Stardate 20010725.1125 (On Screen): I'm sure that President Bush is going to catch a lot of flack domestically and internationally for yet another refusal to play ball in an international treaty. On this one, however, he had no choice.
The Europeans seem happy to write treaties which have provisions in them which would violate the US Constitution, because those same provisions don't violate equivalent European charters and they do tend to make things a lot simpler. In this case, the agreement is one trying to enforce a ban on development of biological weapons, and there's no question that this is a desirable thing to do. It's not the goal which is a problem here, it's the proposed means: speculative searches pretty much anywhere, anytime, with little warning and no warrant. Sorry, folks, that's a direct violation of the Fourth Amendment. Government agents or people chartered by the government (including international inspectors) do not have the right to go whereever they want anytime they want and look at whatever they feel like just to find out if a crime might have been committed. Government agents may only search if they already have good grounds to believe a crime has been committed and can prove it to a judge before the search.
Warrantless random searches are very efficient at finding lawbreakers. They're also intolerable. That's why the Fourth Amendment was made part of the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights is very important to me, and I'm getting damned tired of the Europeans trying to take it away. (discuss)
