[3825]

I must be reading this incorrectly because if this is what I think this is then states and local governments cannot discriminate based on citizenship. Please correct me (and sorry for going off a tangent) but doesn't this make what they're doing in Arizona unconstitutional?

[rohansingh]

Yes, that was part of the basis of the DoJ's case there. The Fourteenth Amendment extends protection to all persons, not just citizens.

[redthrowaway]

How does that jive with the US citizen / non-citizen split in what the NSA feels entitled to do? Does that not imply all people are granted 4A rights?

[sjtgraham]

IANAL but I think the constitution only applies to people under the jurisdiction of the US, i.e. in US sovereign territory.

[dlitz]

They talk of "U.S. persons", not U.S. citizens: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_person

[superuser2]

The government argues (and many lawyers agree) that 3rd party business records are not covered by the 4th amendment and reading them is not a "search." The amendment is very clear on the government's authority to come into your house and look around, and while it seems like it should protect electronic communication, it doesn't (necessarily).

It's actually the Wiretap Act that protects telephone calls, not the 4th amendment. But there's no real analogue of the Wiretap Act for things like email and Facebook.

[D9u]

I think that the 3rd party doctrine is flawed in that the 4th Amendment specifically states that we are to be secure in our "persons, papers, and effects," which equates to the communications medium of the era of the Constitution's authors, and a parallel can be drawn with the US Postal Service, as our mail is supposed to be secure against external perusal except when the final provision of the 4th Amendment is met by issuance of a warrant describing the things to be seized or inspected.

The wiretap law should be revised to include other forms of electronic communications in order to thwart such applications of the feeble 3rd party doctrine.

I find it reprehensible that in the "Land of the Free" we allow our government to circumvent the letter and intent of the Bill of Rights in the name of "security" when these very circumventions are the antithesis of freedom.

[duaneb]

A US non-citizen person is still different from an alien.... consider children.