Popehat’s Ken White, on How To Read News Like A Search Warrant Application:
If you’re not familiar with them, search warrant applications include a declaration under penalty of perjury from the investigating officer or agent. The declaration and supporting paperwork are supposed to identify the location to be searched, the items to be seized, and the specific facts providing probable cause that those items are evidence of a crime. Federal courts scrutinize search warrants more closely than state courts. That’s not the law; that’s just reality.
When I was a prosecutor, my job was to review proposed warrant applications from federal agents and make sure that they complied with legal requirements before submitting them for approval to federal magistrate judges. As a criminal defense attorney, my job is to analyze warrant applications that have yielded searches of my clients and scrutinize them for flaws and constitutional failures that I can present carefully and forthrightly to a judge so that the judge can then ignore or rationalize them. The critical eye that prosecutors and judges are supposed to use when reviewing a warrant application — and that defense lawyers use in evaluating whether they can be challenged — comes in handy in assessing the trustworthiness of news. Three doctrines in particular come to mind.
Handy advice for critical thinking in any situation.