[highball]

Lets see, we got secret judges making secret decisions and secret enforcement and only one side gets to present their case to them and 99% they win against no opposition. And under Obama.

To be fair, these decisions are for the approximate equivalent of search warrants. I don't recall the target of a proposed search warrant ever being given the opportunity to show why it should not be granted.

Search warrants have to be disclosed. They are limited in scope and duration. And if the police get a warrant to search my house they eventually have to leave it; they don't get to stand around watching just in case I later do something they don't like.

We have a procedure for issuing search warrants in this country, authorized under and subject to the Constitution. The fact that our existing process wasn't good enough for the government, and it needed a secret process that we didn't know about and couldn't access even if we did, tells us these aren't "the approximate equivalent of search warrants" at all.

I didn't have a lot of time for Rand Paul before, but you know a man by his enemies. Having the Cheney family among them means Paul is going up in my estimation.

[Sherman Logan]

My point was simply that the issuance of warrants has never been subject to contention by the object of the warrant.

Not that these warrants are a good or constitutional idea.

The Fourth Amendment prohibits “general warrants” as issued under the Crown. These warrants bear an uncomfortable resemblance.