The Eleventh Circuit ruled Friday that vague fears of terrorism do not justify blanket searches of people protesting the U.S. Army's "School of the Americas" military training program. The court found the searches violated protestors' Fourth Amendment reasonable expectations of privacy and their First Amendment speech and assembly rights. In particular, the court took issue with the city's assertions that it needed to engage in "mass, warrantless, suspicionless searches."

Indeed, it is quite possible that our nation would be safer if police were permitted to stop and search anyone they wanted, at any time, for no reason at all. Nevertheless, the Fourth Amendment embodies a value judgment by the Framers that prevents us from gradually trading ever-increasing amounts of freedom and privacy for additional security. It establishes searches based on evidence—rather than potentially effective, broad, prophylactic dragnets—as the constitutional norm.

As a bonus, the court cites to Wikipedia on the DHS color-coded "advisory" system. An "elevated" threat level, where the gage has been for almost all of its sorry existence, cannot justify abrogating our constitutional rights.

Via IP

The opinion also offers a virtual hornbook catalogue of ways these searches violate the First Amendment:

The City’s search policy also violates the First Amendment in five ways. First, it is a burden on free speech and association imposed through the exercise of a government official’s unbridled discretion; restrictions on First Amendment rights may not be left to an executive agent’s uncabined judgment. Second, the searches were a form of prior restraint on speech and assembly; to participate in the protest, individuals had to receive the prior permission of officers manning the checkpoints. Third, the search policy was implemented based on the content of the protestors’ speech. Fourth, even assuming the searches were implemented exclusively for content-neutral reasons, they were impermissible because they did not constitute reasonable time, place, and manner limitations, which are the only permissible content-neutral burdens that may be placed upon free speech and association. Finally, even putting aside First Amendment analysis, the search policy constitutes an “unconstitutional condition;” protestors were required to surrender their Fourth Amendment rights ... in order to exercise their First Amendment rights.

Posted by Wendy at 01:23 PM