NYTimes.com: Number of Frisks Fell in ’12, Police Data Show by Wendy Ruderman:

The number of times New York City police officers stopped, questioned and frisked people in 2012 dropped by 22 percent from the previous year, according to statistics the Police Department released on Friday.

The decrease — 533,042 in 2012, compared with about 685,000 in 2011 — came amid mounting criticism from civil-rights advocates who have argued that the practice of stop and frisk unfairly targeted minorities — the vast majority of whom were released without any charges.

NYTimes.com: Debating a Court to Vet Drone Strikes by Scott Shane:

WASHINGTON — Since 1978, a secret court in Washington has approved national security eavesdropping on American soil — operations that for decades had been conducted based on presidential authority alone.

Now, in response to broad dissatisfaction with the hidden bureaucracy directing lethal drone strikes, there is an interest in applying the model of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court — created by Congress so that surveillance had to be justified to a federal judge — to the targeted killing of suspected terrorists, or at least of American suspects.

WaPo: Lawmakers propose giving federal judges role in drone strikes, but hurdles await.

Wired.com: DHS Watchdog OKs ‘Suspicionless’ Seizure of Electronic Devices Along Border by David Kravets:

The Department of Homeland Security’s civil rights watchdog has concluded that travelers along the nation’s borders may have their electronics seized and the contents of those devices examined for any reason whatsoever — all in the name of national security.

The DHS, which secures the nation’s border, in 2009 announced that it would conduct a “Civil Liberties Impact Assessment” of its suspicionless search-and-seizure policy pertaining to electronic devices “within 120 days.” More than three years later, the DHS office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties published a two-page executive summary of its findings.

“We also conclude that imposing a requirement that officers have reasonable suspicion in order to conduct a border search of an electronic device would be operationally harmful without concomitant civil rights/civil liberties benefits,” the executive summary said.

License-plate reader (LPR) system alert of a wanted person in a police car is probable cause for a stop. Defendant wasn’t the wanted person, but he was without a DL, and his arrest for that was valid. Hernandez-Lopez v. State, 2013 Ga. App. LEXIS 41 (February 5, 2013):

The information retrieved via the LPR system is not unlike that an officer retrieves by way of running vehicle-tag numbers through GCIC, which we have previously held provides justification for an initial stop. Moreover, in an unpublished opinion, the Eleventh Circuit recently addressed use of the LPR system in the context of a case invoking the right to be free from an unreasonable search, noting that the Supreme Court of the United States has “concluded in similar contexts that visual surveillance of vehicles in plain view does not constitute an unreasonable search for Fourth Amendment purposes,” and that “[t]his is true even if the surveillance is aided by the use of technology to augment the officers' sensory faculties.” Similarly, the LPR system at issue in the case sub judice merely aided the officer by augmenting his sensory faculties, providing an enhanced ability to process tag information through a law-enforcement database rather than requiring the officer to manually conduct random checks. And the information retrieved by the system's recognition of the license-plate numbers—i.e., identifying information of a wanted person, the offense allegedly committed by the wanted person, and a photograph of the relevant license plate and vehicle—gave the officer reasonable, articulable suspicion to justify a traffic stop of the vehicle driven by Hernandez-Lopez. Thereafter, the officer had probable cause to arrest Hernandez-Lopez for driving without a license.

See United States v. Wilcox, 415 Fed. Appx. 990 (11th Cir. 2011).

Defendant with 25 bags of crack on him cursed a police officer for about 15 seconds for “harassing” him, and that led to an arrest for disorderly conduct and discovery of the drugs. Defendant was not legally disorderly justifying the arrest. People v Baker, 2013 NY Slip Op 00782 (N.Y. February 7, 2013):

Finally, this case includes one more factor worthy of consideration. Here, both at its inception and conclusion, the verbal exchange was between a single civilian and a police officer. The fact that defendant's abusive statements were directed exclusively at a police officer — a party trained to diffuse situations involving angry or emotionally distraught persons — further undermines any inference that there was a threat of public harm, particularly since the police officer was in a position of safety and could have closed his windows and ignored defendant. We do not suggest that the public harm element can never be present in such encounters; Tichenor demonstrates that this is not the case. But isolated statements using coarse language to criticize the actions of a police officer, unaccompanied by provocative acts or other aggravating circumstances, will rarely afford a sufficient basis to infer the presence of the "public harm" mens rea necessary to support a disorderly conduct charge.

After consideration of all relevant factors, we conclude that defendant's arrest for disorderly conduct was not supported by probable cause due to insufficient proof on the public harm element. Because the arrest was unlawful under our long-standing precedent, we have no occasion to address defendant's First Amendment arguments.

The “black box” in a vehicle was a part of the “instrumentality of crime” in this vehicle manslaughter case, and it could be seized and searched without a search warrant. Also, there was no reasonable expectation of privacy in the information. People v. Diaz, 213 Cal. App. 4th 743, 153 Cal. Rptr. 3d 90 (4th Dist. 2013):

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Defendant’s stop for texting while driving was reasonable. People v. Corrales, 213 Cal. App. 4th 696, 152 Cal. Rptr. 3d 667 (2d Dist. 2013).*

The trial court suppressed a search of defendant’s house, but the appellate court held that the CI’s statement about drugs being sold there was corroborated by a visitor exiting who had drugs on him and lied about where he’d been. State v. Holden, 60 A.3d 1110 (Del. 2013).*

Defendant was walking away from officers ignoring them at first, so he was not seized (Hodari D.). Finally, he stopped and turned and made an exaggerated motion with his arms tossing the gun. It was lawfully seized. United States v. Davis, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 6420 (E.D. Mich. January 16, 2013).*

The trial court held that inevitable discovery led to defendant’s computer getting seized, but there was no evidence that supported that, just argument. Defendant did not consent to a search of his laptop merely by telling the police where it was when they asked. That proves nothing of voluntariness. State v. Wells, __ N.C. App. __, 737 S.E.2d 179 (2013):

The State's final argument is that discovery of the laptop computer was inevitable because the laptop computer was known to be in existence and was the focal point of the investigation. We do not doubt either of the State's assertions; however, having knowledge that the laptop computer exists is entirely different than knowing where the laptop computer may be found. At the hearing on defendant's motions to suppress, no evidence was presented to the trial court to show how or when the laptop computer would have been discovered by independent lawful means.