We expect some serious outrage over news, received from Greg Greene and George Chang that the Delaware police are collecting citizen photos for use in investigating future crimes.

"The pictures, names and addresses of the people - mostly minority men - are being used to create a database of potential suspects to investigate future crimes, Police Chief Michael Szczerba said."

Some legal experts and prosecutors say the tactic is legal. "Criminal defense attorneys, the American Civil Liberties Union and minority groups say it is not."

Let's see what you think, after reading this description of how the new policy is being conducted:

"The police units taking the photographs are known in some Wilmington neighborhoods as 'jump-out squads' because they descend on corners, burst out of marked and unmarked vehicles and make arrests in seconds. Up to 20 officers make up each squad. "

"Police routinely line the people on the corners against a wall and pat them down for weapons...."

Then the police take the men's names and addresses, snap their pictures and send them on their way.

The police justify this as a Terry stop, "...named for a 1968 Supreme Court decision, Terry vs. Ohio, that allows officers to stop, question and frisk people they think are suspicious or people in high-crime areas."

Defense attorney Joseph A. Hurley disagrees with the police. Hurley says "police have a right to photograph a citizen walking home from a grocery store or a library, but they cannot take a picture of someone they are temporarily detaining. The second they say, 'We're the police, put your hands against the wall,' the photos become wrong. They're unconstitutional. Bad idea."

The police intend to use the photos for photograph lineups in future crimes. But are the police running a risk here? Will a future defendant charged with a serious crime on the basis of a lineup consisting of these citizen photos have grounds to get his case dismissed?

Defense attorney Eugene J. Maurer Jr. thinks so. "If they're not arresting these people and [are] using the loitering laws as a subterfuge just to get these pictures, I think there are some serious constitutional problems....Absent individualized suspicion, you're not supposed to be able to detain somebody."

The ACLU does not want the police to be "intimidating people who are lawfully assembled ... on the basis of loitering laws....And the retention of photographs is intimidating."

The police chief condescendingly responds with, "These are targeted, directed sweeps in high-crime areas where police have been turned loose to attack bad people...Good little kiddies in the wrong place at the wrong time are not getting their picture taken."

The NAACP is rightly troubled because the sweeps target the poor and minorities.

We object to the practice. It has a chilling effect on the first amendment right to freedom of assembly. We think Terry stops require individualized suspicion of wrong-doing, and hanging around a street corner in a known drug area falls far short of the test. Sure, the police can take pictures of people on the streets, just like tourists do--but they cannot detain them without suspicion of wrongdoing in order to get the pictures. Rounding innocent people up and lining them against the wall to get their pictures when they haven't done anything wrong is antithetical to both our criminal justice system and the core principles of a free society.

No legal challenges have been filed to the practice yet. We expect Delaware defense lawyers will bring them when the time is right.

For the rest of us, we think protests to this kind of practice should begin now. It's just another step in the "May I see your papers, please" process. Once the practice is accepted for those considered to be the lowest among us, it will eventually spread to the rest of us, and by then it may be too late to complain.

Check out Terrorist Granny gets the Riot Squad treatment!!! on Eschaton, Atrios's blog.

Here's the story behind it.

The American Civil Liberties Union and two other groups filed an expedited Freedom of Information Act request Wednesday demanding that the U.S. Department of Justice release data about its domestic surveillance activities.

"The groups are concerned the Bush administration may be trampling the rights of innocent Americans under the aegis of conducting the war on terrorism. The request asks for government data in 14 categories of agency records, including "sneak and peak" searches of private residences without prior consent, searches of public library and bookstore records and authorizations for wiretaps of phone calls and electronic mail."

For those not familiar with "sneak and peak" searches, Section 213 of the newly enacted Patriot Act allows the police to enter and search a home without telling anyone they have done so, seriously undermining the Fourth Amendment and one’s ability to mount a fourth amendment challenge to the search or any other kind of defense.

Section 213 is not limited to terrorism investigations. It applies to the search and seizure of any property or material pursuant to a search warrant “that constitutes evidence of a criminal offense in violation of the laws of the United States.”

There is no sunset provision for this section.

Specifically, this section authorizes surreptitious search warrants and seizures upon a showing of “reasonable necessity” and eliminates the requirement of Rule 41 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure that immediate notification of seized items be provided.

Delayed rather than immediate notification is authorized if the Court finds reasonable cause to believe that immediate notification may have an adverse effect, such as by jeopardizing an investigation. In such event, notice must be given within a “reasonable time.” While federal statutes (Title III) authorize delayed notice of interceptions of wire and oral communications, there has never been a corresponding provision authorizing secret searches for physical evidence.

Section 215 of the Patriot Act greatly expands the record searching authority of the F.B.I. Instead of being limited to travel-related businesses, the F.B.I. now may access all documents and things maintained by all businesses. The type of sensitive information that can be disclosed under Section 215 includes “medical records, mental health records, financial records, video rental records, fingerprints, DNA samples from a person's hair, employment records, records of employment-based drug testing, and immigration records maintained by non-profit agencies. “ Here are more details by the ACLU.

