Fourth Amendment protections under attack by "conservatives".

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety," observed Benjamin Franklin, "deserve neither liberty nor safety." That sentiment, which animated our Founding Fathers, is almost never expressed today. Just the opposite in fact. Consider the words of Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly, who on his O'Reilly Factor broadcast of August 10 repeatedly cited the apparently successful efforts of British police to foil a massive terror plot as proof that America should chuck the Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure. "No question, Great Britain gives its police more room to contain terrorism than we do here," O'Reilly noted. "In Britain it is 'reasonable suspicion,' here it's 'probable cause'--huge difference." Then he asked his guest, Larry Walters, an attorney and civil libertarian, "Why shouldn't we have reasonable suspicion rather than probable cause," like the British do?

When Mr. Walters tried to explain the importance of our constitutional protections against warrantless searches without probable cause, the Fox commentator retorted: "You can argue theory and constitutional rights all day long, but as you know, laws can be changed, the Constitution can be changed, and sometimes they have to be."

The Fourth Amendment of our Bill of Rights states: "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."

That is all well and good, according to Mr. O'Reilly, but the fact that we have terrorism in the "real world," he says, is a clincher argument against the "theoretical" importance of constitutional restrictions on police powers. He scoffed at concerns that sweeping aside constitutional barriers might lead America toward a police state. "I'm not a terrorist!" he exclaimed, inferring that only terrorists need fear an omnipotent, unrestricted government. When Mr. Walters asked whatever happened to the Patrick Henry spirit of "give me liberty or give me death," O'Reilly responded: "I'm free! I don't want to die!"