Monday, October 20, 2008

There goes the Fourth Amendment

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.

Those are the words that are enshrined in the Bill of Rights, more specifically the Fourth Amendment. I have been looking really hard, and I cannot seem to find the part where the Government is allowed to use radar to see what you look like naked, that the Government can refuse your entry to trains and subways if you refuse to be searched. (Not just in New York)

Do some homework: Ask yourself where the Bill of Rights has been violated. I think we have hit all ten. The Republic is dead. The fun part is going to be where I get to point out to my Republican friends that the powers being abused by Obama are the same ones they gleefully gave W.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The fourth amendment has been gone for a long time. It was death by a thousand cuts. It started by courts moving the line as to what is reasonable cause for when a police officer "sees" something during an arrest. It kept moving when they changed the curtilage laws. I.E. You no longer have privacy in the area around your home. Doesn't matter if there is a fence or not. Then it extended to the inside of your car. Then they extended it to sheds, and outbuildings, and on to garages, and so on and so forth. Who did this, you ask? The evil liberals? The party of the people who want to extend government? No. On the whole this movement has been quietly led by judges appointed specifically for their willingness to say that they are strict constructionists. Oddly, if you actually read the fourth amendment, it is hard to imagine how the strict constructionists come up with their interpretations, but they do. My personal theory is that as most of the strict constructionists are former prosecutors, that they abandon their strict construction theories to assist their friends. In the process they forget that what actually makes the legal system work is balance between the rights of the various parties, and in the process allow abominations like allowing people to x-ray you.