4th Amendment

Re "A 21st century test: What's a 'search'?," Editorial, Aug. 20 Six months after Congress passed a law requiring the Federal Aviation Administration to ease restrictions on commercial drone use in U.S. airspace and two weeks after The Times published an article noting that the Department of Homeland Security is trying to accelerate the use of unmanned aircraft, an editorial points out the 4th Amendment dangers of cellphones and GPS technology....

John Yoo is a professor of law at UC Berkeley. This semester, he is my colleague -- as a visiting professor -- at Chapman University's School of Law. Yoo is also under investigation by the Justice Department's inspector general for his role in producing a number of controversial memorandums during his service in the department during the Bush administration. The memos include one stating that the president may authorize the torture of suspected terrorists. I am a former federal prosecutor.

Re "Eyes on the ears," editorial, Dec. 12 Privacy is something given to us by the 4th Amendment. Yet the president himself confirmed that the National Security Agency has monitored many Americans without court order. So why is our government, whose job it is to uphold our Bill of Rights, violating this right? There needs to be stronger monitoring of NSA operations. The FBI, White House and all others involved admit to eavesdropping without court order, yet they cannot give us any type of report on how it is aiding their anti-terrorist efforts.

Regarding "Ashcroft's Gunslinger Style," editorial, May 10: What an outrage! Our U.S. Department of Justice actually has the gall to argue that the constitutional "right of the people to keep and bear arms" means that the people have a constitutional right to keep and bear arms! What will these wild-eyed gunslingers think of next? Maybe they'll completely flip out and decide that "the people" also have a 1st Amendment right to peaceably assemble and to petition the government for redress, a 4th Amendment right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure and 9th and 10th Amendment rights to retain any other rights and powers not enumerated in the Constitution.

By a surprisingly unanimous vote, the Supreme Court this week ruled that police must obtain a warrant before attaching a tracking device to a car or other vehicle. The decision is a welcome affirmation of the constitutional right to privacy in an era of advanced technology. But the majority opinion's rationale was needlessly narrow. Whether there is a broad right to freedom from new kinds of intrusive electronic surveillance remains to be answered. The case involved the conviction of Antoine Jones, a suspected drug dealer in the District of Columbia who was arrested after being monitored for 28 days by a global positioning system device surreptitiously attached to his Jeep by law enforcement agents without a warrant.

Re "Chief Justice Has Thyroid Cancer," Oct. 26: Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist gave us a gift. It sounds as though he will recover speedily and well, but his sudden illness brought to the forefront the pressing issue of judicial appointments that may occur during the next presidency -- appointments that could change the rights of Americans long into the future. There are seemingly many Americans, and reportedly most of them are women, who are still undecided as to how they will vote in this election.

Re "Forget privacy: We need to spy more," Opinion, May 17 Fair enough; Let's start with Max Boot. In his next column, Boot should publish his home address, phone number, private e-mail address, Social Security number, driver's license number and some of his credit card numbers. My guess is that he won't do it. It's easy to say we need more spying until you realize that they're getting information on you and that information can be used or sold to your detriment. As a proud American, I will not support the abandonment of the 4th Amendment, but if Boot wants to, why doesn't he start by publishing his private information?

A man's home may be his castle, but few of us -- even celebrities -- have moats these days to protect our privacy. That was true long before the "bling ring" allegedly used the Internet to case the cribs of Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton. Nor did thieves have to wait for the invention of Google maps to reconnoiter neighborhoods in search of easily accessible homes. That's worth remembering if, as we fear, some legislator decides that a law should be passed to prevent Internet surfers from looking at houses they easily could scope out from the sidewalk.

The Supreme Court refused Monday to limit strip searches of new jail inmates, even those arrested for minor traffic offenses. Dividing 5-4 along ideological lines, the high court said jail guards needed the full authority to closely search everyone who is entering a jail in order to maintain safety and security. It would be “unworkable,” said Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, to make an exception for persons who are arrested for minor offenses. County jails often must process hundreds of new inmates a day, he said.