Once again the Nazgûl have done an outstanding job of serving their master. This time they drove another stake through the heart of the already heavily staked Fourth Amendment:
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that police can stop and search a driver based solely on an anonymous 911 tip.
The 5-4 decision split the court’s two most conservative justices, with Justice Clarence Thomas writing for the majority and Justice Antonin Scalia penning the dissent.
Checkpoints should be much easier to setup now that this ruling has been made. Just have a gun on a cellphone a few miles away from the checkpoint call in an “anonymous tip” on every vehicle the passes. Reasonable suspicion has been a bit too rigorous for cops wanting to search a vehicle. Thankfully this ruling means that they can “receive an anonymous tip” and search go ahead with the search. Many opportunities have been opened by this ruling and I’m sure we’ll get to see them all as creative officers wanting to throw around their power put their minds to the civil rights bypassing grind stone.