Is there any precedent to bar certain types of criminal investigations due to civil liberty concerns? I can imagine implementing stricter requirements but I'm at a loss completely barring certain investigations.
Is there any precedent to bar certain types of criminal investigations due to civil liberty concerns?
The 2nd Amendment open-carry situation in many states comes to mind. Most (western) countries would hogtie three ways from Sunday for you walking around with a holster just-because.
While I'm not a big gun guy, I've long thought the online community could take a few lessons from the NRA in beating back government past a larger boundary. Case in point: online media distribution could be left as a business problem for copyright interests rather than getting the FBI involved (let alone the Secret Service).
The closest I've seen is legislation that is worded to the effect "notwithstanding any other provisions of this section, this does not give the Department of Foo the authority to prosecute crimes covered under (b) above where the estimated damage is less than $5,000".
Basically it's a "we told you to do this generic thing, but that doesn't mean this is included in that".
That is "as close to" as an apple is close to an orange. Yes there are legislative carve outs for a myriad of reasons. I am suggesting that a complete bar against criminal investigations due to civil rights concerns is not one of them.
