🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <7624@transfer.stratus.com>, cme@ellisun.sw.stratus.com
(Carl Ellison) writes:
| In article <1992Oct28.045116.28814@netcom.com> nagle@netcom.com (John Nagle)
| writes:
||There's a fundamental distinction between openly searching under a court
||order and observing in secret.
| 
| Yes!  When a person's property is being searched, the police must present
| the search warrant *to that person*, up front.  Black Bag jobs are strictly
| illegal.

Wrong again.  While the distinction Mr. Nagle makes may exist, but it's
mainly a technological artifact, and has no bearing on search warrants.
With a properly executed warrant, the police can search your home at THEIR
convenience.  They don't need to wait for you to be there.  They don't need
to notify you.  The warrant includes the right for them to break in if they
consider that the best way to get the job done.

You may or may not find out later.  (Usually it'll be pretty obvious, since
they have no particular reason to be neat.)  Note that if they get a warrant
to examine, say, your bank records, neither they nor the bank will necessarily
tell you - and there won't be anything for you to notice.

In the case of a warrant to plant a bug, you definitely WON'T find out if
they can help it.

There are certainly cases where they have to tell you ahead of time that
they are getting a warrant because you have the right to contest it, but
it's generally been the case that "secrecy needed because of an ongoing
investigation" has been good enough to keep you in the dark.

							-- Jerry