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Posted on 03/22/2014 1:35:26 PM PDT by jazusamo
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia responded to student questions with a cryptic answer with possible implications about the NSA’s domestic surveillance programs on Friday night.
During a Q & A session curated by Brooklyn Law School’s Judge Andrew Napolitano, who began a discussion about the NSA’s controversial surveillance of Americans, Just Scalia said the issue would likely come before the high court, Business Insider reported.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
Now thinking about it...she could have been doing a little undercover and record destroying for them...a small price for friendship.
“...one student asked whether data in a computer
could be considered “effects” under the Fourth Amendment.
Mr. Scalia was visibly pleased by the question...”
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If the issue were to come before the Supreme Court, Justice Scalia hinted he would rule that the Fourth Amendment doesn’t protect “conversations” that the government might listen to because the Fourth Amendment prohibits the government from searching your “persons, houses, papers, and effects” without a warrant, not “conversations.”
That is scary. Never thought I would question Scalia’s judgment. Does anyone, besides Scalia, believe that the FF intended recorded conversations to be other than “effects?”
"Just Scalia?";
Why only Scalia?
Oddly enough, in that the US intelligence agencies may have been spying on congress enough to protect themselves from oversight with blackmail, it may be up to the “judicial activism” of the Supreme Court to drop kick them.
That would be one of the boldest and most heroic things the Supreme Court has ever done.
It would be one heck of a legal decision. But blackmail to prevent oversight may not be powerful enough to blackmail congress to reverse the Supreme Court.
Hopefully the decision would be “erosive” to the federal government, so that as spread out, it would tear down more and more of the abusive federal government.
Yeah, so Scalia can approve it.
These aren’t Conservatives, they’re radicals.
That's the problem with taking "originalism" to an extreme. Scalia would tell you that 18th century dictionaries defined "effects" as tangible objects. The problem with that analysis is that there was no way to eavesdrop in the 18th century without crouching under someone's window, which would have been a trespass on their "home." Had there been a way to eavesdrop remotely, I'm sure the Founders would not have been OK with it, but the issue didn't arise because remote eavesdropping wasn't possible.
When the constitutionality of wiretapping first came before the Supreme Court in the 1920s, the Court held that the 4th Amendment applied only if there was a physical trespass on the defendant's home or property, so tapping his phone calls was fine so long as you didn't enter his house to do it. It wasn't until the Warren Court in the 1960s that warrants were required for electronic eavesdropping. This is one instance where the "living Constitution" folks have the right idea-- you can't slavishly follow 18th century legal doctrines when social or technological changes make them absurd.
I think it's a typo for "Justice."
Has anyone heard a peep from John Roberts since the decision? I have not seen anything. To be expected, once you’ve given in to blackmail.
So does the following hold up under current case law?
“Because the Fourth Amendment protects people, rather than places, its reach cannot turn on the presence or absence of a physical intrusion into any given enclosure.”
Yes, that’s the current law, per the Warren Court. One of those times when the “living Constitution” folks got it right and the “originalists” got it wrong.
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