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Robert Adams case
Some background. He's New Mexico firearm collector and importer who had DHS pull a mega-raid on his house.
The Tenth Circuit just affirmed a District Court ruling suppressing the results of the search, on grounds of no probable cause. The claimed probable cause was that he bought some firearms in Canada, got the permit to import them, but only reported importing some of them. Yes... that and he'd occasionally gone to Canada, and on one occasion apparently drove back rather than flew. Yes...
UPDATE: well, this is interesting. Part of the probable cause claim related to Adams' supposed international travel, using data from DHS' Automated Targeting System. Turns out that that system (1) records airline reservations, and does not purge them if the person cancels the reservation and (2) has been exempted, at government request, from legal requirements that data be accurate and updated, since the government contended that even inaccurate and outdated "data" can give clues. And how much credence is a court supposed to place in data from that system?
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First I have heard of this case. Which surprises me because I thought I was pretty well informed. Makes me wonder what else has slipped my attention.
Somehow I doubt he's going to see his property again any time soon, suppression or not.
David, do you what evidence was suppressed? That is, was there evidence that shows he was engaged in some type of illegal activity? I ask becuase the TTAG article mention that Mr. Adams was an FFL that "did everything by the book".
There is one bit that is troubling that CA10 didn't address, but should have. That being the advertisement of "no import marks" guns acting as PC. That's dangerous because there are a lot of guns in this country that don't have importers marks. Granted, the indictment seems to suggest that this guy was removing import marks (which I am not sure if that's even a crime...) on guns otherwise legally imported (which given the PC on the warrant is funny unto itself), but a lot of gun shops advertise no import mark guns and that should not be seen as PC.