Retroactive Warrants

In this country, you are innocent until proven guilty. The burden of proof lies with the prosecution as they are the party seeking redress. However, the Bush administration has decided to do away with Constitutional Rights and adapt a new amendment to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). This allowed the Bush administration and all law enforcement agencies to intercept any form of communication whether its' international to domestic or domestic to domestic and use any information obtained to prosecute any members of the accused party. It is unanimously agreed upon that if those measures were to be used to find terrorists than the amendment is worthy of legality. However, in an attempt to cut corners, the DEA is now using this new found freedom to intercept text messages of U.S. citizens without the proper warrants and/or wire-tap authorizations to seek out small time controlled substance deals; especially in college towns.
You may or may not have read about the San Diego State University drug bust where 75 students were arrested on "multi-million" dollar distribution charges to wit: a dry erase board with a ledger of blanaces of known distributors. What you probably didn't read is the docket from the pre-liminary trial which says the way these students were being watched wasn't approved by any magistrate or judge in the effected Federal Circuit. They were being watched through Bush's "anti-terrorist surveillance act" but these students aren't terrorists, they are students who used their entreprenureal skills to provide entertainment to fellow students, keep in mind Marijuana is not illegal in California and a majority of the students had their respective prescription cards on them during the arrest. On a more local note, 4 PSU students who I shall not re-name out of respect were recently indicted on State conspiracy charges for attempting to distribute "1.2 million dollars of Marijuana". In this case, there was no physical evidence no money, no drugs, just an "idea" that these students wanted to make some money by selling weed. The police intercepted a text message between one student and a NY State resident which hinted towards the idea. The police used the power of the press, and their warrantless telecommunications intercept, to supress the students into state sanctioned felony charges.

I don't mean to rant on about i have absolutely zero respect for the way small town college cops go about doing their job, but of the 100 + centre county cases i have studied that involve drug dealing, possession, or the like not one case was solved by doing actual police work. On every page of each docket i have read there were always corners being cut, like using "i heard the activitation of a lighter" as probable cuase to enter a multiple room residence to find some kid smoking a bowl in his basement, not off of a whim but becuase the police have gotten tips that this kid is a stoner and needed any lame excuse to bust him becuase instead of solving crimes like who keeps breaking into the downtown homes and stealing xbox's, playstation, money, tvs, jewlery, and CARS the police would rather bust the kid who sits in the comfort of his home and smokes an innocent amount of cannibis.

The question i pose to the class is, do you think there should be some sort of public hearing on what mandates the police department should follow? As the citizens they claim to protect, should we have a say on what is more important for the police to worry about instead of them deciding it's easier to bust a future doctor who smokes a little herb instead of the deadbeat who goes around downtown homes and robs 1000's of dollars a week (this is an on-going investigation for about 2 years with zero leads and zero progress by the "world class" state college police dept)?