Andrew Napolitano: Make the NSA Get a Warrant
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, the second highest court in the land, declared the National Security Agency's (NSA) collection of bulk data under section 215 of the Patriot Act to be illegal and gave Congress until June 1 to clarify the language. If Congress fails to do so by June 1, the court will entertain applications to bar the NSA from collecting bulk data and indicated it would likely grant those applications. And if that happens, the feds will need individualized search warrants in order to listen to our phone calls, points out Andrew Napolitano approvingly.
In order to protect the natural right to be left alone—privacy—the Framers enacted standards in the Fourth Amendment that required the government to produce evidence about the person whose records it wants and present that evidence to a judge when it wants a search warrant. If granted, the Constitution requires that the warrant particularly describe the place to be searched or the person or thing to be seized. It's time for Congress to respect the Fourth Amendment, argues Napolitano, and ditch Section 215 of the Patriot Act.
