VoteKansas.org

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Rep. Paul Ryan, the powerful chairman of the House Budget Committee, is endorsing Mitt Romney for the Republican presidential nomination....

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) -- A world-record $540 million Mega Millions jackpot has lottery players lining up for tickets early Friday and many wondering if there's any way to guarantee becoming an overnight multimillionaire....

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Vice President Joe Biden says he's confident the Supreme Court will uphold the constitutionality of the health care law....

Plaintiff was a part of the Bradley Manning/Wikileaks support network, and his computer was seized in Chicago by DHS after he passed through Customs and was waiting for a flight to Boston and he was questioned about his connection to Manning. The court concludes the seizure was valid, but the 49 day detention stated a claim for unreasonableness of the seizure. Also, his First Amendment claim survives a motion to dismiss. House v. Napolitano, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 42297 (D. Mass. March 28, 2012):

Considering these factors in light of Supreme Court precedent, it cannot be said that the search and seizure of House's laptop and other electronic devices was so intrusive as to require any particularized suspicion. House contends that the search of a laptop and electronic devices implicates one's "dignity and privacy interests," not because there was any disrobing, physical search of his person, force used or exposure to pain or danger, but because such devices contain information concerning one's thoughts, ideas and communications and associations with others. However, such a search of a laptop computer or other electronic devices does not involve the same "dignity and privacy interests" as the "highly intrusive searches of the person" found to require some level of suspicion such as strip searches or body cavity searches. Flores-Montano, 541 U.S. at 152. The Supreme Court has not explicitly held that all property searches are routine or that such searches are categorically incapable of implicating the "dignity and privacy interests of the person being searched," Id., but the search of one's personal information on a laptop computer, a container that stores information, even personal information, does not invade one's dignity and privacy in the same way as an involuntary x-ray, body cavity or strip search of person's body or the type of search that have been held to be non-routine and require the government to assert some level of suspicion.

ACLU’s page on case; ACLU press release on order.

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) -- The Obama administration and five states have reached an agreement to speed up approval of offshore wind farms in the Great Lakes, which have been delayed by cost concerns and public opposition....

Motion to suppress computer searches denied without prejudice, and the government is ordered to provide the computer search protocol to the defense so it can be determined whether the search was overbroad. United States v. Fu-Tain Lu, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 144395 (N.D. Cal. September 16, 2010):

The defense argues, however, that Agent Zaborowski's search was improper because the mirror images should have been turned over to a magistrate or third party to monitor any off site search. By engaging a third party to monitor the search of intermingled documents, the defendants contend that their Fourth Amendment rights could have been adequately protected. See id. at 595-96. The court finds, however, that Agent Zaborowski's method of searching adequately protected defendants' rights. By using software and word searches, the government avoided looking at documents that were likely to be outside the scope of the warrant. In a search of hard copy documents at a site, agents necessarily look at many documents that they do not seize because they are outside the scope of the warrant. With the method used by Agent Zaborowski, assuming he made appropriately narrow word searches, only those documents that had a likelihood of being within the scope of the warrant were examined by human eyes. Thus, potential Fourth Amendment concerns were minimized. Although Tamura and United States v. Comprehensive Drug Testing, Inc., 579 F.3d 989, 997-9 (2009) suggest that when documents within the scope of a warrant are intermingled with documents not covered by the warrant and the documents are removed from the site for later review, the further search should be with the approval of a magistrate. However, Tamura did not consider the Government's utilization of a word search that would avoid looking at most, if not all, documents outside the scope of the warrant. It is doubtful that the method used by Zaborowski for searching electronically stored documents even existed at the time of Tamura. In Comprehensive Drug Testing the searching agents were exposed to drug testing records of non-parties whose privacy rights were clearly violated, a very different situation than that in the present case.

For the reasons stated, the court orders as follows:

1. Defendants' motion to suppress evidence is denied without prejudice to reconsideration if the defense discovers that the Government did a search of the mirror images that was not reasonably designed to find only documents, files or data described in the warrant;

2. The Government is to turn over the mirror images of the hard drives and thumb drives in its possession to the defense;

3. The mirror images of the hard drives and thumb drives are to be maintained in their present state by defense counsel or a third party escrow;

4. The Government is to return the eight 1.44MB floppy disks to defendants without reviewing them, is not to use them against defendants at trial and must destroy the CD onto which the floppy disks were copied;

5. The Government is to provide the defense with the word searches it used as best they can be reconstructed; and

6. The Government is to provide the defense with copies of any documents, files or data from the mirror images it book marked or otherwise selected or copied.

The placement of a GPS on defendant’s vehicle was authorized by binding precedent at the time, so Jones being decided after the fact requires Davis’s good faith exception be invoked. United States v. Leon, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 42737 (D. Haw. March 28, 2012):

The United States now concedes that Jones renders the placement and subsequent use of the GPS device unconstitutional. And so, the sole remaining issue in this case is whether the exclusionary rule applies, focusing on whether the agents acted with objective reasonable reliance on then-existing precedent permitting the attachment and subsequent use of a GPS tracking device. Based on the following, the court agrees with the Government that the exclusionary rule does not apply.

