Word: dragnet
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...peepholes were pictures of the suspects, some snapped surreptitiously at peace rallies by other FBI agents in the guise of press photographers. A crackling radio brought terse reports from about a dozen other teams staked out near by. Finally the agents spotted their prey and set a dragnet into operation...
...Government policy, the A.C.L.U, insisted, has already created "a chill and a pall" among those legitimate political protesters who might fall within the Government's new eavesdropping "dragnet." University of Michigan Law Professor Yale Kamisar speculated recently that the Nixon Administration was openly inviting a showdown with the Supreme Court on the wiretapping issue. "The court is hurt," explained Kamisar, "and the Justice Department thinks it can win, given the current public climate about crime and coddling criminals...
Last week, by a vote of six to two, the Supreme Court reversed Davis' conviction and, in effect, declared the practice of dragnet arrests unconstitutional. More surprising to lawyers, the court held that any evidence-including fingerprints-gathered as a result of dragnets is inadmissible. Though the decision was overshadowed by the implications of the court's voiding of state-residency requirements for welfare recipients (see THE NATION), it could eventually have considerable impact on police procedures...
...pointed out in dissent, even if a suspect's prints were obtained improperly, the police might be able to rearrest him properly later and take his fingerprints then. That being so, it may be some time before police are willing to abandon as handy a device as the dragnet...
...decision recalls last month's dragnet episode in Detroit (TIME, April 11). After a policeman was killed, 142 Negroes were taken to police headquarters. A local judge, George Crockett, declared the mass arrests illegal and released all but two. The police were enraged, but Judge Crockett appears to have anticipated the high court's reasoning...