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by nine_k 280 days ago
The US constitution already has a provision against unreasonable search properly enshrined, and well tested in courts. Things like KOSA can be rejected as clearly violating it.

The EU does not seem to have such simple and ironclad norm.

4 comments

Ah, that constitution must explain why we never see people being abducted in broad daylight by goon squads in the US, right? Because anything that clearly violates the constitution would obviously never happen there. Because you're the best country. The greatest.

For reference, the EU does have an equivalent norm: https://fra.europa.eu/en/eu-charter/article/7-respect-privat...

I'm not sure if the 4th amendment applies to deportation of non-citizens, and secondly you would have to take it to supreme court to find out.

In comparison to the US constitution, EU "norms" might as well be toilet paper. For example, they have some notion of "free expression" which sounds like free speech but is defined to be so weak as to be useless. The european public broadly does not seem to care, they certainly aren't willing to kill for their rights.

> I'm not sure if the 4th amendment applies to deportation of non-citizens

Leaving aside everything else wrong with it: in the absence of due process, that can happen to citizens too.

Other commenters already mentioned that the current situation in the US shows how fragile this "ironclad" norm is. Aside from that, though, the fourth amendment wouldn't necessarily prevent a law that requires companies to scan the data and creates certain liabilities if they don't. The weakness in the US's version of such "rights" is that none of them are actually guarantee that any individual rights are to be protected against all comers; they restrict the government from doing certain things but allow private actors to do those same things.
This means nothing when the Supreme Court is playing Calvinball. It turns out a constitution has zero value if you purchase the highest courts.
Do you imagine the current SCOTUS stepping up to bat for the common person in the face of three letter agencies and federal autocracy?