02 April 2011

CHRISTIANS NOW HAVE NO FOURTH AMENDMENT RIGHTS . . .

. . . at least in Dearborn, Michigan.  Here is a well written post from the blog ANSWERING MUSLIMS.  For background on this, see my post, THE TRAMPLING OF FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS.  Here's the story:


Sharia Judge Michael J. Callahan Nullifies the Fourth Amendment Rights of Christians in Michigan

Michigan's war against the Constitutional rights of Christians has reached its peak.


In every state in this country, with one exception, a police officer cannot seize a person or her property without probable cause (a reasonable belief that a person has committed a crime).

Today, Judge Michael J. Callahan ruled that the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution does not apply to Christians in the state of Michigan. If a Christian visits Michigan, she may be detained, seized, arrested, and thrown in jail based on no evidence whatsoever.

At last year's Arab Festival in Dearborn, Corporal Brian Kapanowski approached Negeen Mayel and ordered her to turn off her video camera. Since Negeen hadn't been accused of committing any crime, she was under no legal obligation to obey his order (and, let's face it, he was only ordering her to stop filming so she wouldn't catch our unlawful arrests on tape). When Negeen didn't immediately turn off her camera, and instead asked why she was being questioned, Corporal Kapanowski grabbed her, seized her camera (which police then kept for more than three weeks), dragged her out of the tent, arrested her, threw her in jail, and charged her with two crimes.

Obviously, in any court that honors the Constitutional rights of citizens, Kapanowski would be in trouble. It turns out, however, that Dearborn courts have as much contempt for the Constitution as Dearborn police. Before the trial even began, Dearborn Judge Mark Somers ruled that Corporal Kapanowski had probable cause to arrest Negeen, even though she hadn't been accused of any criminal activity.

Do not miss the implications of this ruling. According to Judge Somers, in the City of Dearborn, police have probable cause to arrest Christians, even if the Christians haven't been accused of a crime. This means that any Dearborn police officer may arrest any Christian, simply because he feels like it.

Since we realized we weren't going to get justice in Dearborn, we were hopeful that the appeals court would have more respect for our fundamental rights as American citizens. Our hopes were dashed today when Judge Callahan ruled that police may indeed arrest a Christian who hasn't been accused of a crime.

Amazingly, people act like we're crazy when we say that Dearborn is being influenced by Sharia. But the facts speak for themselves. Christians are rapidly becoming second-class citizens in Michigan, and anyone who speaks up is quickly labeled an "Islamophobe." The saddest part of this is that non-Muslims are the ones who are doing the difficult work of destroying the Constitution. Mayor John O'Reilly, City Prosecutors William "Sharia Bill" DeBiasi and Debra Walling, Corporal Kapanowski, Sergeant Mrowka, Chief Haddad, Judge Somers, and now Judge Callahan are all trying desperately to undermine the U.S. Constitution.

And practically no one seems to care.

Many Dearborn residents are offended when people say that Sharia is taking hold in their city. But until the City of Dearborn starts showing some degree of respect for the rights of non-Muslims, until Christians are free to discuss their faith without being arrested, until the Fourth Amendment actually protects teenage girls from illegal search and seizure, the accusations are going to continue.

For a complete summary of the events in Dearborn, with video footage, click here.

(NOTE: I have referred to the "Constitutional rights of Christians." Since certain readers love to misrepresent and distort what I say, let me go ahead and state clearly that I do not believe, never have believed, and never will believe that only Christians should have Constitutional rights. All U.S. citizens, regardless of race or religion, are protected by the Constitution. Indeed, I would be just as opposed to police violating the civil rights of a Muslim or an atheist as I would a Christian. But in this case, it's the rights of Christians that are being violated, so that's the topic of the post.)

2 comments:

Georgia Mountain Man said...

This is too funny. A new church crops up on every corner daily. Preachers preach on tv and the radio and have their own tv shows. We are swamped by Christian goings on almost hourly. ...and Christians have no 4th Amendment rights. Who are you kidding?

Dirk said...

The issue is the Fourth Amendment guarantee against unreasonable search and seizure. This has nothing to do with television & radio programs or new churches. As a former state law enforcement officer with about 10 years experience, I can say that this judge was absolutely wrong. The person with the camcorder was a distance away from the group filming. When police approached, she was asked to stop which was improper and outside the scope of authority with respect to what they were doing. The police had absolutely no right to confiscate the camcorder as there was no probable cause (reason to believe) that it had been used in a crime.

I have ended up being filmed before on the job, specifically by WSB-TV news years ago while I was fighting an offender during a warrant service. As much as I would have like to have the cameraman leave, I had no right nor authority to tell him to stop, and I certainly did not have the right to take his camera. I did neither as he had every right to film all he wanted.