Comment Re:When the cat's absent, the mice rejoice (Score 1) 286
I love lawyers. They are so busy looking at the trees that they can never find the fucking forest.
For example, as a civilian my locker at work is my space. Nobody can open it except me. If my manager thought somebody on-premises was smoking weed she couldn't just have the security guy snap all the locks off, and then detain whomever had weed in the break room until the cops came. A cop walking in and saying "hey these guys really look like potheads," couldn't get a warrant. !Either my boss of the cop could search a specific locker, but going through all 100 or so would be no. In the military your Sergeant can orders a full inspection of every locker at any time. He can then order you detained if you have weed.
To a lawyer the fact that he ordered you "detained," and then had to get paperwork to call it an "arrest," means your Constitutional rights were the same as a civilians. To any sane human being, who lives in the actual real world, the whole line of argument you're making is a distinction without a difference. Everybody got searched with no warrant, and then Bill got arrested, also with no warrant.
The JAG System, etc. has some relevance when talking about searches in service member's homes, or even their cars, but even there it's limited because it's all in the military. Let's say we're talking about an Air Base commanded by a guy named Colonel Kerpinski. Who commands the Security Force cops? Colonel Kerpinski. Who commands the JAGs? Kerpinski. The suspect? Kerpinski. There's a reason "Command Influence" is a really good defense at military trials.