Surveillance Monster
Big Brother is near, reports the ACLU:
AP story -- Summary -- Full report (pdf)
It says erosion of the Fourth Amendment is a key problem:
In recent years – in no small part as the result of the failed "war on drugs" – Fourth Amendment principles have been steadily eroding. The circumstances under which police and other government officials may conduct warrantless searches has been rapidly expanding. The courts have allowed for increased surveillance and searches on the nation's highways and at our "borders" (the legal definition of which actually extends hundreds of miles inland from the actual border). And despite the Constitution's plain language covering "persons" and "effects," the courts have increasingly allowed for warrantless searches when we are outside of our homes and "in public." Here the courts have increasingly found we have no "reasonable expectation" of privacy and that therefore the Fourth Amendment does not apply.
