Another Police-State Headline

The post on fark.com:

(The Boston Globe)

"America takes another bold step towards becoming a police state. Supreme Court rules cops can frisk a passenger in a car stopped for a traffic violation even if nothing indicates the passenger has committed a crime or is about to do so"

I'd comment, but luckily people weren't excessively alarmist and brought up intelligent points. I'll go through and cite some cases later today; I just wanted to make sure I got this info before it's off the fark main page.

To see the forum discussion post, click here.

A couple of the more knowledgeable posts:

More bad legal reporting. This is a pretty logical extension of Terry. Here's the actual opinion so you don't have to indure the stupid in the linked article.

-Posted by filth

Let's not rush to judgment here. AP reporting on legal decisions is usually pretty shiatty.
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The Supreme Court ruled Monday that police officers have leeway to frisk a passenger in a car stopped for a traffic violation even if nothing indicates the passenger has committed a crime or is about to do so.

Followed by:

The justices accepted Arizona's argument that traffic stops are inherently dangerous for police and that pat-downs are permissible when an officer has a reasonable suspicion that the passenger may be armed and dangerous.

Nothing to see here, folks. Police have always been allowed to search a driver if they have reasonable suspicion that he may be armed and dangerous (police safety rationale). Same would logically apply to a passenger.
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A unanimous Court? Interesting, though I'm not really surprised.

Reasonable suspicion to search a driver or a passenger cannot rest on an officer's unparticularized suspicion or "hunch" -- the officer must have objective, articulable factors to justify his actions (U.S. v. Sokolow)

-Posted by KaponoFor3 (three separate posts)

Editorial: Great Expectations...

As excited as you might be that I'll be touching on Dickens' breathtakingly dull novel, I instead refer to the current "buzz" - Obama's new tenure as our President.

I understand how great it is that we have an African American as president; one who promised (and seems to be following through) sweeping changes in how our government operates, and how the United States as a whole operates. But... He's just the president. Take a minute, and follow that link. Sure, over the years since it's conception the president's powers have been expanded and diminished through the history of this country, but at the present, this does not make him a god. He can't wave his hand and make the economy perfect; in fact, there are vigourous debates among learned economists over what actions could improve our current state of economy.

I don't dislike Obama; I may disagree with some of his plans for policy (e.g. universal healthcare), but what vexes me is the faith and expectations that people have placed on him. Perhaps eight years under an absolute doofus of a president has provided society to see that anything is better than Bush was, and Obama's charisma increases the pedestal on which the American public seems to have placed him, but regardles: primus inter pares. He has power, but essentially he can be considered as a first among equals. The only way that he could possibly do all that others envisage him to do would be if he had absolute authority (which the country didn't like under a certain monkey faced president).

Why the brief editorial? This is just an instance where the ignorance of others in their hope that all their problems will disappear now that Obama is on the stand has driven me to frustration. Deal with your own problems, despite who's president! Hopefully America won't look quite like the cocky, ignorant bully with an intelligent, charismatic, and diverse Head of State, but otherwise, I wish people would stop expecting miracles from a government that has a less than stellar record.