> "So in this case the government is raiding the home of someone who did not commit any crime, in the hopes of getting at people who might have."

That's unequivocally a lawful basis for a court-ordered search warrant. They must have probable cause that the person being searched has evidence of a crime; not necessarily that the search target and the criminal suspect are one and the same. Search is investigative; not punitive.

The newsworthy part of this is it's a journalist they raided, and to go after their journalistic sources at that. It's previously been a DoJ policy not to go after the media for things related to their reporting work. But that policy wasn't a legal or constitutional requirement. It's merely something the DoJ voluntarily pledged to stop doing, after the public reaction to President Obama's wiretapping of journalists in 2013,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Department_of_Justice_inv... ("2013 Department of Justice investigations of reporters")

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mikkupikku 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> Search is investigative; not punitive.

Let's be real, it can be both. A legal, valid and justified search can be done in a manner calculated to inflict maximum pain. Raiding in the middle of the night instead of when they step out their door in the morning, ripping open walls when all they're really looking for is a laptop, flipping and trashing the place in a excessive manner, breaking things in the process, pointing guns at children, shooting the family retriever, etc. I don't know if they took this raid too far in any of these ways, but it wouldn't surprise me.

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DaiPlusPlus 4 hours ago | parent [-]

What recourse would an American have against a punitive search? And what if something turns up which would retroactively justify it?

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perihelions 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> "And what if something turns up which would retroactively justify it?"

US constitutional law prohibits the introduction of evidence obtained illegally.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exclusionary_rule ("Exclusionary rule")

There's no "retroactive" exception. The core point of this rule is to deter police from intentionally violating people's rights, under the expectation that what they find will, "retroactively", vindicate them. Won't work.

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lurk2 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> Won’t work.

How would you know when it did? You can’t “retroactively” justify an arbitrary search under the exclusionary rule, but this doesn’t exclude evidence tangential to a legally-executed warrant during the execution of that warrant. For example, suppose someone is suspected of illegally possessing wildlife. A search warrant is issued on the residence. No wildlife is found, and in fact no wildlife was ever on the premises. If officers find large quantities of cocaine during the search, they aren’t precluded from making an arrest, because the warrant used to gain entry and conduct the search was legal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction

	▲	roywiggins 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Only if it falls under the "plain view" doctrine, which is not unlimited: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plain_view_doctrine > In Arizona v. Hicks, police officers were in an apartment investigating a shooting and suspected that a record player in the apartment was stolen. The officers could not see the serial number, which was on the bottom of the record player, so they lifted the player and confirmed that its serial number matched that of one that had been reported stolen. However, the Supreme Court ruled that lifting the record player constituted an additional search (although a relatively nonintrusive one) because the serial number was not in plain view.

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datsci_est_2015 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

See also: parallel construction, which has come up (rightfully so) in HN threads about dragnet surveillance.

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Supermancho 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> What recourse would an American have against a punitive search?

None. The endless videos, from better-years-gone-by of people refusing to answer questions at the border then having drug dogs run all over their car to scratch it up was my first exposure to federal agents acting maliciously.

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t-3 an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

You can attempt to sue for damages, but the suit is likely to be dismissed because law enforcement and legal adjudication are tightly coupled and very friendly in ways that subvert the proper functioning of justice. More likely you'd just invite more harassment for daring to attempt recourse at all.

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zweih 42 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Anyone who has had their home searched AKA ransacked by law enforcement knows that searches are effectively punitive.

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rendaw 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I agree that's what GP wrote, but I think GP's point is that it's not illegal for journalists to have classified documents, so it does not qualify as probable cause.

	▲	y1n0 2 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Try reading the comment you replied to again. A valid reason for a search is the collection of evidence of a crime. Which orthogonal to whether the person or premisses committed a crime.
	▲	xdennis 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> it's not illegal for journalists to have classified documents, so it does not qualify as probable cause It's amazing how many people offer free internet advice off of ideological groupthink rather than actual laws. This raid was authorized by a warrant. Do you really think a judge doesn't know the law, but you do? If a crime happens in your neighborhood, and you have a camera, the cops could get a warrant to search your footage. It doesn't mean you committed a crime, it just means you can be compelled to provide information pertaining to an investigation.