspects, but since it can largely be overridden by the issuance of warrants it is more a procedural right.

As a sidebar, my understanding is that there is a big argument concerning this line of reasoning in legal circles. The issue is that the Slaughterhouse cases introduced this line of reasoning (which I think they were correct to do), but that subsequent interpretations of these cases as precedent effectively gutted the ability of U.S. citizens to use the "privileges and immunities" clause of the 14th amendment to protect their rights. Many legal scholars believe this should be revisited in case law, but the effort to undo the damage would be immense. It will be interesting to see where this leads in the future.

Hi Tom -

I'm going to address your points one by one.
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I wrote:

"I would answer first - ASKING to waive a right is an infringement on the right itself. Otherwise it wouldn't be a right."

You wrote:

"This argument is just not valid. Case law specifically states that people may waive their right to remain silent. Constitutional law dating back to the beginning of the Republic says that people may waive their right to trial by jury. So these rights really aren't rights? Hardly."

Tom, there is a distinct difference between willingly waiving a right (and there is a nigh-impossibility of doing so, anyway, since how can we speak for God?) and being asked to do so. Certainly, people may opt to "waive" their "right" temporarily, but any coercion, or urging by the government to do so has been held by case law to be un-constitutional (read forced "confessions" under duress). A Somali cab-driver could very easily request that counsel argue that any "evidence" obtained by a pseudo-search and seizure be deemed inadmissable, for obvious reasons (the data or ancillary objects lying outside of the bounds of the warrant become untouchable, then). The point I was trying to make, is that when an inalienable right is "questioned" by the government, or when the government "seeks" to have a people "temporarily suspend" those rights, the RIGHT ITSELF is no longer a right - it becomes ripe for further impingement. Title II allows for protection against those who would conspire to impinge our civil rights. GOD mandates that we not attempt to alter the gift he gave us, by protecting our right to our privacy, our persons and our personal effects.

you also wrote:

"This argument also implies that people are a bunch of wimps who don't know their rights and can't push back on improper police action. Even if that is true, it ought not to be so."

I'm not exactly sure what you mean here, because of some vagueness in the grammar, but...the 4th amendment does not require that a people know their rights, and then, by extension, are able to "push back" against heavy-handedness by the police or FBI. IT IS GOD-GIVEN. Our laws are there to protect all Americans, feeble-minded or not. And in fact, my argument above cedes the implication that most people are, frankly, unaware of their rights. So what? The courts have shown that protection of these rights supercedes the "waiving" of such, when even the slightest bit of coercion by the authorities is present in questioning without counsel. This is why Miranda exists.
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you also wrote...

"I object to your use of the word 'exactly'. I think it obvious that the FBI knows very little, believes that the circumstances of this case require that the FBI learn more, and so they are simply fishing for evidence. I thought of putting that in my original post, but I saw doing so as, in a very small sense, possibly aiding and abetting the enemy. Too bad I had to reverse my decision."

What the FBI knows, or "knew" at the time of the "singling out" is irrelevant, Tom, except that, yes, they obviously WERE on a fishing expedition. Fishing expeditions are not allowed. The cops need warrants stating exactly what they are looking for - the 4th Amendment states this clearly. In fact, anything "seized" that, ostensibly, had "lain" outside the original parameters of the warrant, becomes inadmissable. Hundreds and hundreds of examples of case law reflect the wisdom of the language of the amendment. This is why I maintain that "asking for" or "seeking" information is a form of coercion, and causes the "right" to take on the character of something much less than divinely - bestowed.

and you wrote:

"The fact is that the FBI needs to collect information without warrants."

With respect, Tom, I don't care (nor should you) whether they need to collect information without warrants or not. The 4th Amendment is clear. They cannot do it legally. If they even "attempt" or "seek" to do so, they have violated your 4th Amendment protections, and are, themselves, now in the position of having to defend themselves in a court of Civil Law.

finally, and because I need more coffee...

"So, is the 4th amendment right to unreasonable search and seizure fundamental or procedural? I'd argure that it does have fundamental aspects, but since it can largely be overridden by the issuance of warrants it is more a procedural right.

As a sidebar, my understanding is that there is a big argument concerning this line of reasoning in legal circles."
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No, Tom! the Fourth Amendment cannot be "overridden" by the issuance of warrants. With respect, you have it backward. The issuance of warrants is designed not to "override", but to address the very clear boundaries of the 4th Amendment. There must be clear and compelling evidence of a felony having been committed, or a compelling need to forestall an imminent felony being committed. God-Given rights do not become watered - down because of adjudication. The point is moot until the right itself is abridged. I think you have the cart before the horse, unless I am mistaken, and those lawyers arguing that the 4th Amendment is not fundamental are like the dog chasing it's own, God-Given tail...

