The new snitch society

By Libby

I've always believed one of the big reasons the Bush regime got away with callously stripping us of our civil rights in the name of terror prevention was because the public was already inured by the atrocities of the war on some drugs where abridgement of civil rights of 'druggies' has been codified by the courts. One of the latest ploys in that war on the citizens, is to enlist service techs to snitch to the police if they see something 'suspicious' while they're in people's homes. Well, we can see well that's working out. You can expect a lot more erroneous SWAT raids like this one.

Police were executing a search warrant signed by Hennepin County Judge Ivy Bernhardson, who believed there was probable cause the Adams's home was a meth lab.

Berhardson, who was appointed to the bench less than a year ago, did not return KARE 11's phone calls.

"Ohmigod," Adams said as she recalled police breaking down her door and flashing the search warrant. "I just kept saying to them, 'you've got the wrong house.' "

Police soon realized that themselves.

"From a cursory view, it doesn't look like our officers did anything wrong," said Capt. Greg Roehl.

Roehl said the drug task force was acting on a tip from a subcontractor for CenterPoint Energy, who had been in the home Friday to install a hot water heater.

"He got hit with a chemical smell that he said made him light headed, feel kind of nauseous," Roehl said.

The smell was vinegar, and maybe pickling lime, which were clearly marked in a bathroom Mr. Adams uses to mix chemicals for his salt water fish tank.

And here's the real problem with this new program.

Police say there was no extended investigation, just an interview with the subcontractor.

"Everything this person told us turned out to be true, with the exception of what the purpose of the lab was," Roehl said.

Excuse me, but isn't the purpose of the lab the whole justification for breaking the door down and yanking these people out of bed and treating them like criminals? They issue a warrant based on a single conversation with a repair man who is not trained in drug detection? This is almost worse than the similar botched raids that were conducted solely on the word of drug snitches who are looking for a break for themselves when busted and have a clear reason to lie.

At the very least, we need to revise the rules of engagement in this stupid war to require some kind of verifying corroboration of 'tipsters.' These botched raids are all too common already and it seems unlikely their numbers are going to diminish unless we have better guidelines for warrants.