• avo (9/7/2013)


    On the other hand, there is no need to over-react. "Monitoring" is not the same as "searching and seizing". Also, I haven't heard of a single case where a person was charged with anything based on NSA snooping. If you have, please enlighten me.

    Interesting interpretation of the 4th amendment; you appear to be saying that an unreasonable and unwarranted search is not a violation, neither is an unreasonable and unwarranted seizure a violation, any violation is something which is which simultaneously an unreasonable and unwarranted search and an unreasonable and unwarranted search. Not at all the normal meaning if the words in the ordinary English of 1789-91. I wonder if you have any case law to support that interpretation?

    Or are you suggesting that the monitoring is properly warranted, with a warrant issued on oath or affirmation and based on probable cause?

    I agree with you that your constitution is not worth the paper it was written on. In Britain until very recently we were much better off, because even without a written constitution governments and government controlled agencies didn't dare act like yours. Of course now we have that written European Convention of Human Rights imported into our law, and the government of busily over-interpreting some bits of it in such a way as to make it pretty near illegal for an ordinary citizen to walk the street while over-interpreting other bits to allow itself to do whatever it likes: it seems that having the rights firmly documented in writing is the first step on the path to losing them.

    Tom