David, you wrote:

“…A Somali cab-driver could very easily request that counsel argue that any "evidence" obtained by a pseudo-search and seizure be deemed inadmissable, for obvious reasons (the data or ancillary objects lying outside of the bounds of the warrant become untouchable, then)…”

But this is exactly why the FBI would ASK Somali Driver A to voluntarily give them information concerning Somali Driver B. If they seized information from Driver B without a warrant you would be correct.

“..The point I was trying to make, is that when an inalienable right is "questioned" by the government…”

The government never questioned any right, it questioned individuals, and the nature of the questioning is not specified in the article

“… or when the government "seeks" to have a people "temporarily suspend" those rights…”

No one has made such an assertion on this thread. "Waiving" follows established legal procedures, it is in no way related to "temporarily suspend"

“..the RIGHT ITSELF is no longer a right - it becomes ripe for further impingement.”

I philosophically disagree. Impingement of rights may effectively deny their application for a period of time, but if they are truly inalienable they still exist and can be reclaimed at any time. Personally, I am a big fan of the word “inalienable”.

“Title II allows for protection against those who would conspire to impinge our civil rights.”

Yes it does. Good thing too.

“…the 4th amendment does not require that a people know their rights, and then, by extension, are able to "push back" against heavy-handedness by the police or FBI…”

C’mon. On a philosophical level this is true. As a practical matter good citizenship requires that citizens know their rights and live them out, as you are with your posts. One definition of the legal concept of the ‘reasonable man’ is that he or she fully understands their rights.

“What the FBI knows, or "knew" at the time of the "singling out" is irrelevant, Tom, except that, yes, they obviously WERE on a fishing expedition. Fishing expeditions are not allowed...”

Police ASK people to voluntarily give them information on their neighbors all the time. They came to my door one night to ASK about the drug dealers next door. I was glad to give them the information. If a taxi driver hears jihadi talk from other drivers he should be glad to give information he has about them, such as their phone numbers, to the FBI, should they ASK. I don’t see the two as any different.

I’m sorry, but police have done this sort of thing for as long as they have existed. There is nothing inherently wrong with it. Normal police work cannot go on without it.

“..The cops need warrants stating exactly what they are looking for - the 4th Amendment states this clearly. In fact, anything "seized" that, ostensibly, had "lain" outside the original parameters of the warrant, becomes inadmissable. Hundreds and hundreds of examples of case law reflect the wisdom of the language of the amendment...”

Correct. Please tell me how police get the information needed to “state exactly what they are looking for”? You would agree they cannot just make it up. It has to come from somewhere. Even if someone givies it to them without them ASKING, they may need to ASK someone else for confirming information before seeking a warrant.

“..This is why I maintain that "asking for" or "seeking" information is a form of coercion, and causes the "right" to take on the character of something much less than divinely - bestowed…”

No way is that true - this is the key fallacy in this debate of ours. The police did not coerce me that night when I told them the drug dealers had moved away. Good thing I told them when they ASKED, or else they could have mounted a raid on the innocent people who moved in after the dealers left. Would you have wanted that to happen? “$%%$!, I don’t have time to get a warrant to get these neighbors to tell me if the dealers are still there, so I guess I’ll just have to execute the warrant I have”. That would have been SUCH a nice way to protect civil liberties!

"..No, Tom! the Fourth Amendment cannot be "overridden" by the issuance of warrants. With respect, you have it backward. The issuance of warrants is designed not to "override", but to address the very clear boundaries of the 4th Amendment..."

I admit that my choice of words here was poor. I was thinking in functional terms, but on retrospect I do see how illiberal people could use that to justify civil rights violations.

“..There must be clear and compelling evidence of a felony having been committed, or a compelling need to forestall an imminent felony being committed.”

This is patently not true. “Clear and compelling” is a legal standard of evidence normally reserved for libel suits. It lies between “preponderance of the evidence” (the normal standard for tort cases) and “beyond a reasonable doubt” (the standard for criminal cases). Search warrants are issued on meeting the much lower “probable cause” standard, and always have been. You should know that. The fact that you chose this wording tells me that you are taking an idealistic stand that is very much out not in alignment with most jurisprudence as theorized or practiced. It is hard to see how a criminal justice system could function if warrants were issued to so high a standard.

Furthermore, the law is also very clear that to “forestall an imminent felony being committed” warrants are not needed. The law defines these situations as ‘exigent circumstances’. You can look it up.

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To me, the most important issue is that the original news story IN NO WAY states that the FBI is in any way coercing the taxi drivers. You are assuming that the "questioning" involves coercion; I'm assuming that it does not, based on my personal experience with police questioning. It is likely that the taxi drivers are just complaining according to the CAIR lawfare script.

