Saturday, October 29, 2005

Disclaimers
Every communication which is paid for by political funds must contain a disclaimer or attribution statement identifying the source of the funds paying for the communication. This includes every printed advertisement, billboard, handbill, sample ballot, television or radio advertisement or other communication paid for by political funds. Also, it includes items such as T-shirts, bumper stickers and yard signs. The disclaimer must use the words “Paid for by” (abbreviations shall not be used for this language) followed by the name of the committee or group making the payment or assuming responsibility for the communication and the name of the treasurer or other authorized agent of the committee. When the communication is being paid for through an in-kind contribution, it must bear the disclaimer of the recipient campaign committee. Abbreviations may not be used for the name of a candidate or campaign committee.

No disclaimer is required on 1) personal correspondence not reproduced by machine for distribution, 2) a single personal item which is not reproduced or manufactured by machine or other equipment, 3) nomination papers even if the papers contain biographical information, 4) pins, buttons, pens, balloons, nail files and similar small items on which a disclaimer cannot be conveniently printed, or 5) envelopes which have campaign committee identification printed on them. Disclaimers must be included on each separate page of a political communication, including letterhead and enclosures.

Monday, October 24, 2005

n our opinion, these arguments unduly discount the purposes behind the warrant machinery contemplated by the Fourth Amendment. Under the present system, when the inspector demands entry, the occupant has no way of knowing whether enforcement of the municipal code involved requires inspection of his premises, no way of knowing the lawful limits of the inspector's power to search, and no way of knowing whether the inspector himself is acting under proper authorization.
CAMARA v. MUNICIPAL COURT, 387 U.S. 523 (1967)MR. JUSTICE WHITE
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?navby=volpage&court=us&vol=387&page=537

529
Nevertheless, one governing principle, justified by history and by current experience, has consistently been followed: except in certain carefully defined classes of cases, a search of private property without proper consent [387 U.S. 523, 529] is "unreasonable" unless it has been authorized by a valid search warrant.

These are questions which may be reviewed by a neutral magistrate without any reassessment of the basic agency decision to canvass an area. Yet, only by refusing entry and risking a criminal conviction can the occupant at present challenge the inspector's decision to search. And even if the occupant possesses sufficient fortitude to take this risk, as appellant did here, he may never learn any more about the reason for the inspection than that the law generally allows housing inspectors to gain entry. The practical effect of this system is to leave the occupant subject to the discretion of the official in the field. This is precisely the discretion to invade private property which we have consistently circumscribed by a requirement that a disinterested party warrant the need to [387 U.S. 523, 533] search. See cases cited, p. 529, supra. We simply cannot say that the protections provided by the warrant procedure are not needed in this context; broad statutory safeguards are no substitute for individualized review, particularly when those safeguards may only be invoked at the risk of a criminal penalty.

The question is not, at this stage at least, whether these inspections may be made, but whether they may be made without a warrant. For example, to say that gambling raids may not be made at the discretion of the police without a warrant is not necessarily to say that gambling raids may never be made. In assessing whether the public interest demands creation of a general exception to the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement, the question is not whether the public interest justifies the type of search in question, but whether the authority to search should be evidenced by a warrant, which in turn depends in part upon whether the burden of obtaining a warrant is likely to frustrate the governmental purpose behind the search.