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You've gone far afield from this comment that I responded to:

The 4th amendment protects against unreasonable search and seizure. The issue is what's reasonable and unreasonable. Those change with the situation just like what's free speech. You can't yell fire in a crowded theater. You can search a building for someone if you're in hot pursuit without a warrant when under ordinary circumstances it would require a warrant. Your luggage can be opened and inspected by customs without a warrant when you are entering or leaving the country. Your vehicle can be searched when entering and leaving the building. If you're driving across the country they can't search your luggage or car without a warrant (with exceptions)

Unreasonable means no warrant. Reasonable means that they get a warrant and had better be able to back it up.

BTW, you can yell fire in a theater. In fact, there are times that you should. If there happens not to be a fire, then that is a different issue. That's a misuse of your right to free speech and you can be charged.

Exigent circumstances do allow police to enter a building if they hear a cry for help or are chasing a suspect and he just entered the building. That searching would not include anyplace that a person could not hide in. But neither of these situations are what we are discussing.

Forget your lawbooks for a minute. I've acknowledged that the 'law' might say something different. I'm asking you to read the 4th carefully. My reading doesn't require that you torture or twist the words. The Founders intended that the government jump through hoops to search you or your effects -- even in scary times. If you want to change that, amend the Constitution.

The law does say something different and that's the point. You have a misunderstanding of the meaning of unreasonable and reasonable. For you reasonable means you have a warrant and it's unreasonable if there isn't a warrant. That's not the law or the meaning of the constitution. That's why the details of what the administration did or didn't do matter. That's why we're a nation of laws.

If you go to fly commercially at the airport you submit to a warrantless search by a government law enforcement officer. That's a reasonable search. If you change your mind and leave without being searched in order to search you the conditions have changed and with some exceptions searching you without a warrant is probably unreasonable. I say probably because what ever actions you took in protesting the initial search may have given officers probable cause or you may have broken a law which in arresting you they are allowed to again search you without a warrant (including body cavity searches if appropriate and they are very intrusive). The airport is a very clear example of a warantless search that is considered reasonable and not a violation of the 4th amendment. If you don't think so head down to your local commercial airport and go through the check point and refuse to be searched. Then when they are done with you can sue them and the judge will explain to you the difference between reasonable and unreasonable searches and when warrants are required and when they aren't. The fine and the legal costs will cement the lesson.

Badray,

I've just been looking over your series of exchanges with airedale on this thread and wanted to add my own thoughts, albeit three weeks late. I appreciate what you're saying about "put the law books down for a second and think", but I would suggest going back and re-reading the fourth Amendment in the following way...

The Actual Fourth Amendment

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.

Badray's Fourth Amendment

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against warrantless 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.

I did that to emphasize the fact that the Fourth Amendment does not guarantee your right to a warrant, it only guarantees your right to reasonableness. Note that the only reference to a warrant in the Fourth Amendment is only for purpose of describing its form, not its requirement.

So where did this fiction that reasonableness-equals-warrant come from? It came from the fact that since 99.9% of the cases do in fact require a warrant, everyone just presumes that it must be a 100% requirement. It's not, not in law, not in history, and not in reason nor logic.

Just something to think about...