Monday, October 16, 2006

'Probably' cause

'Probable cause' means that the police need a reason to detain you, search you or your property and/or arrest you because of a 'crime'.

But that is most likely meaningless as you'll most likely find that 'probable cause' either doesn't exist or has been all but destroyed in any country you find yourself in.

Firstly, it all depends on who is making up the definition of 'crime'. 'Government' is. And they invented the 'victimless crime', which means they can pretty much call anything a 'crime' as long as they can get away with it.

What's the difference between a murderer and a pot smoker? None! At least according to the 'government', they're both criminals. Although 'government' has, many times in the past, made murder 'legal' so they could fight wars and execute political prisoners.

Secondly, probable cause may not even exist in the country you live in. Like Australia, the cops can pull over anyone they like for a 'random breath test', effectively destroying probable cause. They can also, as I just found out, search anyone's property they want as long as they have a 'reasonable suspicion that a crime has been committed there'. There are practically millions of made up 'crimes' they can charge you with, so that's no protection.

Don't you just love the police state?.....

2 Comments:

Blogger Fitz said...

Believe it or not though, "probable cause" was initially designed as a protection of civil liberty.

But like anything, the boundaries of what that means can be stretched or abused.

Its like a huge tug of war between the protection of individual liberties vs. the state. Constantly going back and forth.

10:25 AM  
Blogger Bartleby said...

Yes, and the state is winning.. *cough*..habeaus corpus..*cough*

7:36 AM  

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