Suppose the person who sold their SUV to the Times Square bomber told the FBI “I’m not telling you anything about that SUV unless you get a search warrant”. The bomber could have escaped to Pakistan. I am personally glad that those people immediately gave their bill of sale to the FBI. They were good citizens.

Your writings seem to imply that the FBI or other police should NEVER talk to anyone for any reason without a warrant. I would be glad to read that I am wrong on my interpretation of your opinion, because it implies to me that a DEEPLY adversarial relationship SHOULD exist between the U.S. government and the citizens of the country. I'm not talking about the natural skepticism that representative democracy or criminal justice requires, and of which arguably we even need a little more, but rather a dysfunctional distrust that will eat at the bowels of our constitutional order.

Tom, it's very early in the morning, and I have to get ready to go teach, but I'll try to respond to 2 or 3 points here - again:
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“…A Somali cab-driver could very easily request that counsel argue that any "evidence" obtained by a pseudo-search and seizure be deemed inadmissable, for obvious reasons (the data or ancillary objects lying outside of the bounds of the warrant become untouchable, then)…”

But this is exactly why the FBI would ASK Somali Driver A to voluntarily give them information concerning Somali Driver B. If they seized information from Driver B without a warrant you would be correct.
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Tom, I am a linguist. Sometimes our words are a bit leading. You were led down a linguistic path that was, on 2nd reading, a bit tricky - you must remember that NO warrants (to my knowledge) were issued. A 'pseudo-search' may or may not provide good enough reasons to a judge to issue a warrant. This has little or no bearing on why we should "voluntarily" give information. Look, these drivers were singled out because they were Somalis and they were cab-drivers, not because they were likely receptacles of possible nuggets of information. Again, if the cops think someone is worth questioning, they can follow Miranda. If they want information, they need to formally request it. The burden of accusation lies with the accuser, in this case, the government. It is absolutely necessary to make the cops follow the rules as we do. We can't go around to our neighbors houses, seeking info they may or may not have about the drug dealers down the street. In fact, the cops would tell us we were engaging in dangerous activities, and that we need to leave the "detective" work up to them.
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“..The point I was trying to make, is that when an inalienable right is "questioned" by the government…”

The government never questioned any right, it questioned individuals, and the nature of the questioning is not specified in the article

Oh come on, Tom. Don't be obtuse. Of course the government brings the right into question by seeking to question individuals. That is the nature of the dynamic. And the nature of the "questioning" was, INDEED, mentioned in the article. It said the cops asked to copy their cell phone records. Warrant required. If you ask too much, it's an impingement.
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“… or when the government "seeks" to have a people "temporarily suspend" those rights…”

No one has made such an assertion on this thread. "Waiving" follows established legal procedures, it is in no way related to "temporarily suspend
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Actually, I MADE that assertion on this thread, and I stick to it. Waving a right, and being coerced into temporarily suspending it are two different things, which I believe I made clear in my assertion. The point is that the onus is not on citizens to "nicely" waive their rights. This kind of nonsense led to the Stamp Act and Quartering Act in the infancy of our nation. People were "asked" to house British soldiers. They didn't have the "right" to refuse. We must never give an inch on this. Make the cops work, if they feel strongly enough about a matter. And by the way, "waiving" your right is exactly what I called it - the "right" is temporarily suspended. They are very closely related in contention to your "assertion".
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“Clear and compelling” is a legal standard of evidence normally reserved for libel suits.
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Maybe so, but all warrants must be based on data that is clear and compelling enough for a judge to issue a warrant. Probable cause is not probable, nor does it intend an effect if the basis for it is not compelling.
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Furthermore, the law is also very clear that to “forestall an imminent felony being committed” warrants are not needed. The law defines these situations as ‘exigent circumstances’. You can look it up.

Yep, you're right. Did the several Somalis fit into this category? Nope. And that's why they weren't hauled downtown for questioning. The cops were fishing and knew they had no basis for a warrant.
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Your writings seem to imply that the FBI or other police should NEVER talk to anyone for any reason without a warrant.
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Well, writers imply - readers infer. I can't control the inferences you make, but I will say this: Cops should not be interfering in our day-to-day activities based on half-baked hunches based on race and occupation. Terrorism is a great threat, and yes, we need to question people. But we need to do it carefully, and in a manner that gives no hint of a "dragnet". If the cops feel strongly enough, they need to do their homework, go back to the judge and get a warrant, then haul a few in for questioning. It is then incumbent upon the cops to issue Miranda, no matter what their suspicions. It is not incumbent upon us all to cooperate with the cops, willy-nilly.

End.