Tug Rule Update: Legal Experts Agree the Whole Investigation is Horseshit

Reason.com - Caught on camera getting a massage and maybe more were New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft and dozens of other men, who now face misdemeanor charges for allegedly soliciting prostitution. Workers and managers at the businesses were also arrested and stand accused of prostitution and racketeering. …

Police were able to secretly install the surveillance cameras thanks to a sneak-and-peek warrant. Such warrants were sold after 9/11 as a way to stop terrorism, but in practice they’ve mainly been used in investigations of drug crimes.

Of the more than 11,000 such warrants issued in 2013, for instance, only 50 were related to terrorism. … Exactly what privacy advocates argued in 2001 is happening: sneak and peak warrants are not just being used in exceptional circumstances—which was their original intent—but as an everyday investigative tool,” the Electronic Frontier Foundation warned five years ago. …

Police in Palm Beach and Jupiter counties have been trotting out that [human trafficking] claim this time too, although no sex trafficking or forced labor charges have been filed.

Sun-Sentinel – Celeste Higgins, a University of Miami law professor, said she never saw a sneak-and-peek warrant during her 25 years as a federal public defender. “It’s a very rare thing to have,” she said. … “Putting devices into locations is really the ultimate invasion,” she said. “How is this a terrorism case?” …

Defense attorney Marc Shiner, whose partner is representing one of the spa business owners in Martin County, argued secretly recorded videos violate the privacy of both the defendants and the alleged victims.

The police, he argued, “were watching it live as it was occurring.”

“Police claim human trafficking, which then why would you allow an investigation to go on … and allow human trafficking?” Shiner said. “That’s like being raped on a daily basis. Why would the police condone such behavior?”

NY Times – “State attorneys are elected officials, and they are aware of public opinion,” said Eric M. Matheny, a former prosecutor in Miami-Dade County who defends people accused of sex crimes. “They might play hardball, if only for appearance’ sake.”…

If the video also captured people getting ordinary massages, lawyers could also argue that the surveillance overreached and therefore the video is inadmissible. Also, the video cameras that the police used did not have audio, so there may not be clear evidence of Mr. Kraft asking to pay for sex.

“Just showing a video, you don’t know the conversation that occurred,” Mr. Matheny said. “With prostitution cases, it’s very technical what they say. It can’t be vague.”

Welcome to the party, pals.

I must say, it’s rewarding to have the complete backing of the legal community for something I said within minutes of The Tug Rule charges being announced a week and a half ago. It’s nice to know that my immediate, knee jerk reaction to this story that blew up the internet in a matter of seconds was completely in line with what America’s brightest legal minds are now saying a more and more facts are coming out.

I know not everybody likes lawyers. That is, until they need a good one. But this is a pluperfect example of why we need them. Sometimes they are all that stands between a government that has near-infinite amounts of power and the ultimate minority: The individual.

We were all understandably freaked out after 9/11 and wanted something to be done to prevent another one. Anything. If it meant increasing government power to spy on people, so be it. And in a moment of desperation, laws were changed to allow sneak-and-peek warrants. Civil libertarians complained. They cautioned us giving the state these powers would come back to bite us in the ass. And we shouted them down. Because we liked the idea of the Feds listening in the next time some religious zealots were building bombs in a basement or whatever. As long as we were safer, who cared about the occasional invasion of privacy and our rights being stepped over?

Well, here’s what we’ve got as a result. Hidden cameras in places where clients take their clothes off. Videos of private citizens engaged in consensual acts that are nobody’s fucking business but their own. All justified under the phony baloney guise of stopping [Dum-Dum-DUUUMMM!] … human sex trafficking. As no charges of sex trafficking have been brought against anyone.

Again, it’s just like I’ve said from Minute One. This was about local government officials keeping tabs on everyone who walked in an out of the Handdookie Day Spa, day in and day out for six months, until they nabbed someone famous. Then their immediate response was to call a press conference so elected officials could furrow their brows, use their Concerned Politician Voice and pander for votes. To grandstand like sonsabitches. If it was about any other thing than getting reelected, they would’ve sent in real cops in SWAT gear to kick down the back door and rescue the sex slaves six months ago. But there are no sex slaves. There never were any sex slaves. There were just adults doing private things in private, but having that privacy invaded in a gross and unconstitutional way that should chill the blood of every American citizen.

This case won’t get anyone convicted. Except maybe the dirtbag politicians who abused their power. I say again, Free Mr. Kraft! Free Mr. Kraft!