The following turned up on Usenet's militia newsgroup:
Warrantless Inspections Struck Down- Court Advises Council on how
to Properly Circumvent the Constitution
by WILLIAM MICHAEL KEMP minutemn@internetpro.net
The Vigo Examiner
    In the case of Scott Bullock vs. Park Forest, IL, involving
warrantless searches for ordinance compliance, Federal District
Judge Joan Gottschall has issued a ruling striking down
approximately half of the municipality's ordinance, declaring that
it was unreasonable and arbitrary.
     In recent times, various municipalities around the nation
have used their presumed authority to inspect private homes for
compliance with various building, fire, and health regulations
passed by those municipalities. From the far reaching nature of
the regulations, determining compliance involves an almost minute
inspection of the buildings involved, and their contents.
     Typically, residents are given notice of the impending
inspections by mail and by public notice, with the inspections
scheduled at the convenience of the inspectors. Residents are
required to open their homes to the inspectors "at all reasonable
times," and dire civil and sometimes criminal penalties are
threatened if the residents fail to provide full cooperation.
     Often the municipalities target rented homes in this effort,
and use their leverage over landlords to coerce tenants'
cooperation. Since landlords are required to obtain permission
from the municipalities to do business, they are therefore liable
to official hindrance if they object. When some residents object
to this high-handed approach, municipalities harden their stance.
     Deeming such inspections "for the public good,"
municipalities claim that Fourth Amendment protections do not
apply; when residents demand warrants, municipalities respond with
"administrative warrants," which are documents stating that they
are warrants, but lack the Constitutional requirement of
affidavits of probable cause. Further, municipalities levy
monetary charges against residents who demand their presumed
Fourth Amendment protection for the production of these incomplete
warrants.
     Scott Bullock, representing tenants in the Chicago suburb of
Park Forest, challenged the village's practice of "inspections" of
single family rental dwellings in federal District Court in
December of 1995, asserting that it placed the tenants in the
category of "second class citizens." Judge Joan Gottschall
continued "Fourth Amendment concerns for privacy and security are
profoundly implicated when a government official invades the
sanctity of a person's home. The inspections here are
unquestionably invasive. Warrants are served by an inspector and a
police officer. Every room in a residence is inspected, including
bedrooms and bathrooms."
     The Fourth Amendment of which Judge Gottschall was expressing
concern states: "The right of the people to be secure in their
persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable
searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrant shall
issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation,
and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the
persons or things to be seized."
     She further held that the law was not based on "reasonable
legislative and administrative standards," and declared "this
court can find nothing in the record to indicate why the Village
undertook such an intrusive inspection program solely for rented
single-family homes and can find nothing that limits in any way
the scope of the inspections."
     This is the remaining area the Fourth Amendment protects, as
the NRA sponsored HR 666, passed in 1995, lack provision to
eliminate Fourth Amendment protection in this remaining area.
Further agreeing with the resident's complaint, Judge Gottschall
also ruled that the $60 fee imposed upon residents who demanded a
search warrant to be an unconstitutional restriction on the
exercise of their Fourth Amendment rights. This is in agreement
with other courts, which have long held that no governmental
entity may infringe upon citizens' rights by imposing fees for
their exercise, effectively turning these rights into purchased
governmental privileges to be granted or denied at the whim of
that government entity.
     The court also stated that "explicit consent" for search was
required of the tenants in whom Fourth Amendment rights are
vested, not the consent of the landlords.
    CHILLING NOTE ACCOMPANIES THE RULING
     Another federal case involving Constitutional limitations on
government, the so-called "Lopez" decision, struck down as
unconstitutional a federal law which enacted a "gun free zone"
around schools. The justices of the Supreme Court in "Lopez"
worded their ruling with what amounted to instructions to the
legislative body who enacted the law.
     The instructions specified how the legislative body could
craft a law which would circumvent the constitutional limitations,
against the interest of the principals, the sovereign citizenry.
Following the encouragement of the court, Congress subsequently
passed such a law worded in the fashion suggested by the court.
The original intent of the law, declared unconstitutional by the
justices as an unlawful infringement upon the rights of the
sovereign citizens, was resurrected in the subsequent legislation.
     Interested parties are therefore required to again adjudicate
a challenge to a law already overturned, at great expense and
uncertainty, against the complicity of the court itself. [Many
Chicago, Illinois city ordinances include a clause requiring just
this endless battling; if the courts overturn the ordinance in one
case, the city claims that the ordinance is still valid, and must
be fought through for each subsequent case- E.L. ]
     This practice was repeated in the "inspections" case, with
the court instructing the municipality to state the necessity of
inspection for the end of "public safety." Further instructions
were implicit in the court's ruling, with the guidance that single
family rental dwellings not be singled out, and that some
limitation be placed upon the scope of the searches.
     In practice, however, this results in a greater infringement,
for the municipality is instructed to include all dwellings, and
to include simple but effectively meaningless language "limiting"
the scope of search. It is all but stated that such compounding of
the invasion will suffice to satisfy the court.
     Whatever the eventual outcome, it is clear that we have come
a long way since William Pitt, addressing the English House of
Commons, stated-
     "The poorest man may, in his cottage, bid defiance to the
Crown. It may be frail, its roof may shake; the wind may blow
through it; the storm may enter; the rain may enter; but the King
of England may not enter. All his force may not cross the
threshold of the ruined tenement."
   - Copyright (C) 1998, The Vigo Examiner
   http://www.Vigo-Examiner.com
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