MB Civic

To the Editor:

Re “The Don’t-Bother-to-Knock Rule” (editorial, June 16):

I find it paradoxical that a so-called conservative majority of the Supreme Court, in ruling in favor of the state in a “knock and announce” case, has essentially, as you say, “diminished Americans’ right to privacy in their own homes.”

Isn’t the inviolability of private property rights one of the central tenets of conservatism? Or is that precept trumped by conservatives’ commitment to “law and order”?

I don’t think they can have it both ways.

Barry Zamer
Florence, Mass., June 16, 2006

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To the Editor:

So it begins, the erosion of our civil rights by the newly constituted Supreme Court. The Bush era has been marked by a disregard for the rights that our founding fathers fought so hard to establish.

In its ruling on Thursday in the Hudson case, the court made clear that it was willing to turn its back on well-established law. I’m fearful what the future will bring as challenges to this administration’s practices begin to find their way through the lower courts up to the Supreme Court over the next several years.

This is truly a sad period in our nation’s history.

Martin S. Bloor
New York, June 16, 2006

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To the Editor:

Predictions of Armageddon in the wake of the Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling to uphold “no knock” search warrants are without merit. By the time a policeman obtains a search warrant, a judge has already seen enough evidence to reach the conclusion that something is going on that justifies such a warrant.

This is reminiscent of the debate we had over the Patriot Act, and my answer remains the same. If you’ve done nothing wrong then you have nothing to fear.

It’s time for uncompromising libertarians to stop invoking Big Brother every time they see a threat to civil rights that isn’t really there. In our society he exists only in the imagination of those who really do have something to hide.

It’s time to stop seeing the police as the enemy. Few of us would have the guts to do the job they do.

Mark Overholser
Woodbury, Minn., June 16, 2006

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To the Editor:

I, too, disagree with the Supreme Court’s stance outlined in “The Don’t-Bother-to-Knock Rule.” However, I fear that your editorial perpetrated a sin of omission that may be significant in understanding this decision.

If I understand the case correctly, the police had a warrant to search the premises. Nowhere did your editorial mention a warrant.

For a reader unfamiliar with the case, the editorial left the impression that now the police can simply arrive without a warrant at anyone’s door, anytime, announce that they are outside and three seconds later just enter the house. That is decidedly not the case.

Although I think the Supreme Court decision is wrong, the police did have a warrant, and that makes the case different from what your editorial led the casual reader to believe.

Warren Kaplan
Merrick, N.Y., June 16, 2006

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To the Editor:

Two conservative legal doctrines are on a collision course. The Supreme Court in effect held that if the police have a warrant, they may enter your house without knocking or announcing their presence. But recently, 11 states have passed National Rifle Association-backed bills that say that if an unknown person comes crashing through your door, you have the right to shoot first and ask questions later.

So, of course, one of these days someone’s going to shoot a cop and offer the latter law as a defense.

This strikes me as a set of laws that can’t help but clash, and often.

T. Allen Roques
South Bend, Ind., June 16, 2006

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To the Editor:

Apparently the ancient maxim “your house is your castle” no longer applies in the United States.

Under the recent decision of the Supreme Court, if the police have a warrant, they can now invade a home in a search for criminal evidence without adhering to the constitutional restrictions long attributed to the Fourth Amendment.

One can now clearly see the significance of President Bush’s election and his subsequent replacement of Justice Sandra Day O’Connor with Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., who, together with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Antonin Scalia, represents the “activist judge” often railed against by the conservative right.

Burton Kreindel
Newton, Mass., June 16, 2006

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To the Editor:

Well, we finally have the government we asked for: an executive branch that calls itself above the law, a law-making body that wavers between impotence and inaction, and a judiciary that asserts the value of improper police home invasion over notions of privacy and precedent.

In short, we have a government with tyrannical powers, democratically elected on the promise that we would be made “safe.”

Let us rejoice, and be proud.

Joyce Adams
Portland, Ore., June 16, 2006