"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 seized."
Say what you will about improper capitalization, the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution provides all Americans with ideal levels of security and liberty.
This portion of the Bill of Rights allows the government to protect the people by allowing searches and seizures of suspected criminals while, at the same time, protecting the liberties of other Americans by requiring these searches be reasonable and authorized by a judicial warrant.
Apparently the Bush administration has some sort of problem with that last part.
In case you didn't already know, President George W. Bush ordered the National Security Agency to tap the phones of Americans under suspicion of being linked to al Qaeda. On the surface, no reasonable person would have any problem with this. Logically, the president has a duty to protect the nation, and if these unnamed suspects are dangerous, they should be carefully monitored. However, the president also decided to ignore the opening paragraph of this column and forego the hassle of those pesky warrants altogether.
His supporters argue that he is in charge of protecting the nation and cannot allow information on suspected terrorists to become public through everyday due process - what if al Qaeda members are watching Court TV? Then the bad guys would know all of our tricks.
Civil libertarians correctly argue that there are already laws in place to protect the secrecy of wiretap warrants for the ultra-dangerous. Bush supporters often counter, "What if there is a ticking-time-bomb scenario?"
The president would have to order a wiretap in an emergency if he was going to save a city from annihilation.
That's true, respond the critics, but through the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), the president is allowed to apply for retroactive warrants for up to 72 hours after the initial tap. That means if the President found out Osama bin Laden was personally calling a terrorist cell in Muncie with orders to attack Shafer Tower, the government could immediately provide surveillance to help stop the attack, then send the lawyers out within three days to get a warrant.
Apparently that's too much of a hassle - the lawyers at the Department of Justice must like to take long weekends.
Since every excuse given by the administration and its supporters regarding the necessity of this warrant-less domestic spying is easily refuted, why is the administration going to such great lengths to stress the program's tenuous legality? If this domestic spying is vital to national security, no judge would ever deny the warrants and the exact same intelligence would be obtained by going through the proper legal channels.
Perhaps the answer is power.
I believe the president merely wants the power to be above Congress, above the judiciary, above the law and even above the Constitution.
I can think of no other reason.
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