Justices Uphold Welfare Home Searches
The ACLU had challenged a San Diego County policy, saying its warrantless inspections violated privacy rights. The Supreme Court refuses to hear it.
WASHINGTON — County welfare officers may conduct routine searches of the homes of welfare recipients to combat fraud under a ruling in a California case that the Supreme Court let stand Monday.
The justices refused to hear a challenge from the American Civil Liberties Union, which contended that San Diego County’s policy of requiring home searches without a warrant violated privacy rights.
The 4th Amendment to the Constitution forbids the police to search a residence without a warrant. But the home inspections in San Diego County are different, judges said, because they do not seek evidence of a crime. Instead, they are intended to determine whether welfare recipients qualify for benefits.
The San Diego district attorney adopted a policy in 1997 under which applicants for welfare benefits must agree to a “walk through” of their residence while they are present. The inspectors check on whether the applicant has an eligible dependent child and has the amount of assets claimed. They also check on whether a supposedly “absent” parent lives at the residence. If residents refuse to permit a home visit, they can lose their benefits.
“No applicant has been prosecuted for welfare fraud based upon anything observed or discovered during a home visit,” County Counsel John J. Sansone told the high court.
In its suit, the ACLU contended that the mandatory home searches, based on no evidence of wrongdoing, violated the 4th Amendment and its ban on unreasonable searches and seizures.
But a federal judge ruled for San Diego County, and a three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed that ruling in a 2-1 decision last year. Judges A. Wallace Tashima and Andrew Kleinfeld formed the majority, while Judge Raymond Fisher dissented. Afterward, eight judges filed a dissent and argued unsuccessfully that the full 9th Circuit should reconsider the panel’s ruling.
“This case is nothing less than an attack on the poor,” said Judge Harry Pregerson, writing for the dissenters. “This is especially atrocious in light of the fact that we do not require similar intrusions into the homes and lives of others who receive government entitlements. The government does not search through the closets and medicine cabinets of farmers receiving subsidies.”
Pregerson noted that San Diego is alone among California’s 58 counties in mandating home searches for welfare recipients, but “this ruling will surely set a new standard,” he added.
The ACLU asked the Supreme Court to take up the case of Sanchez vs. County of San Diego, but it was dismissed in a one-line order Monday.
© 2007 The Los Angeles Times
Boy, I can see this spreading like wildfire!
The message is clear: if you accept government money, you are subject to a warrant-less search without your permission.
I suppose that could be interpreted as things like taking a tax deduction for your home mortgage interest.
Fish and Game rules officers don’t need a warrent to search your vehicle or home, its been that way for years and I never heard of anyone taking that issue to the Supreme Court.
For example, if you were found to have more trout in your freezer than the ‘daily’ catch allows, you stand to face fines of thousands of dollars. If the limit is six a day and you catch six, you have to eat them before you can catch any more. You can’t freeze them and then use them for a future family picnic.
Here we are with a similar situation with these County Welfare Officers. They can no notice, no warrant, search a home and discover a person has a piggy bank or a stash of money saved for a rainy day and declare they are guilty of hiding assets and are therefore no longer eligable for welfare and also possibly are guilty of fraud.
This is exactly the sort of thing that must make your average Canadian shake his head.
Yesterday, the Toronto Star had a story about the local housing authority owning $500K houses in a leafy neighborhood for subsidized renters. They proposed selling the houses and moving the renters into more typical “public housing” neighborhoods.
There was an outcry from the nearby residents - for the housing authority to KEEP the pricey houses so the poor residents could continue to live in a nice neighborhood.
If it were some Pittburgh neighborhoods, the neighbors would have planted a burning cross on their lawn.
It is a different world up there - and it starts just 220 km to the north as the crow flies (or about 4 hours as the car drives, from where I’m sitting. And the climate of Toronto is actually warmer and less snowy than a lot of western Pennsylvania or even Maryland or West Va.
It’s a means test, and they are mean indeed. As there is no way to survive for very long on welfare alone (even in Canada) of course those on welfare have to cheat.
