Ed Krayewski on the Fourth Amendment's Non-Top Secret Pummelling
Last week The Guardian and The Washington Post reported that the National Security Agency collects information on the phone and Internet habits of millions of Americans. Since then we've seen President Barack Obama argue against the strawman of combining "100 percent privacy and 100 percent security." We've seen the Director of National Intelligence and apologists point to federal statutes that allegedly permit the behavior. And, on the brighter side, we've seen Sen. Rand Paul introduce the Fourth Amendment Restoration Act.
However, writes Ed Krayewski, the Fourth Amendment didn't become a dead letter overnight. The NSA's unprecedented access to Americans' personal data may have been top secret, but, Krayewski notes, the Fourth Amendment's been getting pummeled for years out in the open.