This is one of the smartest 4th Amendment decisions I've seen in a while:

The Alaska Court of Appeals on Friday put law enforcement agencies on notice that it would not tolerate "implicitly coercive" search requests during traffic stops. The warning came in the form of a ruling on the case of Susan S. Brown, a driver pulled over on November 24, 2004 allegedly because of the light illuminating her car's rear license plate was dirty.

On that night, Alaska State Trooper Maurizio Salinas never explained to Brown the reason for the stop, nor that he had no intention of issuing a ticket. Instead, Salinas convinced Brown to allow him to search her car and her body -- even though Brown had no warrants and showed no signs of illegal conduct. Salinas testified that his policy was to conduct as many random searches as possible during traffic stops. In this case, Salinas discovered a crack pipe hidden in Brown's coat. Speaking for the unanimous court, Judge David Mannheimer found that such search requests not based upon any reasonable suspicion of criminal conduct abused the rights of motorists.
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"Motorists who have been stopped for traffic infractions do not act from a position of psychological independence when they decide how to respond to a police officers request for a search," Mannheimer wrote. "Because of the psychological pressures inherent in the stop, and often because of the motorists' ignorance of their rights, large numbers of motorists guilty and innocent alike accede to these requests." [thenewspaper.com]

We'll have to wait and see whether Alaska's Supreme Court picks up the case, but if allowed to stand, this decision should significantly undermine the type of "fishing expedition" drug war policing that forces citizens to prove their innocence by the roadside.

This ruling reaches the right conclusion for the right reasons, and provides a helpful example of the 4th Amendment's potency at the state level. When you are stopped by police in your neighborhood, it is not George Bush or the PATRIOT Act that determines whether or not your rights were violated. Each state has its own Bill of Rights and sets its own constitutional standards that must be respected by law-enforcement. Those who habitually lament the supposed "death" of the 4th Amendment would do well to familiarize themselves with this concept.

A citizenry that understands and appreciates 4th Amendment rights is more likely to produce and appoint judges who will rule in this way. Thus, while we must recognize and expose the many threats to the 4th Amendment that have emerged in recent years, it is essential that such conversations do not indulge the same sense of defeatism that leads citizens to waive these rights in the first place, when they matter most.

I arrived home yesterday and checked my mail box. Finally my "Never Get Raided" video was here. Shipping seemed to take forever, 3 weeks, but I ordered early so I was able to get an autographed copy. Barry and Candy Cooper are doing yeoman's work in the cannabis culture. I'm so glad they produced this video and hope that every cannabis user and person interested in cannabis law reform watches it.

Never one to hold his tongue Mathis was speaking to a woman about her difficulties with supported housing and the stupid rules and hoops she had to jump.He couldn't help but to bring up the plight of

I spent my first weekend here in Mexico City exploring some of the counterculture of the massive metropolis. One of the places I went was the old Buenavista railroad station. The station is closed now, but right next door is a nearly three-decade old Mexico City phenomenon: the tianguis (market) del chopo, where every Friday and Saturday, the city's various youth culture tribes come out to see and be seen, listen to the latest sounds, and buy music, posters, clothing, pins, and all sorts of other goods. (For a nice introduction to the city's tribes, check out veteran Mexico-watcher John Ross's piece in Counterpunch.) Man, what a show it is! Punkis (punks), skatos (ska fans), metaleros (you guessed it), darketos (Goths) mix with dread-locked followers of Bob Marley, emerging from the Buenavista metro station like a legion of the undead. There's not a lot of directly drug policy-related stuff to be cleaned from the chopo, but I did talk with some of the more jipi (hippie)- type vendors and their clientele. You know, the guys selling the marijuana leaves and extolling the virtues of the herb. But I didn't really hear anything new from them. Sadly, my trip to the rockers' market was a bit spur of the moment, so I didn’t have my camera with me. Suffice it to say, there were some pretty impressive mohawks and some pretty glam Goths. While in that neighborhood, north of the historic center of the city, I walked over to the Guerrero metro station in search of a church I heard of where there is supposedly a chapel dedicated to San Jesus Malverde, the (unofficial) patron saint of drug traffickers. I couldn't find it, but the search continues, and so does my quest to find adherents of the church of Saint Death. Supposedly some of these folks are hard-core hard cases, dead-end dopers. I want to see what that's all about. Stay tuned for more on this front. I did get some pics from my visit to the plaza in Coyoacan, an upscale southern suburb. The plaza has been a gathering place for jipis and artists for decades, and the plaza has recently been crowded with the stalls of the vendors, many of them embracing the jipi lifestyle and selling that kind of stuff. But now there's a battle going on between the local government and some businesses on one side and the vendors and their allies on the other. For the last three weeks, the plaza has been torn up for "reconstruction," putting a real damper on the scene there, and there are no plans to make room for the vendors when the project is completed. Part of the authorities problem with the plaza scene is the ongoing drug dealing. It's been known for that for years. But the disruption, not to mention the heavy police presence, has quieted things down for now. I start meeting with people tomorrow, although a big meeting that was set for then has now been pushed back to Thursday. That may pose problems for getting a feature story on Mexico out this week, but the upside is it gives me more time to dig around before that. Meanwhile, the drug war continues. I've been reading La Jornada, a left-leaning Mexico City newspaper, and it has a daily rundown on the killings. There seem to be five or six or ten a day every day, and every day, some of them are cops or soldiers. Friday was a particularly tough day for the military--11 soldiers died when the chopper they were riding in on their way to raid drug fields in Michoacan fell out of the sky.

Hello, I managed to talk my way out of 4 criminal Charges which included : Trespassing (Private property of the government...it was a well right beside a public park), Possession (of marijuana which in fact they did not find besides resin), Attempted statutory rape( because the person with me was a girl and a minor, even though she's just my best friend), and Carrying paraphernalia (A legal and paid-for glass bowl.)