The hypocritical arrogance of Portland police highlights a larger trend about the diminishing privacy rights of Americans during the war on terror; this elitist attitude mocks the average citizen and undermines the rule of law.
It is hilarious how the Willamette Week exposes the double standard of public officials and gives them a taste of their own medicine. Chief Kroeker strongly agreed with District Attorney’s office Mark McDonnell that once trash is set outside it was public property “Perched in his office on the 15th floor of the Justice Center, Chief Kroeker seemed perfectly comfortable with the idea of trash as public property.” But when the W.W. went through his garbage, he didn’t like it at all. He did not like the feeling that his secrets were exposed such as, his struggle against his gluttony “…we find evidence of rust in the chief's iron self-discipline: wrappers from See's chocolate bars, an unopened bag of Doritos, a dozen perfectly edible fun-size Nestle Crunch bars, three empty Coke cans.” Just to mention one of the private things they found. I guess is not the same when he was the target of surveillance “If the chief got overheated, the mayor went nuclear.” The mayor Vera Katz didn’t like the idea of going through her trash either, she said that that was “…potentially illegal and absolutely unscrupulous…” But, why has been totally legal when they’ve done the same things to ordinary mortals.
Law enforcement sometimes uses the laws at its convenience like in the Hoesly’s case in which “They didn't ask permission. They didn't ask for a search warrant. They just grabbed it.” The differences in how they handle certain cases are obvious. “The police didn't seek a search warrant to take Hoesly's trash because, as the Multnomah County District Attorney's office conceded, officers didn't at the time have sufficient evidence to convince a judge to issue a warrant.” Can they make exceptions and skip some rules depending on their interests? It seems like they can even though it is not what the law says. “The order to do so came from Assistant Chief Andrew Kirkland, who dated Hoesly in the early '90s.” Was that a coincidence? Officers manipulate rulings depending on the case and who is the defendant “Unlike Hoesly, Kirkland was not indicted; instead, he was fined and allowed to enter court diversion to maintain a clean record.”
That demonstrates how hypocritical public representatives can be. If they want to find something they sure will “No longer do the Feds need to meet the evidentiary standard of ‘probable cause’ to initiate an investigation or start amassing information on you. Nor do they need to show any evidence of a link to terrorism. All they need to do, in short, is say they find you suspicious. They don't need to tell a judge why.”
People like them have been using the so-called war on terror as an excuse to violate people’s privacy rights. “In the wake of 9/11, the U.S. government has granted itself far-reaching new powers to spy on you…” Citizens have been objects of this for years “’The government is essentially going through your trash every day,’ says Evan Hendricks,