What I’d like to see is that the corporations which get the more expensive form of corporate welfare also get means tested. But that’s not too likely is it?
kem patrick
You are talking about apples and oranges here. Your Hunting and/or Fishing License is something that you have to pay a fee for, and by paying that fee, you agree to abide by the rules on that license, which as you say, allows inspectors to come into your home and search your freezer.
Of the people who receive welfare, (Government Assistance), most are probably too poor to even buy a Fishing License or even a gun to go hunting.
You know, I could agree that Welfare Case workers be allowed to inspect households, but they should give fair warning, much like when a family adopts a child, they are given fair warning when inspectors are about to visit to check the welfare of the child, but just going to a home unnannounced is against the Constituitons’ “unreasonable search and seizure” clause.
Unwarranted search and seizures are unwarranted.
libertas fugit—-Right on. This ruling, which may seem innocuous on the face if it, is that “slippery slope” we all worry about. Although unwarrented search and seizure has already been used to terrorize poor people, when is the last time any innocent person invloved in a “mistaken identity” bust got any sort of recompense?
Power is as power does, and some folks will push their power grab as far as possible. We have a Supreme Court who has just ruled that you and I will just have to take it. Pure and simple.
I know it was apples and oranges JPBREEZE, I was using it as an illustration to make a valid point. I don’t believe any government official should have the right to search our homes without procuring a legal warrant.
And yes we purchase a fishing lisence and people on welfare swear and sign that they are legally subject to recieve benefits.
What a disgusting, backwards place this is! Mandatory strip-searches for the poor to prove that they are really all lazy liars who belong in jail, while the rich live behind their armored fences with private security; no one inspecting what they do with their money ($15,000 in cocaine per week,) and the entire political system out to make sure they keep their undeserved 90% of the land’s resources.
Don’t put all of the fish in one barrel, some people are on welfare who have hit hard times thru no falult of their own. Bankrupting medical bills for instance, the early death of a father or mother, a job out-sourced and no qualfications for another type of job. There are many who should recieve help to alloow them to get back on their fnancial feet and there are many who don’t deserve it and get it. No one deserves to have their homes searched by some over paid government official who only suspects.
If we wish to reduce welfare fraud with home searches, we should begin with searching the homes of our Congress.
those of us who are for peace are discouraged to learn that the “volunteer” vets of iraq and afghanistan are now finding themselves homeless. had they not been ordered overseas, they could have possibly kept their jobs.
on a related matter, george w. bush is living in public housing. he and another criminal, richard cheney, need to be searched, then arrested, then removed from office. they have done away with habeas corpus and therefore the right of a defendant to learn the charges against them. they try to prevent “terrorists” from having trials at all. the rest of us have a fourth amendment right against search and seizure for as long as we can keep any semblance of the rule of law.
A very slippery slop indeed, you give this power to any goverment offical it will be abused, period. No probable cause, NO SEARCH! Thats the law. Anything eles will result in a further degradation of our civil liberties. Who’s going to protect the poor when thier rights are abused, The courts? Law enforcement? Not likely.
It’s just another step in the fascist progression. It also helps strengthen the class split, but not for long. Warrantless searches will be de rigeur for everyone soon, not just for poor folks.
The Armed Services have lowered their admission’s requirements to allow for people with criminal records, correct?
So, the poor on welfare will be charged with drug possession, if no drugs are there (and not planted), then there’s always the fraud charges. They work for the State while in prison, learn to take orders and are offered a chance to “serve their country” instead of doing time.
And the age limit was raised also. and women are fair game. Single parent? Fair game! Her children, as wards of the state, are sent to new public military schools, to be endoctrinated and to ensure more “volunteers”.
You know…Just in case the recruitment vans with the video games dont’ work.
The “wisdom” of the Class War’s Right Wing judges:
“The 4th Amendment to the Constitution forbids the police to search a residence without a warrant. But the home inspections in San Diego County are different, judges said, because they do not seek evidence of a crime. Instead, they are intended to determine whether welfare recipients qualify for benefits.”
