DEA & 9th

The DEA and the 9th Circuit: Continuing to Drive a Wedge Between Americans & Government

So let's say you're lying in bed one night, and your dog starts barking. You walk out onto your back porch, and you see some guys messing around with your car. Should you shoot them?

(A) Yes, because they have invaded my property, and are probably now stealing my car, which I need for the survival and prosperity of my family; also, as a citizen, I have both the right and the duty to stop a felony in progress if I'm able. If shooting them is the necessary means to that end, it's entirely proper.

(B) No, because human life is more important than property. We don't hang people for car theft, therefore we shouldn't be free to use lethal violence to protect our cars.

(C) No, they're probably government agents, whose right to invade my property without a warrant is Constitutionally protected!

(D) Yes, because if they're thieves they ought to be shot; but if they're government agents who believe they should have the right to invade my property without both a warrant and taking clear steps to inform me of the warrant, it's even more important that they be shot.

If you said (A), I think you're right. If you said (D), I think you might be right. (B) and (C) are not acceptable answers. Unless, that is, you're the 9th Circuit.

The matter is of academic importance to me, as (a) I don't live in the 9th Circuit, thank God, and (b) I have a fence with a gate to keep the horses in.

Chief Judge Alex Kozinski, who dissented from this month's decision refusing to reconsider the case, pointed out whose homes are not open to strangers: rich people's. The court's ruling, he said, means that people who protect their homes with electric gates, fences and security booths have a large protected zone of privacy around their homes.

Well, I would hardly say we were "rich people," but such fences are more common in rural areas. In any event, it doesn't matter. The government should be forbidden from sneaking onto your property, etc. If they have cause to do all this, they should have to get a warrant. Warrants should have to be executed formally, in an open and declared way.

"But then he'd know we thought he was growing dope, and he'd quit!" Well, yeah -- right.

"But he's a bad person!" No worse than DEA agents who think they ought to be able to treat American citizens this way -- in fact, much less bad, from my perspective. Agents who don't resign in protest when told to do this kind of thing are wicked, and personally responsible for the harm they are doing to our social contract.

These DEA agents, and the judges that let them get away with it, are turning the police into the actual enemies of the People. That is a story with a very bad ending.