Well, the 4th amendment specifically prohibits violation of a person’s right to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects without a probable cause affirmed by oath or affirmation with specificity as to who, what, where and why...
e.g. “particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized”
4th amendment text is as follows:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Are you averring that the ambiguity of the term “unreasonable” is what is problematic? Or are you saying a warrant isn’t needed for wiretaps (without regard to the patriot act provisions).
I’m not sure where to go or what to specify if you aren’t a bit more direct about it (hence my request for further explanation).
This is from Wiki, so I guess you can take it or leave it:
A threshold question in Fourth Amendment jurisprudence is whether a search has occurred. If no search occurred, then the Fourth Amendment does not apply.
In Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347 (1967), the Supreme Court ruled that a search occurs when 1) a person expects privacy in the thing searched and 2) society believes that expectation is reasonable.
In Katz, the Supreme Court ruled that a search had occurred when the government wiretapped a telephone booth.[22] The Court’s reasoning was that 1) Charles Katz expected that his phonebooth conversation would not be broadcast to the wider world and 2) society believes that expectation is reasonable.
In United States v. Jones, 565 U. S. ____ (2012), the Supreme Court ruled that, in addition to the Katz standard, a search occurs when law enforcement trespasses on the searched person’s property. In Jones, law enforcement officers had attached a GPS device on a car’s exterior without Antoine Jones’s consent. The Court concluded that Jones was a bailee to the car, because the car’s owner had regularly permitted him to use the car, and so had a property interest in the car.[23]
I would say that under the Katz precedent (case law I guess) all telephone conversations would start out with the expectation of privacy and also the general consensus that it would be unreasonable to drag a wide net across all telecom as is asserted here and severally in the last few weeks. I mean if there’s an expectation of privacy when using a telephone booth, then the barrier would be higher when using a personal telephone or wireless device (e.g. a cell phone).