“Snoopgate:” why can’t Democrats read?
Only minutes ago on Fox News, former Democratic congressman Martin Frost asserted that “… the Fourth Amendment says American citizens can’t be searched without a warrant.”
No, it does not.
The Fourth Amendment says:
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. [Emphasis added.]
Andrew C. McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor, identifies twenty-eight instances in which federal law has long provided for warrantless searches and seizures. Among other things, the Government has the power to:
• Arrest American citizens, based on probable cause, without a warrant;
• Conduct a warrantless search of, and seize, items belonging to American citizens that are displayed in plain view and that are obviously criminal or dangerous in nature;
• Conduct a warrantless search of an American citizen’s car anytime there is probable cause to believe it contains contraband or any evidence of a crime;
• Conduct a warrantless search — including a strip search — at the border of any American citizen entering or leaving the United States;
• Conduct a warrantless search of any American citizen seeking to enter a public building;
• Conduct warrantless searches of bars or nightclubs owned by American citizens to police underage drinking;
• Conduct warrantless drug screening of American citizens working in government, emergency services, the transportation industry and nuclear plants.
Moreover, under the U.S. Supreme Court’s holding in Atwater v. City of Lago Vista, 532 U.S. 318 (2001), an American citizen can be arrested and jailed for a fine-only offense not punishable by incarceration upon conviction!
The Fourth Amendment doesn’t say that a warrant must precede every arrest or search. It says if you want a warrant, you have to show probable cause. And it doesn’t say that the Government cannot search or arrest people warrantlessly. It says the Government cannot search or arrest them unreasonably.
Is it unreasonable to listen for evidence of a plan to blow people up with a view to preventing it?
The problem is, you so often hear people calling politicians idiots, it’s easy to forget that many of them really truly are idiots