[inquest]

Police may conduct a search where it's not possible to get a warrant because the trail is still hot. It's like the President being able to "repel sudden attacks" without getting a Congressional declaration of war. There's a world of difference between cases requiring immediate action, and the more routine day-to-day operations of government. That distinction is understood by the law, and has always been an implicit part of it, well before our country was even settled.

What you're talking about is something completely different. All someone in government has to do is claim that there's a "national security" justification, and presto!, everything he does is legal. There is nothing in the Constitution, or the legal framework in which it was written, that allows this legal concept. In fact, it was written with a view to combat that notion.

Now, the 4th amendment wasn't written so that the people conducting the searches would be the ones to decide whether the searches are reasonable. That was the job of judges. How did they communicate this determination to the people doing the searches? By issuing warrants. That's the system that was prescribed, and anything else is a clear departure from it.

[mrsmith]

You agree searches do not require a warrant to be constitutional. You even add another example to mine.

But then you repeat that searches without a warrant are unconstitutional.

Courts use the "national security" standard just as it is courts who use the "hot pursuit" and "officer safety" standards for searches. Subsequent judicial reviews are available in all cases, though counterintelligence investigations often don't end up in court.