The Supreme Court yesterday substantially diminished Americans’ right to privacy in their own homes. The rule that police officers must “knock and announce” themselves before entering a private home is a venerable one, and a well-established part of Fourth Amendment law. But President Bush’s two recent Supreme Court appointments have now provided the votes for a 5-4 decision eviscerating this rule.
This decision should offend anyone, liberal or conservative, who worries about the privacy rights of ordinary Americans.
…If Justice Sandra Day O’Connor had stayed on the court, this case might well have come out the other way. For those who worry that Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito will take the court in a radically conservative direction, it is sobering how easily the majority tossed aside a principle that traces back to 13th-century Britain, and a legal doctrine that dates to 1914, to let the government invade people’s homes.
NewMexiKen believes it is the erosion of our civil liberties that will mark the Roberts Court. And so it begins.