Tim Cushing | The Libertarian Institute

Court: Qualified Immunity Protects District Attorney Who Lied To State Legislators About A Wrongfully-Convicted Man

by Tim Cushing | Feb 3, 2019 | Featured Articles, Politics

Qualified immunity has taken the court system as far away from justice as any one doctrine can. Rights can be freely abused so long as the abuser does it in a novel way or can mumble something about "feared for my safety" while under oath. For the most part, it just sucks to be an average citizen whose rights have been violated. Unless you can show a court held this specific violation -- under very specific circumstances -- to be unlawful, you're stuck with zero recourse for obvious wrong perpetrated by the government. It's not just abusive cops that benefit from qualified immunity. It's...

Cop Hits Woman’s Car At 94 MPH, Killing Her Infant. Police Arrest Woman For Negligent Homicide.

by Tim Cushing | Mar 13, 2018 | Featured Articles, Justice

This is how things go in the US, where law enforcement is treated like a favored religion and everyone who isn't on the inside is just grist for prosecution mills. Here's the setup, via Matt Pearce. A Baton Rouge police officer was arrested Friday on a count of negligent homicide, accused of going 94 mph in a Corvette when he caused an off-duty crash on Airline Highway that killed an infant and injured six others. The officer, Christopher Manuel, 28, was driving north in a 2007 Chevrolet Corvette shortly after 8 p.m. Oct. 12 on Airline Highway when it struck a Nissan at the intersection at...

Cop Hits Woman's Car At 94 MPH, Killing Her Infant. Police Arrest Woman For Negligent Homicide.

by Tim Cushing | Mar 13, 2018 | Featured Articles, Justice

This is how things go in the US, where law enforcement is treated like a favored religion and everyone who isn't on the inside is just grist for prosecution mills. Here's the setup, via Matt Pearce. A Baton Rouge police officer was arrested Friday on a count of negligent homicide, accused of going 94 mph in a Corvette when he caused an off-duty crash on Airline Highway that killed an infant and injured six others. The officer, Christopher Manuel, 28, was driving north in a 2007 Chevrolet Corvette shortly after 8 p.m. Oct. 12 on Airline Highway when it struck a Nissan at the intersection at...

Police: a Protected Political Class?

by Tim Cushing | Mar 10, 2017 | Featured Articles, Justice

'Blue Lives Matter' Laws Continue To Be Introduced Around The Nation How much do "Blue Lives" matter? More than non-Blue Lives, apparently, given the national legislative enthusiasm for generating stupid, easily-abused, redundant legislation. Louisiana -- one of the few states where legislators have agreed to extend greater protections to an incredibly-protected group -- has already seen its newly-minted "Blue Lives Matter" law abused by law enforcement. It's been abused so badly that even law enforcement's best friend -- local prosecutors -- has refused to pursue charges under the statute....

Twitter Halts DHS Surveillance Program…Sort of.

by Tim Cushing | Dec 20, 2016 | Featured Articles, Justice

Twitter Cuts Off Firehose Access To DHS Fusion Centers Earlier this year, Twitter pulled the plug on some of Dataminr's customers, specifically the intelligence agencies it was selling its firehose access to. Twitter made it clear Dataminr's access to every public tweet wasn't to be repurposed into a government surveillance tool. That being said, everything swept up by Dataminr was public. There was no access to direct messages or tweets sent from private accounts. And Twitter seemingly is doing nothing to prevent Dataminr from selling this same access to the FBI, an agency that's far more...

Another State Court Says Speedy Fourth Amendment Violations Are Still Just Fourth Amendment Violations

by Tim Cushing | Nov 22, 2016 | Featured Articles, Justice

Another court has handed down a decision that upholds the standard set by the Supreme Court in the Rodriguez decision. That standard is pretty cut and dry: any Constitutional violation is still a Constitutional violation -- whether it lasts 30 seconds or ten minutes. In the context of a traffic stop, any actions taken not supported by reasonable suspicion -- like running a drug dog around the vehicle or spending time begging for consent for a search -- are not allowed under the Fourth Amendment. It was assumed law enforcement would just search for ways to speed up these unrelated activities...

Court to Cops: No Time for ‘Constitutional BS’? No immunity!

by Tim Cushing | Nov 16, 2016 | Featured Articles, Justice

A disabled vet with PTSD accidentally called a suicide prevention hotline when intending to dial the Veterans Crisis Line. Within hours, he was dealing with DC Metro's finest, dispatched to handle an attempted suicide. This brief quote from the DC Circuit Court of Appeals opinion [PDF] -- part of veteran Matthew Corrigan's first conversation with responding officers -- sets the tone for the next several hours of Constitutional violations. "The officer who had asked for his key told him: “I don’t have time to play this constitutional bullshit. We’re going to break down your door. You’re going...