My Cold, Dead Privacy

If only the gun nuts felt as strongly about the 4th amendment as they do about the 2nd...

Court rules US air travelers can't refuse security searches at airports

Citing threats of terrorism, the court ruled passengers give up all rights to be free of warrantless searches once a "passenger places hand luggage on a conveyor belt for inspection" or "passes though a magnetometer."

This made me wonder how many other ways I could be subjected to warrantless searches.

A quick primer here was interesting. Bottom line - if an authority has "probable cause" (which can be just about anything - including a completely subjective "I thought they were drunk," or "I thought they looked like that suspect we were looking for."), then they can search you and your immediate "area of control."

The current US Administration doesn't even believe they need probably cause. (Of course, they don't believe they need to be accountable to the other two branches of government, either, so I guess that's not a big surprise. But to be fair, apparently all Presidents believe they are not subject to 4th amendment restrictions.)