Letter: Supreme Court decision sets bad precedent

Saturday, June 24, 2006 | 7:51 a.m.

Last week's U.S. Supreme Court decision to eliminate the need for authorities to knock and announce (and wait 15 seconds) when serving a warrant was another glaring example of the government's lust for more power at the expense of the further erosion of our 4th Amendment rights.

The Supreme Court's unjust decision, giving more intrusion rights to the government and less to citizens, will no doubt be tested at the cost of someone's loss of limb or life. Surely not, as they claim, by how much the degree of difficulty diminishes in the so-called "war on drugs" or the "war on terrorism."

It leaves us with the premise that, if you are awakened in the night in your bedroom by unknown intruders in dark clothing with flashlights, all screaming orders to get out of bed (or not), you may be justified in assuming that your life is in danger, reach for your bedside weapon, and shoot them on the spot to protect yourself and your family.

But if they happen to be a SWAT team serving an unannounced warrant for a drug dealer ... but at a different address due to a typo ... you may now be prosecuted, or even killed in the cross fire, for endangering (or killing) police officer(s) ... because they had a warrant, and believed that they were at the right address?

I suppose that the next move of the "Supreme" Court will have to be to protect us lowly citizens by taking away our right to bear those dangerous arms?

Frank Musaraca, Henderson