We don't know how smart you are...But

[nogods]

we do know that you stayed at a holiday inn last week.

The Supreme Court, taking on an issue that reaches hotels and motels across the nation, agreed on Monday to rule on the power of city governments to require commercial lodgings to open their guest lists to the police. In agreeing to hear a Los Angeles case, the Justices also said they would rule on whether a lawsuit can be filed to use the Fourth Amendment to strike down a police inspection law in its entirety, whatever the factual situation in a given case.

The hotel guest list case involves a Los Angeles city ordinance that gives local police the authority to inspect hotel guest records at any time, without a search warrant and without the hotel’s consent. At issue in the case is both whether hotels have any commercial privacy interest in their guest records, and whether, if they do, police must first get a court’s permission before examining those documents.

In taking the case to the Supreme Court, however, the city also raised a question that, depending on how the Supreme Court answers it, could end the case without a ruling at this point on the privacy of hotel guest lists. That is the question of whether a “facial challenge” is ever allowed against a law that allegedly violates the Fourth Amendment. Because the Fourth Amendment focuses on whether a search is “reasonable,” the specific facts in a case may have a strong bearing on whether that test is satisfied. In a facial challenge, however, the test is whether a law can be used in any case, no matter what the facts are. If facial challenges to such claims are barred, then the only legal avenue open is a challenge to the law as carried out in a given factual scenario.

The city told the Court that there are at least seventy laws at the state and local level across the country that permit police to inspect hotel guest records without prior court approval. “These laws,” the city petition said, “expressly help police investigate crimes such as prostitution and gambling, capture dangerous fugitives and even authorize federal law enforcement to examine these registers — an authorization which can be vital in the immediate aftermath of a domestic terrorist attack.”

SCOTUSBlog: Los Angeles v. Patel

[WNYresident]

I think people in government are over stepping their bounds.

[BorderBob]

I think people in government are over stepping their bounds.

Always...or just lately. These laws have been on the books for generations, long before the current "I hate government and all it stands for" coffee talk.




b.b.

[WNYresident]

More lately because I never followed along like I do since starting speakup. Once you start absorbing it all you realize what a mess things are. You also learn that people at various levels of government lie and bs. In a few cases they really don't care what harm they cause families and businesses as long as they get theirs. Learned a lot over the last 10 years.