Last week, while the media distracted us with Obama’s health care summit, the Senate Democrats caved to conservadems and Republicans and renewed the Patriot Act without critical changes that would have restored a few of our privacy rights. While the Dems now seem ready to pass the watered-down health insurance reform without GOP votes, they weren’t willing to fight for our constitutional rights. Our Fourth Amendment rights have been severely eroded….and you don’t have to just take my word for it. Judge Alex Kozinski, a conservative extremist appointed by Reagan to the 9th Circuit Appeals Court here in San Francisco, wrote a blistering dissent in a case where cops entered a home without a warrant:
The opinion misapplies Supreme Court precedent, conflicts with our own case law and is contrary to the great weight of authority in the other circuits. It is also the only case I know of, in any jurisdiction covered by the Fourth Amendment, where invasion of the home has been approved based on no showing whatsoever. Nada. Gar nichts. Rien du tout. Bupkes. Whatever may have been left of the Fourth Amendment after [United States v. Black] is now gone. The evisceration of this crucial constitutional protector of the sanctity and privacy of what Americans consider their castles is pretty much complete. Welcome to the fish bowl.
Jay Bybee, who signed John Yoo’s torture memos and was rewarded with a lifetime appointment to this court, voted in favor of the “evisceration”. Read Kozinski’s dissent here, and weep. And be sure you listen to podcast #104 about Hoover’s Cointelpro and the state murder of Fred Hampton–history is repeating itself.