Defending the 4th Amendment - Andrew Napolitano

In this morning's Los Angeles Times Judge Andrew Napolitano (of FOX News) explains the importance of the 4th Amendment for every American. He contends that the Protect America Act of 2007 is clearly unconstitutional and suggests that even FISA denies certain Constitutional rights.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-napolitano18feb18,0,5420346,print.story
The invasion of America By Andrew P. Napolitano
"The 4th Amendment was written in response to the Colonial experience whereby British soldiers wrote their own search warrants, thus literally authorizing themselves to enter the private property of colonists. The amendment has been uniformly interpreted by the courts to require a warrant by a judge; and judges can only issue search warrants after government agents, under oath, have convinced the judges that it is more likely than not that the things to be seized are evidence of crimes. This standard of proof is called probable cause of crime. It is one of only two instances in which the founders wrote a rule of criminal procedure into the Constitution itself, surely so that no Congress, president or court could tamper with it. ...

"The so-called Protect America Act of 2007, which expired at the end of last week, gave the government carte blanche to spy on foreign persons outside the U.S., even if Americans in the United States with whom they may be communicating are spied on -- illegally -- in the process. ...

"Those who believe the Constitution means what it says should tremble at every effort to weaken any of its protections. The Constitution protects all "persons" and all "people" implicated by government behavior. So the government should be required, as it was until FISA, to obtain a 4th Amendment warrant to conduct surveillance of anyone, American or not, in the U.S. or not."


Meanwhile:
Bill Kristol is trying to maintain that the Democrats simply are trying to "stick it to the phone companies." http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/18/opinion/18kristol.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

And Robert Novak maintains that the Democrats have decided "that losing the generous support of trial lawyers ... would be more dangerous than losing the anti-terrorist issue to Republicans." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/17/AR2008021701734_pf.html

Too bad they don't listen to the Judge.