The US Supreme Court has shaved the 4th Amendment pretty thin in the last few years. See http://www.fourthamendmentsummaries.com/, "1990s cases" and "Cases after 2000" - there aren't very many of them. One case not mentioned on that web site is last year's "FBI can't track cars by GPS without a warrant" decision, which was made on trespassing grounds.
The US Supreme Court has taken a very legalistic view of what constitutes "search and seizure", what constitutes "in public" and what constitutes "private". These views don't coincide with common usage of any of the words or phrases, so yes, most people would be shocked to find out how they've been snooped on.
But I doubt the current Supreme Court will do anything other than allow it, on some weird technical basis that only lawyers and judges can understand or love.
Legalistic isn't the term - Orwellian is. The Supreme Court has legally defined interstate commerce to mean intrastate, trade to mean possession, and probable to mean possible. Their decisions have increasingly been unconstitutional.
They threw out all hope of remaining remotely constitutional when they ruled in Gonzales v. Raich.
Comments
The US Supreme Court has shaved the 4th Amendment pretty thin in the last few years. See http://www.fourthamendmentsummaries.com/, "1990s cases" and "Cases after 2000" - there aren't very many of them. One case not mentioned on that web site is last year's "FBI can't track cars by GPS without a warrant" decision, which was made on trespassing grounds.
The US Supreme Court has taken a very legalistic view of what constitutes "search and seizure", what constitutes "in public" and what constitutes "private". These views don't coincide with common usage of any of the words or phrases, so yes, most people would be shocked to find out how they've been snooped on.
But I doubt the current Supreme Court will do anything other than allow it, on some weird technical basis that only lawyers and judges can understand or love.
Legalistic isn't the term - Orwellian is. The Supreme Court has legally defined interstate commerce to mean intrastate, trade to mean possession, and probable to mean possible. Their decisions have increasingly been unconstitutional.
They threw out all hope of remaining remotely constitutional when they ruled in Gonzales v. Raich.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonzales_v._Raich and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn