Science & Government Funding
Generally, it has been held in Washington that when an agent of the government wishes to search you, he must have particularized and specific probable cause (a situation in which a reasonable officer or agent would believe from the totality of the circumstances that the person had committed or was committing a crime) to do so. Anything less might have warranted an investigative detention (a specific and articulable reason to believe that the person is carrying a weapon, for example), but never a search for contraband or an investigatory detention. This standard has died to the federal government in modern times. Behold:
Of course, the interviewee misses the fact that searches are done in person illegally quite often. It is that they are thrown out by the court that matters. But he is right. The more warrantless information the government collects on you, given the fact that there are more laws than anyone could possibly know, the higher the chances are there is a crime in there somewhere. The judiciary and the 4th Amendment, weak as it is today, seems to be where we must put our hope, for now…