Posted by Eugene Volokh:
Police Officer Confiscates "Abort Obama, Not the Unborn" Sign,
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_02_15-2009_02_21.shtml#1235058389
but police department admits error and [1]returns the sign:
The officer misinterpreted the sign as threatening, said Capt.
Steve McCool, of the Oklahoma City Police Department, and took the
sign, which read "Abort Obama, not the unborn."
[The driver] said his sign was to be interpreted as saying
something like: Remove Obama from office, not unborn babies from
the womb.
The [police] officers [initially] confiscated Harrison's sign and
gave him a slip of paper that stated he was part of an
investigation....
A bad decision on the officers' part, but a correct one on the
higher-ups'.
The Secret Service also apparently visited Harrison and asked "to
(walk through the house) and make sure [the driver] wasn't a part of
any hate groups" (I quote Harrison here). "He said they interviewed
him for about 30 minutes and then left, not finding any evidence
Harrison was a threat to the president." This seems a bit
heavy-handed.
At the same time, law enforcement is indeed entitled to investigate --
and to ask people's consent for searches -- based on nothing more than
a hunch, or a sense that there's a very low probability that the
subject of the investigation may have committed a crime or may be a
planning to commit a crime. And such a hunch or felt probability might
be based on what the subject is saying; if the statement is ambiguous,
they may investigate to resolve the ambiguity. (I assume that the
Secret Service was interested in whether Harrison belonged to groups
that might be a threat to the President, not to "hate groups" in the
more general sense.) I don't think there was any real ambiguity here,
but the Secret Service is naturally and understandably pretty careful
about such things.
Thanks to Prof. Jared Williams for the pointer.
References
1.
http://www.newsok.com/okc-officer-pulls-man-over-for-anti-obama-sign-on-vehicle/article/3347038?custom_click=headlines_widget
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