Section 215 does not require the person from whom the records are sought to be the agent of a foreign power. It requires the judge to rubber stamp his or her approval of a request made of any person or business to produce any books, records, documents or items, so long as the F.B.I. submits an application certifying that the request is made in connection with a foreign intelligence investigation, or an investigation to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities.

Under prior law, much of the information covered by Section 215 was protected by privacy legislation, such as the Right to Financial Privacy Act, which was enacted with the intent of protecting highly sensitive information. Section 215 will take precedence over such statutes and eviscerate such privacy interests.

Persons receiving orders under this section are effectively gagged and may not disclose that they have been served. The person or business whose records are obtained is not notified. There is no requirement as existed under prior law that law enforcement be conducting a criminal investigation before seeking access to the records. There is no reporting requirement to the Court or Congress of the actual documents seized or their relevancy. Only the number of applications sought and granted must be reported.

If you aren't notified of the search, and you don't know the search even happened, how are you going to challenge it?

The Patriot Act was passed in haste, without adequate time for review by Congress. It is a bad law that infringes upon the freedoms of law-abiding Americans without giving us any assurance it will make us any safer.

Attorney General Ashcroft should quit monkeying around and turn over the requested documents to Congress--and the ACLU and others who ask for them under the Freedom of Information Act. Let us see how and against whom these new powers have been used so far.

Update: A terrific August 23, 2002 San Francisco Chronicle Editorial on the issue.

ConfluenceTheoryofTruth uses this quote in its blog banner, which we really can appreciate these days:

As nightfall does not come all at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight. And it is in such twilight that we all must be aware of change in the air -- however slight -- lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.

Justice William O. Douglas, US Supreme Court (1939-75)

The ACLU remains critical of "Operation Tips" even after the Justice Department's "scale down" announcement. It has started a new web page Please Help Us Turn Back the Assault on Freedom where you can vent your frustration and opposition to the ill-conceived plan. From the Site:

"Help the ACLU stop the snooping ! Reverse the Bush-Ashcroft agenda to undermine our most cherished freedoms."

It offers links enabling you to :

"Send a free fax to your Senators.

Send a Special Request to Your Utility Companies asking for their pledge not to spy on their customers.

Download a printable door-hanger to let others know that the privacy of your home is protected by the ACLU.

Spread the word about the ACLU's TIPS Watch Web site.

Use the links below to join now or give additional support to the ACLU. "

We're spreading the word. As we have been since the plan was first reported. If you missed some of our early criticism, visit : Operation Tips: Another Assault on the Constitution and A Distinction Without A Difference

Eric Shellhorn uses humor to go after Operation Tips, aka Operation Snoops, aka Operation SNIFFS in today's San Francisco Chronicle.

Nat Hentoff has a more sobering take in the Washington Times.

Attorney General Ashcroft testified about Operation Tips yesterday before the Senate Judiciary Committees.

He defended Operation Snoops, explaining that it would not have its own database. Rather, he said, it would be a referral service, whereby calls from citizens about other citizens' (their neighbors' and employers' and customers' )odd activities would be transferred to federal and state law enforcement agencies.

Like those agencies aren't going to log the transferred calls into their own databases? What's the difference whose database it is? Isn't the point of contention here that we don't want to be spied on and have information about what people think they see, or believe they saw, or didn't see but decide to lie and say they saw, end up in the hands of the Government?

We like ACLU Director Laura Murphy's comments as reported in the article: "Notwithstanding all of these assurances, this is still government-sanctioned peeping Toms. This is a program where people's activities, statements, posters in their windows or on their walls, nationality, and religious practices will be reported by untrained individuals without any relationship to criminal activity."

For today's op-ed piece against the Rat Pact, we like The Societal Cost of Surveillance in the New York Times. (Free Registration Required.)

We really like William Raspberry's column in today's Washington Post named "Choking on a Ham Sandwich."

Seems Mr. Raspberry just finished a stint of grand jury service. He had good intentions of not helping the prosecution get away with indicting poor minority kids on one-sided evidence. He had a hard time sticking to it. But then he thought about Donovan Jackson, and what would have happened to him before a grand jury had there been no video...We won't spoil it, go read it.

Jesse Jackson calls Bush and Ashcroft "the most threatening combination in our lifetime."

Check out lawyer Steve Braughman's commentary, Ashcroft's Vendetta: Lynching John Walker Lindh, in yesterday's CounterPunch.

Braughman says a close examination of the facts should embarass the government, the mainstream media and also the alternative media--the latter for being "unforgivably silent about what seems to be a blatantly political prosecution of a United States citizen."

We have to agree that so far it does not appear the Government has uncovered any evidence that Lindh intended to murder United States nationals or assist in the September 11 or any other attacks on America.

For more, go to Braughman's website, FreeJohnWalker.net

A broad and diverse coalition of national organizations are urging their elected officials to oppose H.R. 4633, the "Driver's License Modernization Act of 2002." This legislation essentially creates a national identification system (read national id. card) through the back door of state drivers' licenses.

Both the ACLU and EPIC are out in front on this one.

Our view: It's a quick fix that won't do anything to stop terrorists or enhance our safety. It will only further diminish our privacy rights.