And no, I’m nor talking to you, Ann Coulter — I mean a lawyer who can read and think and stuff.
Anyway, while I was reading this Corner post by noted know-it-all Andy McCarthy, I had a question. So, I will lay out the evidence, and then you, the members of the jury, will be asked to render a verdict.
First, here’s the opening paragraphs of ANdy’s post:
Searching the Mail [Andy McCarthy]
The latest “imperial presidency” controversy in Washington involves President Bush’s statement, in conjunction with signing a postal reform bill, claiming what the New York Daily News breathlessly calls “sweeping new powers to open Americans’ mail without a judge’s warrant.”
As usual, this turns out to be a tempest in a teapot — notwithstanding the tut-tutting from Senators Susan Collins, Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton, as well as NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
To reiterate, the Fourth Amendment prohibits unreasonable searches, not warrantless searches.
Now, for reference purposes, here is the Fourth Amendment:
Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Now, here’s my question: I had always thought that the amendment was saying that in order to protect the people from unreasonable searches, warrants (based on probable cause) would be required prior to a search — otherwise, anything turned up in the search couldn’t be used in legal proceedings against said people. But it seems that Andy is saying that it’s an either/or thing; if the State thinks that the search is reasonable, then it doesn’t need a warrant; and if it has a warrant, the search doesn’t have to be reasonable. And since I keep hearing similar reasoning from other wingnuts, I’m now curious about this matter. So, legal scholars, explain this to me.
Oh, and I also want to let the Bush administration know that I think it would be reasonable to strip-search Andy, because he has an Irish name and therefore could be a terrorist. And I assure them that if they decide to do this, Andy will pose no objections, because, hey, this is war time, and whatever you guys think is reasonable is fine with him, Constitution be damned!
Displaying that fine conservative grasp on logic again, it seems.
Personally, I suspect that Andy & Pals would be almost as happy if the government thought they were important enough as individuals to read their mail, as they would be if Al Qaeda put each of their names on an enemies list. They *want* to be that important in the global scheme of things. They *want* to have powerful enemies, they *love* being searched at airports, they need to feel that *someone* hates them, or it might mean they’re just pathetic little products of random chance and evolutionary mechanisms, created en masse and set upon just another ordinary planet as one species among millions, one human among billions, who, fifty years after their deaths, will leave such a nonexistent legacy that it would be as though they’d never lived, and a hundred years after their deaths, even their ideas will have vanished, and billions of years after that, so will their species, their planet, and eventually their universe be only wisps of what once was, without even a god to remember*.
It makes me wonder, how much of this could be solved if someone would just give them a hug and tell them they’re special people?
* Incidentally, I do believe all this to be true**. The funny thing is, I find it rather liberating and hardly a cause for existential panic. I mean, what’s the point?
**Yes, the thing about no gods, too. I’m pagan. Without belief, there’s no gods. Without sentience, there’s no belief. Without anything, of course, there’s no anything else.
Left by D. Sidhe on January 5th, 2007