Gee, will somebody be fired now? Oh, probably not.
The Berkshire Eagle reports that while the U.S. Secret Service was protecting Vice President Kamala Harris’ during her July 27 visit to Pittsfield, Massachusetts, its agents used Alicia Powers’ hair salon, Four One Three Salon at 54 Wendell Avenue, as a comfort station without her permission. They taped over a security camera on the building’s back porch, broke into her establishment, used the bathroom, ate the mints on the counter and left without cleaning up or locking the back door.
After the Secret Service conducted a security sweep of the building in preparation for Harris’s appearance, Powers went to Cape Cod for a scheduled vacation. On the Saturday morning of Harris’s event, Powers’ phone alerted her at the Cape that there was activity on the salon’s back porch. A female agent had “walked around the porch, walked around the side of the building and then popped back up on the porch, grabbed the chair, hopped up and taped [over] the camera,” Powers said, explaining what her security cameras showed. “[The tape] blacked out the camera completely.”
Powers drove home from Cape Cod to investigate, arriving at the salon about 4 pm.. Her cameras showed that agents started entering and leaving her salon shortly after noon. “From the communication I’ve heard from the EMS workers, somebody dressed in all black was telling them to come in and use the bathroom all afternoon,” she said.
When she contacted the Secret Service, it first denied everything, then tried to shrug the whole incident off. “[The representative] kind of ended the conversation with telling me, ‘Do you think we need to deal with this right now with what we have going on?’ And my response was, ‘Sir, I’m not trying to be rude but I don’t deserve to deal with this right now either.’”
Eventually, after Powers told her story to the local media, the Secret Service’s Boston office apologized on behalf of the agency. It confirmed that the woman who taped over the security “ring” camera at the salon door about 8:12 a.m. July 27 was an agent. The Secret Service offered to pay to have the salon cleaned and to cover any damages, including the business’ private alarm bill “because it was going off for so long.” Still, Powers is understandably ticked off, in substantial part because when the agents left the doors unlocked, she could have been robbed of more than mints.
“I’m the kind of person that would have set up coffee and doughnuts for them had they asked me for permission,” Powers said. But they didn’t ask permission. Isn’t this a Third Amendment violation? If it isn’t in violation of the letter of the Bill of Rights provision that says, “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,” it certainly violates its intent and spirit. What gives the government the right to use a private citizen’s property for its convenience without the citizen’s consent? Nothing is the answer.
And now, the Secret Service is double-talking again, just like it did after it nearly got Donald Trump killed. Secret Service spokesperson Melissa McKenzie told iBerkshires, which first reported the incident, “We hold these relationships in the highest regard and our personnel would not enter, or instruct our partners to enter, a business without the owner’s permission,” McKenzie said.
But that’s exactly what they did do, isn’t it? If it wasn’t Secret Service agents using the salon, why did the agency apologize?
What an incompetent, unaccountable, irresponsible, untrustworthy disgrace the Secret Service has become.
But it’s diverse, and isn’t that really what matters?
Ethics Alarms 
Fifth Amendment violation for sure. Her property was “taken” without due process and appropriate compensation. What a disgrace indeed.
A lot of people see the 3rd amendment as some sort of weird, outdated constraint. Yet, 3, 4, 5 and 6 are all tightly knit to each other (also 6 bleeds into a relationship with 7 and 8). 3, 4, 5, and 6 all orbit around an individual’s privacy and personal security in relationship to various government actions.
As more and more surveillance can become automated and miniaturized – 4th amendment violations can also be seen as 3rd amendment violations – that is the placement of government “sensing agents” into private residences. And before soldiers are trigger pullers they are information gatherers.
I hate to divulge this – but I remember when we were doing military training around Fort Polk in Louisiana we’d get a little bit “loose” with the maneuvers we’d engage in. Some private homesteads/ranches/farms shared a border with the maneuver training space at Fort Polk and we’d get a little “bold” in our maneuvers and unintentionally encroach on private property. I’d heard of, but not witnessed, some guys openly driving through fields and pastures to get into or out of the training area from area highways.
While this is ultimately “trespass” – as government entities, I always felt this was slightly a 3rd Amendment violation.
Anyway, long side story about why I think the 3rd Amendment is NOT outdated in the least.
I love this comment, Michael.There has been little jurisprudence about the Third: this case would be a good place to start.
https://x.com/jimamendments/status/1641886354261803009?s=46&t=hYBRdyKc75ixaD6bBbzJZw
This would be an interesting case for the originalists on the SCOTUS. Does the 3rd Amendment refer strictly to the housing of soldiers or does it involve the even temporary requisition of property without the knowledge and/or consent of the owner?
