LEGISLATION FIT FOR A KING -- OR DICTATOR

Among the most notable lessons of history is that government always --
always -- seeks to amass authority over the governed.

That is true even if the governed, as is the case in the United States, are
supposed to be the government; those in power all too easily forget that
they are to be the people's servants, not their masters. That makes it
necessary to continually pull oars against the current toward tyranny.

Recognizing the self-aggrandizing nature of government, and nursing fresh
memories of the kinds of abuses that governments are prone to affict, the
Founding Fathers sought to protect their progeny therefrom by means of the
Bill of Rights. Embodied as they are in the Constitution, they are part of
the supreme law of the land and therefore--in theory--immutable.

But just as erosion can diminish even a Rock of Gilbraltar, so have two
centuries dulled our general awareness of the Bill of Rights and the reasons
for its enactment. Some of the rights it protects are holding up nicely.
Others have a more tenuous grip.

Among the more battered of the first 10 amendments is the Fourth, which
specifies that "the right of the people to be secure in their persons,
houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures,
shall not be violated." Government agents seeking access to a person's
premises or property are required to obtain warrants. They can do so only
after giving "probable cause," and must specifically describe "the place to
be searched and the person or things to be seized."

That would seem to be rather ironclad and clear language. It would seem to
rule out the motion that government agents can surreptitiously nose through
a person's belongings without letting that person know such nosing-around is
going on. Certainly it would rule out the seizure of a person's property on
the mere suspicion that the person is engaged in wrongdoing.

But such seizures have become common in recent years under notorious
racketeering laws that forced individuals to prove their innocence in order
to recover their property, as opposed to the government having to prove
guilt in order to seize it in the first place.

But columnist Nat Hentoff has unearthed a new threat to Americans' civil
liberties in the form of language inserted into the "Methamphetamine
Anti-Proliferation Act," a bill already passed by the U.S. Senate.

The bill "would allow federal law-enforcement agents to search your office,
home or apartment while you're away, seize or copy things, and not tell you
what they've taken for 90 days," Hentoff writes.

In fact, notification could be delayed even longer. And while you and your
lawyers are being kept in the dark, the government can use this evidence to
prepare whatever criminal case it might be contemplating against you. Even
if no criminal charges are forthcoming, the fact is that strangers have
pawed through your stuff. How well can you sleep if that's going on?

As has been the case with so many other erosions of search-and-seizure
protections, this one is being contemplated in the name of the war on drugs.
Illicit drugs, of course, are nasty and destructive, and meth is one of the
worst. But gutting the Fourth Amendment is a high price to pay for
combatting meth or any other criminal activity.

The legislation is still pending in the House. Let's hope sober-minded
lawmakers there remove the offending language. Let's hope they remember
their sworn oath to uphold the Constitution -- even the portions thereof
that tend to make life a little less convenient for the king's men.