Legal Commentary

2nd Cir: 4th Amendment Warrant Clause Does Not Apply Overseas

By Big Tent Democrat

NYTimes reports:

The unanimous decision by a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit holds for the first time that government agents may obtain admissible evidence against United States citizens through warrantless searches abroad. The searches must still be reasonable, as the Constitution requires, Judge Jose A. Cabranes wrote, adding that the government had met that standard in its search of the home and monitoring of the telephone of one defendant, Wadih El-Hage, a close aide to Osama bin Laden, who was a naturalized American citizen living in Nairobi, Kenya.

“The Fourth Amendment’s requirement of reasonableness — but not the Warrant Clause — applies to extraterritorial searches and seizures of U.S. citizens,” the judge wrote.

More when I read the opinion (PDF).

You'll want to read the opinion yourself, but I find nothing major to quibble with. I found especially persuasive the argument that courts do not even have the power to issue search warrants overseas.

Your mileage may vary.

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on November 24, 2008 (boomark / email).