(I thought I posted this, but it may have been eaten.)
I think the Third Amendment grew out of these two complaints from the Declaration of Independence:
“He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
“He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
“For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:”
I think if the originalists on the Supreme Court were to look at this issue, these are the passages they would analyze. And, if I understand it correctly, they literally housed soldiers in or on the land of the colonists.
-Jut
At the cost of the civilians if I remember correctly.
Civilians therefore not only suffered material loss – but there was an ever present government observer/informant living with them.
It’s that 2nd aspect of quartering soldiers (expandable to government agents) that I think needs deep consideration.
I don’t understand this. What they did would be a crime if anyone else did it. Are they really THAT arrogant? Yeah, I guess so. The level of corruption in the Federal government is really becoming staggering. One can only imagine what it will be like under Harris.
And OK, it’s not precisely a third Amendment violation, but it is still government employed agents with power and guns using a private structure for their convenience without the owner’s consent. There were no agencies when the Third was formulated, and I am confident the Founders would have said, “No, you can’t to THAT, either.”
Don’t go pretending that law enforcement from the podunk police agencies to he largest federal agencies are not PACKED with entitled officers who will break the law whenever they know that they can get away with it. The problem is far too much of the public is willing to enable this conduct because we give them the king’s pass. The police are necessary, and too many people have to think of the cops as the good guys, because superman isn’t real and if it isn’t for them, who would “save us?”
About 10% of current law enforcement in the United states has done things that should land them in prison. But we have two public employee entities that are nearly immune from any consequences except for the most egregious conduct: teachers and cops. We’re told to be happy when an officer gets fired for things that should nominate them for prison. That’s followed up with an “oh well” when they get hired by the next town over.
That’s why I’m glad we have the civil service commission which keeps records of all public employee discipline. A cop does something like that, he’s done.
I remember back in the 1990s there were a whole bunch of civil rights prosecutions and lawsuits brought against officers in this state who abused their office, although the usual problem here was not abuse of private property but abuse of individuals. . I remember one officer who grabbed a civilian, smashed his head against the side of a police cruiser, and then threatened to charge him with damaging the car.
That in my opinion was a hiring issue. Growing up this guy had always been the football player, the weightlifter, and the bully, and now he was a cop and he thought he could do whatever the hell he wanted. A badge is not a license to bash someone’s head in, nor is it an entitlement to help yourself to an apple from the fruit seller’s cart or a cup of coffee from the shop you pass. The worst part of this is that the agents here knew what they were doing was wrong and they deliberately attempted to conceal their actions. It’s nice that the agency said they would pay to have the place cleaned and so on, but that’s not enough. If I were in this woman’s place I would be asking for the agents involved to be fired forthwith. I think what was done here was also quite possibly a basis for a 1983 lawsuit against the federal government for abuse of power. I say bring the lawsuit and let the US attorney try to defend this behavior when there is video evidence.
Wouldn’t they then argue that there was only video evidence of them taping the cameras? And this no recording of the SS actually occupying the building?
Sounds like there IS video evidence of agents coming and going all afternoon.
“Wouldn’t they then argue that there was only video evidence of them taping the cameras? And this no recording of the SS actually occupying the building?”
Taping the cameras reminded me of the execution of Bryan Malinowski where the ATF taped over his doorbell cam which concealed their identity just before bashing down his door and entering with guns pointed. The only thing missing was CNN like when a geriatric named Roger Stone was confronted with a small army at six in the morning while still in his jammies. Increasingly we the people require protection from our 3-letter agencies and their slimy corrupt bosses.
Listen to the timeline presented in the attached eight minute video and make up your own mind.
ATF Deadly Raid Dashcam Released. This Was Murder (youtube.com)
Have a nice day…🤠
This is what angers me. When police break into a house with no warrant and trash it, why isn’t that breaking and entering? I guess because the police and the prosecutors are ‘on the same side’, they can do whatever they want. It is worse with federal officers. In many places, according to a federal judge, exist in a Constitution-free zone.
It is interesting that federal officers are the ones immune to the Constitution, just like it is federal property where Constitutional rights are most often suspended.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/todaysdebate/2021/09/23/supreme-court-immunity-federal-agents/5788487001/
And it is Trump who will take away your rights says the Harris – Walz ticket. Get ready for more infringements if these two get elected. If Americans elect them they deserve to lose their rights.
OK, the Secret Service, that already admitted they did this, is now saying they didn’t do it.
Funny enough, the other Third Amendment case that I can recall also involved the Secret Service.
They wanted to install anti-aircraft missiles on the roofs of residences near the Whitehouse.