Shameful, but not surprising. – Ed.
The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is clear: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
Governments, of course, have never much cared for having their powers limited, and are constantly devising new ways around the restrictions. Oakland, California, for example, has come up with a new program called SMART, which stands for Specialized Multi-Agency Response Team, the purpose of which is to search homes without a warrant under the guise of checking for building-code violations.Alex Weber, http://www.eastbayexpress.com/ebx/oakland-police-search-without-warrants/Content?oid=1878972 for the East Bay Express, points out that “some legal experts say [SMART inspections may be unconstitutional. That’s because they enter people’s homes without consent or a warrant.” It doesn’t take an expert to see that such actions are blatant violations of the Fourth Amendment.
Weber cites the example of a building known as Off-Ramp Studios, where residents were recently subjected to a SMART inspection: “Two Oakland police officers, two building services code enforcers, a fire inspector, and three property management representatives entered all of their units one by one.”