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4th Amendment, that obsolete detail....
Mobile backscatter x-ray units are coming into use, to scan the inside of vehicles from a distance. I have some difficulty seeing how x-raying a vehicle is not a "search" (applying passive infrared imaging to a house has been held to be a search, and this involves active rather than passive imaging), and how doing it to every vehicle, with no reason to suspect criminality, is not "unreasonable."
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And how does one square that with Kyllo v. US? Seems to me this technology is much more intrusive, and much less available to the general public, than the infrared technology in that case. And that use was found to be unconstitutional.
This is absolutely a search. And an illegal one.
Funny, in the Constitutional texts of the 19th century, resaonable in the 4th amendment meant the search was performed under the auspices of a search warrant. That is NO search was reasonable without a search warrant. In fact, the plain language of the 4th amendment says exactly that, IF the reader knows English grammar and language usage.
In the 20th century, the judges lifted their black robes, grabbed their crystal balls and removed the warrant requirement from reasonable.
I can only imagine what the voodoo hoodoo magic of the 21st century supreme court will bring us.
It is a sad note that those who have no authority to do so, have usurped the power to decide the meaning and extent of the document that 1) created them and 2) controls them. Do you not see the hypocrisy of the court claiming the power to interpret its superior?
Have we reached the point that the government agents can come up to us and strip us in public? What's the difference between the actual physical act and this?
Heaven help us!
Tiocfaidh ar la!
Well, I guess the courts will have to re-define the phrase "plain sight" for law enforcement.