If the head of the household doesn’t allow officers (plainclothes or otherwise) into their home, no search takes place. No violation. If the head of the household allows them in, they have forfeited their rights and police can search at will. It’s always been this way.

Ignorance of the law is no excuse, nor it it a defense. And your hyperventilation about this violating the Fourth Amendment is comical. You’re crying wolf over nothing.

For examples, just watch a few episodes of COPS. Time after time, some dummy gets stopped for not using his signal and the ever-friendly-I’m-just-trying-to-help-you officer will say something like, “You’re not carrying any guns, knives or bazookas in your car, are you? You don’t mind if we take a look do you?” And the next thing you know, off to jail the driver goes for that joint in the Marlboro pack under the seat. You know, that Marlboro pack that the officer was searching just to protect himself from the possibility that it contained a gun? Every episode contains a few instances of people being talked into a search that they know they will fail.

Mikey, next time a cop says, “You don’t mind if we take a look do you?” just smile back and say, “Gee Officer, I’d love to but I was taught to never waive any of my rights, sorry”. It may not stop the search but it definitely makes the appeal morre winnable.

Certainly a DA can argue that. A DA could argue that you smell funny and therefore must be hiding M16′s in your underwear drawer. Nothing found in a search on those circumstances would ever be allowed in a court, however.

Listen, Libertarian scum, if you own the title of your home, then it is yours. Paying property taxes does not mean that the state owns your home. This is not the Soviet Union. This is still a capitalist country.

But wouldn’t you agree that the cops are counting on a percentage of people to not know any better, and/or be intimidated by plainclothes cops flashing badges? Most people wouldn’t have the backbone or the knowledge to say, “Please come back with a warrant, describing what you are searching for / extect to find.”

Sound like an opportunity for the ACLU to pass out literature to remind Bostonians what their rights are. If cops searched apartments in my building, I might be one of the only people wise enough to tell them to come back with a warrant. And my building is up on a hill full of educated white and Hispanic people in Manhattan.

I was a plaintiff in the NYCLU case against the NYPD to stop the random bag searches. That was similar in that the citizen could refuse to be searched at the turnstiles. But the penalty would be that the citizen would have to find another subway entrance to use. The NYPD tells people who refuse to be searched to turn their ass around and not enter the system at that location.

Now that has to be unconstitutional. Not to mention it proves that entrance to the system is easy. All you have to do is find another nearby unguarded row of turnstiles.

But the courts took the NYPD’s word that it was OK. Really. The NYPD said ‘trust us’ and the courts caved. Years from now, we might see NYPD checkpoints in front of movie theatres, restaurants, nightclubs, or any other locations their corrupt ex-CIA terror expert believes is a ‘potential target.’

Anyway, on topic here,

Denouncing freinds and neighbors to the authorities is one of the hallmarks of totalitarian police states, going all the way back to at least the middle ages.

The ‘neighborhood watch’ program is the friendly US version. There was that chilling scene in 1984 where the main character Winston Smith meets a neighbor in jail. His kids had turned him in for Thoughtcrime. And the parent was defending his kids (who are awful brats!), saying ‘I must have been saying something against Big Brother in my sleep. I don’t know what I did wrong, but my kids must be right about me.’

It is out constitutional duty to resist the authoritarian police state.

I am reminded of the great Dead Kennedys:
“Feeling bad?
Don’t bother to nag.
Just pick up the phone
and turn in a fag!”

Who decides who gets final say? My dad makes the money to “pay” the mortgage on his house. On the other hand, my mother is the one who actually pays the bills, as in, goes through the paperwork and sends the checks. And, the house is on a second or third mortgage (I’d have to check), so the bank probably has a say in ownership at this point as well.

So who lets the cops in?

Can the landlord of an apartment complex let in the cops? After all, it’s his building, and everyone else is just paying for the privilege of living in the shit boxes he rents out.

In a way, he’s responsible for all these jag-off AGs Bush the Second foists off on us. He not only did that, but he was also the one responsible for the anti-pornography witch trials, and I’m pretty sure held some of the bag in the “parental warning label” witch trials.

Basically, if the kids liked it, Meese wanted to fuck with it.

But that was back in the old Ed Meese days. For you youngsters out there, Ed Meese was AG under the first Bush president (1981- 1992, under Acting-President Reagan who was never actually president). Meese said the the Miranda law (where cops read you your rights) should be abolished because the police only arrested you because you MUST have been doing something wrong anyway.

the cops are not total morons, and they don’t have a whole lot of spare time on their hands.

total morons. But they are, by and large, pretty fucking moronic. And a violent authoritarian jackoff always makes time to fuck with other people for fun and profit.

Nifty stuff. Say, how does that Fourth Amendment thingee go again? Oh yeah, something like this …

Why don’t you read what you’re cutting and pasting? The Fourth Amendment prohibits unreasonable searches. It has never been understood to prohibit consensual searches.

The police will not ever enter my home without a warrant. But that’s my decision, not yours. I pay the mortgage here. You don’t decide who enters my house. I do. And if I take a notion to invite the police into my home, I will. If you don’t like it, tough.

I’m stunned by the number of people, left and right, who think it their prerogative to get up in everyone else’s business.

But even if they get permission, it’s unlikely to hold in court.

Still, not sure that having police available for parents to access to confiscate stuff doesn’t seem all that untoward…

…Tho I remember when my mum stole my computer while I was out at work, in order to ‘get me to find more work’ instead of ‘staying on that computer’ and the police wouldn’t help.

I couldn’t even move out and take my computer with me. Argh. I lost a good paying publishing job because of it, too.

No, I was over 18.

What Sal said.

I still don’t like cops. On the plus side, this program will probably be unpopular with the police there, as well, as it takes away from valuable time writing traffic tickets.

That said, anyone with the slightest knowledge of how cops operate is aware that they can make it seem awfully disadvantageous to withhold consent. Like saying if they have to return with a warrant they’ll leave the place torn up and in shambles.

Further, if the minor has a gun in a locked box or something, s/he is evidencing a reasonable expectation of privacy, and the cops likely need a warrant for that even with parental search permission. But otherwise, if mom and dad say go ahead and search, that is legal.

Sure. And doesn’t it creep you out a little that door-to-door search requests is the “easier” solution?