...

Unlike the placement of a GPS tracking device on the exterior of a vehicle in an area where a defendant has no legitimate expectation of privacy, neither Supreme Court nor Ninth Circuit binding precedent [United States v. McIver, 186 F.3d 1119 (9th Cir. 1999)] in 2009 authorized the agents to continuously monitor the location of the vehicle in public places for a prolonged period of time. Davis therefore is not directly controlling on this issue. Instead, the court must determine whether the agents exhibited "deliberate, reckless, or grossly negligent disregard for Fourth Amendment rights" or whether they acted "with an objectively reasonable good-faith belief that their conduct [was] lawful." Davis, 131 S. Ct. at 2427. And after examining precedent as of 2009, the court finds that the agents' conduct in the use of the GPS tracking device was objectively reasonable.

Ohio distinguishes between “light” and “strong” odor of marijuana to determine whether smell is enough to search the trunk. Here, it was “strong.” State v. Ivery, 2012 Ohio 1270, 2012 Ohio App. LEXIS 1120 (11th Dist. March 26, 2012):

[*P25] However, the Ohio Supreme Court has also held that"[t]he odor of burnt marijuana in the passenger compartment of a vehicle does not, standing alone, establish probable cause for a warrantless search of the trunk of the vehicle." State v. Farris, 109 Ohio St.3d 519, 2006 Ohio 3255, 849 N.E.2d 985, ¶ 52 (where the officer detected only a "light" odor of marijuana and no contraband was found in the passenger compartment of the vehicle, a search of the trunk was improper).

[*P26] We hold that the search in this case falls under the automobile exception and that Shum did have probable cause to extend the search to include the vehicle's trunk. Many courts have found cases with similar circumstances to be distinguishable from Farris, such that a search into the trunk of the vehicle is proper under the automobile exception. ...

[*P27] In the present case, Shum testified that he smelled a "very strong" odor of marijuana upon approaching the car. In addition, after searching the interior of the car, he saw what he described as little "bits of marijuana." Upon speaking with Ivery, Shum was also informed that Ivery had been smoking marijuana that day. When considering all of these factors together, this case is distinguishable from Farris, and Shum had sufficient probable cause to search the trunk of the vehicle in addition to the interior.

SANFORD, Fla. (AP) -- When Benjamin Crump got his first call from Trayvon Martin's father last month, the attorney counseled patience....

SANFORD, Fla. (AP) -- When Benjamin Crump got his first call from Trayvon Martin's father last month, the attorney counseled patience....

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The arguments are done and the case has been submitted, as Chief Justice John Roberts says at the end of every Supreme Court argument. Now the justices will wrestle with what to do with President Barack Obama's health care overhaul. They have a range of options, from upholding the law to striking it down in its entirety. The court also could avoid deciding the law's constitutionality at all, although that prospect seems remote after this week's arguments....

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Four computer storage devices containing personal information for about 800,000 adults and children in California's child support system - including their names and Social Security numbers - were lost by IBM and Iron Mountain Inc., officials announced Thursday....

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) -- The appointment of a new chief executive at IBM has revived the debate over Augusta National's all-male membership just one week before the Masters....

MIAMI (AP) -- Newly released police video of a handcuffed George Zimmerman may be important for what it doesn't show: No obvious cuts, scrapes, blood or bandages. No clearly broken nose. No plainly visible evidence of a life-and-death struggle with Trayvon Martin....

MIAMI (AP) -- Newly released police video of a handcuffed George Zimmerman may be important for what it doesn't show: No obvious cuts, scrapes, blood or bandages. No clearly broken nose. No plainly visible evidence of a life-and-death struggle with Trayvon Martin....

CONIFER, Colo. (AP) -- Mary Thuente says her neighbors got an automated call warning them to flee their home as a wildfire spread over the mountains southwest of Denver, but she never got one before she left....

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) -- A judge overseeing former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky's child sexual abuse case on Thursday delayed the start of the trial by three weeks to early June, and prosecutors filed a lengthy court document that said the case should not be dismissed....

The National Public Radio station in Seattle is going before an ethics board Saturday after a pro-life media group filed a complaint accusing the station of airing a slanted story.

The Washington News Council Board of Directors is holding a hearing over a story aired by KUOW-FM in April 2011 ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) -- People queuing up for Mega Millions tickets aren't the only ones salivating over the record $540 million jackpot that could be won Friday - some state governments struggling through lean times know a hometown winner would bring a tax bonanza....

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) -- The appointment of a new chief executive at IBM has revived the debate over Augusta National's all-male membership just one week before the Masters....