Bush's Feds Have More Respect for the Constitution

[madmusic]

How can anyone complain about Bush's attack on civil rights and yet condone the attempt to subvert the Constitution right here? Do you really want the police raiding your house on an anonymous/hoax tip and a http://www.denverpost.com/headlines/ci_9050932">bogus warrant when the law knows it's bogus? Do you really want en masse arrest based on all these bogus charges? Do you really want en masse detention because of the potential crimes of a few? Bush would love a law like that! Fortunately, so far, it is unconstitutional, but many here think it just fine. Is that what you want?

Too much of DU is astoundingly ignorant on this issue.

http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,695275674,00.html">Feds are stymied in probes of FLDS

Tolman says office needs probable cause, not rumors

Federal authorities have been probing allegations of crimes involving the Fundamentalist LDS Church and its leader Warren Jeffs for years — but have been unable to develop enough probable cause to launch a full-scale investigation or bring charges.

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http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/life/religion/5719330.html">Jim Harrington, head of the Texas Civil Rights Project, said it will matter if the original call was legitimate or a hoax.

"The officials have a duty to investigate and make sure that there's a reasonableness and the credibility to that call," he said. "The general rule is that you cannot have a warrant based solely on an anonymous call. There has to be other factors that come into play that demonstrate the reliability of the anonymous call. Otherwise you could imagine the havoc from people filing these false (reports) all the time."

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The bogus interpretation of "womens rights and human rights" does not, should not, and should never trump the Constitution. Period. But maybe the FBI will get together with some of these DUers and move to amend the Constitution and strike the search and seizure and due process clauses dead. If you don't want that do happen, why don't you speak out?

[uppityperson]

1. If CPS gets a report of a child in danger, I'd expect them to investigate.

CPS is subject to different regulations than law enforcement is.

I'm confused. Aren't these people who you say are going against the constitution "bush's Feds"? So how do they have more respect? More respect than whom? Those you are ranting against? But they are bush's feds.

[genna]

2. Where is the outrage?

I think the outrage is between two conflicting points. On one hand, there are teenagers who are old enough to menstruate are having sex with adult males and becoming mothers. On the other hand, you have the government watching these religious figures who believe it is okay to have more than one wife (why don't you ever hear it is okay for a woman to have more than one husband?) AND the age of the wife does not necessarily have to be over the age of consent.

I don't think I should fly off the handle and be OUTRAGED that the government is overstepping its search and seizure laws UNLESS I know for a fact what the evidence is. The problem with just assuming the worse about the government because I don't like what the Bush administration has been doing with their wire taps is the Texas enforcement officers may JUST BE RIGHT IN THIS CASE.

I get more skeptical when I see Texas pull out a black woman and say it was she who pulled a hoax. If this woman says she called and she has not been offered nor has she accepted a commuted sentence for past crimes, then maybe this false information becomes a valid reason to search the compound and seize the children.

But if Texas trotted out this defendant to make the search reasonable because the TX people were tired of not having enough evidence for probable cause, then TX should be censored and condemned for shredding our constitution.

That said, I can't drum enough personal outrage or sympathy for men or women who allow their menstruating girls to be taken as first or second wives for older men. If you think women and children's rights are in place to be a balm to women libbers, then you have another thing coming. It is precisely because domestic violence, rape and abuse confront women/children on such a LARGE SCALE that these groups need intervention. We still live in a paternalistic society where the government reaches into a family or a religious group to make sure that these people (women and children) are not being targeted and humiliated.

Even if everything you fear about a hoax warrant, a malignant prosecution of this religious group, and a hard hearted public that just does not care about the plight of these 437 seized children living in foster care is RIGHT; I still can't summon enough outrage and disgust at the TX government for going onto that compound.

I am glad that it did not turn out like Waco TX David Koresh and the Branch Davidians. I'd rather have the government catch a religious group before it starts to pass out Kool Aid.

I only believe in freedom of religion to practice its faith, if they make it safe for everyone involved. I freely admit to my bias against sects getting special allowances to have sex with children. If adults are not systematically targeting children like this TX group and pregnancies result at random intervals to children, then I don't think the state should intervene to prosecute anyone. A 4 to 6 year gap between underage parents should be the maximum allowance for these underaged pregnancies.

I think this example of state intervention is NOT the worst thing TX has done to civil rights. I think adults should be in the habit of explaining the birds and the bees to minors in graphic detail (which is another issue altogether-the more adults hide sex/sexuality the more a minor is going to seek out their own answer) so that pregnancies do not occur before the underaged couple is able to take care of a possible child.

[Richard Steele]

3. Your efforts to defend child-slave RAPE grow more pathetic and disgusting by the day. You sicken me.