Boston's Door-to-Door Searches Weren't Illegal, Even Though They Looked Bad
Friday's door-to-door sweep of Watertown looked shocking in photos and videos. But according to the ACLU, it was all apparently within the bounds of appropriate behavior.
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There were two components to last week's shelter-in-place request in Watertown, Massachusetts. The first was a request that people not to leave home. The second was a door-to-door search by heavily armed law enforcement officials. Those are two very different things, with different implications. But neither was illegal.
No one in Watertown had to stay at home. The shelter-in-place was optional, largely an effort to ensure public safety in the classic sense of such requests. explains the difference:
