LL>THEN there are the insane laws of oppression; oppression aimed at
  >free speech, oppression aimed at a person being secure in their
  >own homes and free from fear of jackbooted thugs busting down
  >their door when they have done nothing wrong and when they have
  >in no way given ANY so-called law enforcement agency "probable cause"
  >to be visited by assault forces.
Hi Les,
You know, that "probable cause" stuff has completely gotten away from
us.  Now, if you fit a certain "profile", it can be probable cause.
I had an experience with that not too long ago; a state trooper who was
reminding me that I must always wear my seat belt (again) also wanted to
know if I had any narcotics because he had seen in a newspaper that I
owned a headshop.
Since he said "narcotics", I said no, got up on my soapbox, delivered a
little speech, and told him to write my ticket and let me go unless he
intended to proceed to arrest me on the probable cause of appearing in
an erroneous newspaper account (I don't sell drug paraphernalia, I
sell/sold pipes).  I tried to maintain a lot of eye contact, and it was
difficult, because he was just a few years older than my son.  I wanted
to really hard-ass the son-of-a-bitch, but he DID already have that
seatbelt thing, my muffler was missing completely, the car wasn't
properly registered yet (I was on my way to the courthouse to do that),
and I had just bought it from a private party and didn't have ANY idea
what might be in the carpet, seats, etc.  And I had that fifteen year
old roach clip in my wallet.
But the whole thing started with a profile, or a hunch, and it woulda
been him, the trained expert, against me, the hippie, in court (except
that I didn't have any contraband).  That's frightening, in my book.
Steve
 * SLMR 2.1a * If it's its it's its; if it's it is it's it's.
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