Judicial Review, as a legal term, concerns the courts review of the Constitutionality of legislation, laws, administrative rules, etc. It is the CHECK of the Judiciary on the Executive and Legislative branches. A warrant is reviewed by a judge (in theory) but it is not a matter of "Judicial Review" as it is not reviewing the Constitutionality of Legislation, an act (such as the Clean Water Act not an ACTion), or administrative rule. It is merely reviewing the presented material to determine if suffcient cause exists to issue the warrant.
Warrant issuance today is no more than a rubber stamp in many jurisdictions, particularly at the federal level. Additionally, most warrants issued today are defective when one applies the constitutional requirements to them properly.
Amendment IV of the U.S. Constitution states: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be siezed.
When a warrant is so broad as to include all the papers, files, hard drives, computers, and any and everything else where information might be stored.....there is no probable cause that something illegal is there, it is a fishing trip, plain and simple. The founding fathers intended us to be secure from such fishing trips and wrote teh fourth amendment to ensure that protection. For a long time it worked, but the ever increasing willingness of liberal judges to grant "fishing licenses" to goverment agents has turned the fourth into a rubber stamp process.
The WACO incident is a splendid example. The Davidians had broken no laws, there were not stockpiling weapons, they were not abusing children, they simply were doing things that some other people didn't like and the BATF needed a "big news headline" to shore up their position in budget negotiations due to fallout from the Ruby Ridge fiasco.
The federal agents included allegations of child abuse in their warrant application because they knew the judge considering the application would grant it if those allegations were there. Never mind that it is not within the jurisdiction of the federal government, they couldn't be bothered with (and apparently neither could the federal judge) with such trivial things as having no jurisdiction. Never mind that the allegations had already been investigated by the state of Texas and found to be UNFOUNDED (the investigating officer even said "I don't like them or what they're doing but there is no abuse going on"). Never mind that the source of the allegations was a disgrunteled former spouse who was in the midst of a custody fight after abandoning her children when she left the church.
Then there are the weapons allegations. The Davidians had fewer weapons per adult than the AVERAGE Texas household....hardly "stockpiling" weapons. They also had federally issued firearms DEALER licenses under which they operated a legitimate and legal firearms business. The supposed "conversion kits" to convert AR15's to full auto were actually CLEANING KITS and the part number of the orders for them confirms that. The "grenades" they were buying were dummy bodies which, as part of their firearms business, they made a souvenier of. They were completely legal to own, possess, sell, etc.
So, the judge before whom all this defective "evidence" was brought rubber stamped the warrant with a very hefty dose of "to protect the children" I'm sure.
OOOPS THOUGH....it was NOT a "no knock" warrant, yet the BATF showed up in cattle cars with military arms and tactics to make an ASSAULT upon law abiding citizens. And they screwed up, from the get go, resulting in the fratricide (that's shooting their own guys) that occured during the initial assault.
And then it got even more stupid.
RUBBER STAMP, that's all a judge does with a warrant any more.
