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. Amendment IV, United States Constitution, 1791
guarding the guardsAfter the events of September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush and the United States Congress passed new federal laws. These laws suspend parts of the United States Constitution. Before President Bush signed these new laws, police officers and FBI agents had to get permission from a judge before wiretapping your telephone. They had to get a warrant from a judge before searching your house or office. That warrant had to describe the evidence that they were looking for and the crime that they suspected you of committing. They also had to tell you that they had searched your house or office. If they took you into custody, they had to charge you with a crime quite soon or let you go. They also had to tell people who asked about you whether they had you locked up. Lawmakers and judges based those rules on the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution. The Fourth Amendment is at the end of the Constitution in the section called the "Bill of Rights". The "Bill of Rights" applies to all people in the United States.The new laws say that they end those rules. The USA PATRIOT Act, signed by President Bush on October 26, 2001, allows police officers and federal agents to wiretap your telephone without consulting a judge, to secretly search your home or office without a warrant, and to detain you indefinitely behind bars without a trial. The USA PATRIOT Act applies to everyone in the U.S.: tourists, immigrants, business visitors, and U.S. citizens. It is not limited to any particular category of suspected illegal activity. Police officers or federal agents who think that you may be cheating on your taxes, polluting your creek, or making too many copies of your videotapes may now wiretap and secretly search as much as they please. Who will stop police officers and federal agents from making honest mistakes? From being overzealous? From being politically motivated, personally vindictive, or simply incompetent? The Romans used to say: guards are great, but who do you get to guard the guards? Some lawyers think that the USA PATRIOT Act may be invalid because it violates the U.S. Constitution. The highest law in the United States is not a statute passed by Congress, but the U.S. Constitution. Until a someone wins a lawsuit in federal court challenging the new law, though, police officers and federal agents will keep on acting as though they have the new powers outlined in the new law. National leaders often react quickly and harshly after their country is attacked. On Dec 7, 1941, Japanese Imperial warplanes attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and killed 3,435 military servicemen and civilians. Two months later, on February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, ordering that all Japanese-Americans, but not German-Americans or Italian-Americans, be forcibly removed from the Washington, Oregon, and California coast. Federal agents asked employees of the United States Bureau of the Census to reveal to them the home addresses of Japanese-Americans living in those states. Census Bureau employees broke the strict privacy laws governing the U.S. Census and gave the information to federal agents. Over one hundred thousand people--two-thirds of whom were U.S. citizens--were taken from their houses and locked up in internment camps in remote Western deserts. Most never recovered their homes, property, or businesses. Today, most Americans agree that the internment of Japanese-Americans was a shameful mistake. In the 1940's, though, after Pearl Harbor and the entry of the U.S. into World War II, few prominent Americans spoke out against it. Criticism seemed unpatriotic, imprudent, or soft-headed. On September 11, 2001, hostile foreigners killed roughly 3000 people, mostly civilians, in New York City, Pennsylvania, and Washington, D.C. Since then, federal agents have detained hundreds of Muslim Americans and Muslim visitors to the U.S. They have locked up hundreds of people, incomunicado, for weeks. Some prominent Americans have spoken out against these detentions--and the searches, questioning sessions, and neighborhood sweeps accompanying them. The great majority of Americans, though, quietly acquiesce. Why? Many people don't know that hundreds of people have been locked up. Many don't know what the new federal laws say. Many don't even know what protections against intrusions from the government the U.S. Constitution guarantees to them. Many also don't understand the emotional impact that the television footage of the collapse of the World Trade Center had on people watching it. It was very hard for U.S. leaders to proceed coolly after that footage was broadcast; they were angry, frightened, and disgusted and they were also pressed to act by millions of angry, frightened, and disgusted voters and colleagues. A nation that had learned about the events of September 11 only over the radio or from newspapers might have reacted differently. Police officers and federal agents who are free to act without constraint will hurt innocent people and people guilty of crimes in ways that will soon make us ashamed. Not because police officers and federal agents are bad, but because they are human. A nation of ignorant people, of frightened people, of self-indulgent people, will not be able to guard their guards. |
history and meaning of the Fourth Amendment Business Week article, November 21, 2001 what the ACLU says about the USA PATRIOT Act Center for Constitutional Rights: USA PATRIOT Act also suspends the First Amendment "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" Juvenal, 55-127 C.E. internment of Japanese-Americans National Review On-line: national identification cards
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