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If your travel history is “suspicious”, is that cause for search?
papersplease.org / June 12th, 2015
If the file about you the DHS has compiled from airline reservations, license-plate readers, and other travel surveillance data sources is deemed “suspicious”, does that constitute probable cause for a search of your home and business or seizure of your possessions?
That question has arisen in the case of Albuquerque antique gun collector and dealer Bob Adams, argued in May 2015 and currently awaiting a decision by the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver.
On January 23, 2013, Mr. Adams’ home and business was raided by a SWAT team including DHS and other Federal and state agencies. Various of his possessions, including his collection and inventory of firearms, were seized, damaged, and/or destroyed in the raid. On November 4, 2013, after Mr. Adams had filed suit to recovery his property, he wasindicted for various technical violations of Federal lawsrelating to firearms imports and dealer licensing and reporting.
Both the search warrant and the indictment were based, in part, on allegations by Federal law enforcement officers regarding the records of Mr. Adams’ international travel history in the DHS Automated Targeting System (ATS). In an affidavit supporting the application to a Federal magistrate for the search of Mr. Adams’ home and business, “Special Agent” Frank Ortiz of the New Mexico Attorney General’s Office claimed that ATS records showed that Mr. Adams had repeatedly flown to Canada without having return flight reservations to the US, and had subsequently re-entered the US as a passenger in a private car. This, agent Ortiz opined (based on his purported “expertise” in interpreting such data) was evidence of a pattern of suspicious behaviour characteristic of Mr. Adams’ alleged modus operandi for unlawful firearms imports.
The post If your travel history is “suspicious”, is that cause for search? appeared first on Silver For The People.
Source: http://silveristhenew.com/2015/06/12/if-your-travel-history-is-suspicious-is-that-cause-for-search/
