[geeks] 4th Amendment Gone

[Lionel Peterson]

> From: Kris Kirby <kris at catonic.net>
> Date: 2004/03/29 Mon PM 07:33:37 GMT
> To: Kris Kirby <kris at catonic.net>
> Subject: [geeks] 4th Amendment Gone

My opinion is summed up by the Defense Attorney's statments at the end of the article:

Defense attorney Jim Boren said the ruling still limits police to searches in certain circumstances, but still represents a "scary trend."

"After the king signed the Magna Carta and granted power back to the people, he woke up, said, 'I made a mistake and need to get it back,' " Boren said. "And the government's been trying to do that ever since. We had a bright-line rule that said no searches without an arrest warrant. Now we have one that says sort of, maybe." 

I can see both sides, and understand the logical "wedge" this drives into the warrant process. This puts a lot of power inthe hands of the judges, as they (seemingly, to my NAL mind)get to determine what was reasonable and what was not...

It's hard to talk about this without getting swept into the specifics of this one case...