Probable Cause Rides Off Into the Sunset
Probable Cause is that delicious freedom that keeps the police from breaking down our doors to satisfy their whim that something illegal might be going on there. It’s what keeps America from becoming a police state. When the cops stop you for a traffic violation, they can’t search your car from top to bottom, because they have no probable cause to do so. Likewise, a judge isn’t going to give them a search warrant to go through your house unless they have a damned good reason and, up until now, that damned good reason was called probable cause.
Up until now. That little-known and less paid attention to fast-shuffle called the USA Patriot Act has just made searching your car or house look like amateur-night. The USA Patriot Act, the one the House and Senate at least had some opportunity to ponder, is not the one they voted into law. That changed and enlarged piece of legislation (with the same name) was substituted at the 11th hour by John Ashcroft, then Attorney General and now no…