Tony Zirkle for Congress

Visitor #46522

February 27, 2008

2008 IN Dist. 2 Congressional Press Release

Tony Zirkle Responds to Puckett-Donnelly’s FISA PositionsAfter reading the
statements regarding FISA from Congressman Donnelly and GOP Challenger
Luke Puckett, I feel it is necessary to state my position for public
consumption.

Both Puckett and Donnelly are lost in the trees on this issue and either
do not understand or are unwilling to address the fundamental underlying
issue as to why FISA is necessary in the war on terror. The foundational
issue is the excess power that the legislative and executive branches have
allow the judiciary to hoard for itself. The Jefferson Memorial quotes
the former president as stating, “I have sworn upon the alter of God,
eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.”

One area of unaddressed tyranny is the excess power currently resting in
the judicial branch. I have previously in 2002 issued a press release
calling for a constitutional amendment so that a super-majority in both
branches of Congress, along with the executive signature, could over-turn
legal decisions. The Supreme Court’s striking down the Communications
Decency Act and the Child Online Protection Act (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_Online_Protection_Act ) are examples
where the Supreme Court has substantially advanced the secular regressive
agenda.

In the terror surveillance area, the main reason why laws like FISA are
needs is because courts will through out evidence that is procedurally
tainted because of what is known as the exclusionary rule and the fruit of
the poisonous tree. For instance, if a police officer arrests someone for
driving as a habitual traffic violator and then sees that person driving
the very next day without first checking the validity of his licence,
searches his car and finds the dead body in the back seat, a judge would
likely throw out the driving offense under the exclusionary rule and the
body (and with it the murder conviction) because the body was obtained as
the fruit of a poisonous tree search.

The exclusionary rule is unbalanced and the remedy is extreme. Murderers
should not walk because a police officer in the heat of an investigation
guessed wrongly on a procedural matter that even the U.S. Supreme Court
can’t agree on beyond a 5-4 decision. I propose that we modify the
exclusionary rule to have no application to murder, attempted murder and
terror investigations. If the government needs to use tainted evidence in
a murder, attempted murder or terrorist investigation, the remedy will be
the exclusion of the death penalty. This policy will still provide some
deterrence to police overzealous conduct, and the very worst criminals
will no longer be able to walk our streets Scott-free because a police
officer guessed on the wrong side of a vague and disputed interpretation
of the 4th Amendment.

As I have stated earlier, the central focus of this campaign is to target
pornography and prostitution. For every major campaign issues, I will
make an argument as to how unbridled porn prostitution affects it. In the
FISA area, porn was the root cause of this problem. In 1961, the U.S.
Supreme Court rendered a decision in Mapp v. Ohio, a porn case which is
summarized below. Lawyers often joked that the police spent too much time
looking at Mapp’s porn collection, so the Supreme Court rewarded Ohio and
the other 49 states with an extreme decision that forced upon all state
and local courts the exclusionary rule as the only remedy for future
police misconduct. No other legal decision besides Mapp’s porn case has
lead to the acquittals and dismissals of more criminal cases in history.
Yes, it was a porn case that has allowed more murderers, child molesters,
rapists, robbers and drug dealers to walk our streets than any other
decision in history.

Mapp v. Ohio case decided in 1961 by the U.S. Supreme Court. Dollree Mapp
was convicted in a state court of possessing pornographic material in
violation of Ohio law. Her conviction was obtained on the basis of
evidence taken by the police when they entered (1957) her boardinghouse
without a search warrant while looking for gambling materials. The Supreme
Court, in overturning her conviction, declared that the exclusionary rule
(based on the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution), which prohibits the
use in federal court of evidence obtained through an illegal search and
seizure, extended also to state courts. The ruling provoked a good deal of
controversy; while proponents of the exclusionary rule claim that it is
the only means of assuring freedom from illegal searches, opponents argue
that a criminal should not go free because of a police officer's violation
of the Constitution.
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-MappvOhi.html

I can be reached at 317 658-0107 to answer any questions about my proposal
to modify the exclusionary rule’s role in criminal murder, attempted
murder and terror investigations.

Tony Zirkle
campaign2008@tonyzirkle.com
www.TonyZirkle.com/Campaign
317 658-0107