Domestic disturbances

No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

The good old Third Amendment has been in place since 1789 and while you might question the punctuation (was the comma newly invented?), you can see what Madison and his colleagues were thinking.  Freedom of speech, press, assembly and no established church like England's -- check.  Keep your muskets and drill with the militia -- what could go wrong with that?  No soldiers tracking mud into the house and hassling the serving wenches -- obviously more important than self-incrimination, cruel and unusual punishment and all the other stuff.  As far as I can tell, the Third Amendment has been uncontroversial and unviolated since it was ratified.  

It's time to amend the amendment:  No law enforcement officer shall enter a home unannounced for the purpose of terrorizing or killing the inhabitants.  This is getting out of hand.

In the best-reported of recent cases, a clinical social worker named Anjanette Young was in her bedroom when police battered down the front door and charged in, searching for a 23-year-old man with a gun (and an ankle monitor).  This description did not fit the 49-year-old Ms. Young, but no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of police.  They handcuffed the naked woman and pointed multiple guns at her while searching her home.  Surprise!  Some snitch had given the wrong address.  The city of Chicago tried to cover it up but after more than a year the police video came into the hands of the local CBS affiliate.  Ms. Young is luckier than Breonna Taylor but somehow she doesn't feel lucky.

Two weeks ago in Tallahassee the home of Rebekah Jones was similarly invaded by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement in search of her computer and phone.  No one even pretended she had a gun.  This appears to be a straight-up act of revenge on the part of Governor Ron DeSantis, who fired Jones from her data science job because she refused to rig the state's covid dashboard to make the numbers look like the pandemic is "going away, like a miracle."  Most Republican governors have been AWOL in the pandemic; DeSantis, for one, welcomes his viral overlords and has done all he can to serve them.  (The first big spike followed "spring break," when the Trumpoid governor refused to close the beaches, encouraging students to bring the virus back to their communities and campuses.  Remember "We want them infected"?)  To seize her property it was necessary to point guns at Jones, her husband and their two children ages 11 and 2.  She has video.

The Constitution already forbids "unlawful searches and seizures."  It's the "lawful" ones that are leaving a trail of death and trauma.  People are made nervous by proposals to defund the police, but maybe just don't give them more high-tech weapons than a Navy SEAL and carte blanche to let themselves in.  Put home invasion back in the hands of criminals who don't have badges.