COMMENT:
??? Evidence of a crime is exactly what the home inspectors are lookin’ for: if a welfare recipient isn’t entitled to benefits which they are accepting, that is a crime. And if the home inspectors find evidence that the recipient isn’t entitled to benefits, they have found evidence of a crime.
It isn’t required to have taken a course in logic to
pass the bar. Or a course in ethics. Mores the pity.
Same goes for fish in the freezer: the Fish & Game guys are looking for evidence of a crime: an unlawful number of fish in one’s possession.
It’s the class war folks: trying to catch the little fish in the freezer or the Little Fish in the hood trying to survive on welfare. Meanwhile the Big Fish of Haliburton, Blackwater, and the rest steal us all blind with impunity.
So the wingers take their scissors to the 4th Amendment again. Why not? Shucks, George says, “It’s just a goddamn piece of paper.” Too bad, though. Call me nostalgic, but I kinda got a bit of comfort from that piece of paper. George and a scary number of my fellow citizens seem to be ripping up that piece of paper and wiping their butts with it.
And we are letting them.
We are you know, we really are.
At least Musharraf had the decency to admit he had suspended the Constitution. Bush has his judicial lackeys do the job one amendment at a time. And it’s a no brainer that a higher proportion of people on welfare are ethnic minorities, making this yet another racist scheme. Jim Crow has had some plastic surgery in Congress and the courts, but he’s alive and well.
Tijuana, God forbid you ever become physically disabled and have to live on $300.00 a month!
Just imagine how you would feel when people tell you to get a job.
Excellent comments Advocate and MA.
I also think it is against human rights that the government mandates people be dependant on someone else. It leaves women and the disabled in a volunerable and sometimes dangerous position.
PAULITICS - 8:43 pm: Just a short seven years ago - though it feels like a lifetime - I would have thought you were really “out there” with your scenario. But now, I know that you’re right on.
It’s so very unfortunate that so many still cling to “it can’t happen here.” Delusion, delusion, delusion.
Let’s hope the ACLU wins this one. It wasn’t that many years ago the children, even unborn had to have social security numbers in order to quailfy for any government benefits. It wasn’t that long after that the govenment (IRS) demanded numbers for children in order for the children to be claimed as a dependent on their parents return. It’s a false hood printed on the social security card that states Not for identification purposes. One thing leads to another all right. It’s easiest to push the poor and disadvantaged around. That is where it always starts.
Guess the military does the house to house searches in Iraq bringing democracy to the neighborhood. We may all be next.
Where in our Constitution dose it say we give up our rights to privacy because we need state assistance? If so, then define state assistance! We have good friends who’s children get state medical. So are they now subject to an unanounced home searched or giving up medical care for their kids?
Article 3.
Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.
Article 25.
(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
(2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.
I might be mistaken but I don’t think this means that someone who is unable to work for circumstances beyond their control should be made financially dependant on someone else.
In my mind there is absolute NO doubt that a person can not provide a standard of living adequate for the health of well-being of himself on $300.00 a month.
Just look at the picture of the Supreme Court that accompanies this article. It’s a beautiful building designed to inspire awe, reverence, solidity, integrity and impartiality. How unfortunate it’s full of Bush appointed, right-wing, evangelical, conservative, mobsters.
And who doctored the picture and why? If you notice, there are shadows on the steps of people who don’t appear in the photo (more cops?). Weird…
WELFARE reform?
How about the ~ $1 Billion/day going to the wealthiest and most corrupt, as they are certainly faring very WELL with our tax payer funded subsidy?
Namaste
__ __ __ __ We must be the change
__ __ __ __ we wish to see in the world __ Gandhi
It is dead wrong imagineusa and as long as no one fights for human rights they are going to get away with it. This would mean a woman can not be independant. It is a clear violation of human rights.
Can you imagine living with your adult child 18 or over will disqualify one from recieving benefits, anyone see a problem with that? I see a problem when a adult child is financially responsible for disabled parent.
The government can’t afford to provide adaquate assistance but has no problem spending billions in Iraq. America, home of the free!
It’s an odd sort of economy to pay investigators $15 an hour to bust someone trying to scam $5 a day.