Re:U.S. NSA domestic phone spying program illegal: appeals c...
by a3n on Thursday May 07, 2015 @12:20PM
(#9506202)
But the 4th does qualify with "unreasonable," and dragnets without "specific" suspicions are unreasonable and unconstitutional.
Re:U.S. NSA domestic phone spying program illegal: appeals c...
by mikecb on Thursday May 07, 2015 @01:06PM
(#9506582)
Indeed, and there's where we need mosaic the most. As it stands, the collection of this type of data (Smith) is not even a search, and therefore the court does not even consider whether or not it was reasonable. It just stops there. If it were found to be a search, it might still come in, but perhaps for a different reason. There's a great cartoon, which contains this awesome flowchart: http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=2256
Generally speaking, the public is entitled to all evidence. Certain rights, such as the Fifth amendment, protect you from being compelled to testify against yourself, but you have no right to prevent, nor does anyone else have the right to refuse, to testify against or about you, except for a very small and declining set of common law privileges, and even those only apply in certain circumstances.