Is the Fourth Amendment Now Illegal?

http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2013/08/is-the-fourth-amendment-now-illegal.html

by darklighter3 • 13 years ago

8 1 13 years ago

mpyne• 13 years ago

No, but it is apparently misunderstood.

In the meantime the Fifth Amendment already should protect you against being compelled to incriminate yourself.

For the rest, for better or worse it's always been a government loophole to wait for you to tell a third-party something and then grab it. We used to have a government office that would read all (ALL) Western Union telegrams going abroad and coming within, for example.

Sometimes the government self-limits it's ability to do this (e.g. wiretapping phones... we've gone from days where phone conversations were conducted on a "party line" where all could listen it, to where no one may legally tap a phone line and even the government must obtain a warrant or court order).

The problem with self-limiting is that such limits can be just as easily undone (e.g. Patriot Act).

So perhaps a specific Amendment regarding privacy itself is warranted, because the Fourth Amendment doesn't speak to that itself, unless we wait for another activist Supreme Court decision ;)

But even in that case, I just don't see the NSA completely going out of the game as I don't think Americans will subject themselves to a "no foreign communications wiretaps" law, as that is something even the Germans seem to explicitly permit in their legal code.

Is the Fourth Amendment Now Illegal?

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