Viet-Justice

USNews is running a story on Nuclear Monitoring of Muslims Done Without Search Warrants. As usual there is a lot of fear mongering over invasion of privacy. Federal agents have been spying on muslim sites in the Metro DC area looking for radiation. For some reason people are upset that due to some level of negligence these muslim sites are open to snooping by geiger counter.

Georgetown University Professor David Cole, a constitutional law expert, disagrees. Surveillance of public spaces such as mosques or public businesses might well be allowable without a court order, he argues, but not private offices or homes: “They don’t need a warrant to drive onto the property — the issue isn’t where they are, but whether they’re using a tactic to intrude on privacy. It seems to me that they are, and that they would need a warrant or probable cause.”

I can not agree with Prof. Cole’s analysis of the situation. If you are within earshot of someone do you have an expectation of privacy? It would seem that walking around with a geiger counter that can detect radioactive particles that are freely floating about would not be an invasion of privacy. If I aim a $1000 parabolic microphone at a building that has not implemented reasonable countermeasures, am I invading privacy? I could go on and on about snooping on bluetooth headsets, or war diving for unencrypted WiFi access points and countless other areas where people take their privacy for granted while being lazy in protecting said privacy.
There are several solutions for this whole mess. First, muslim terrorists should store their weapons materials in boxes that the government can not find. No amount of snooping can get past several feet of lead an concrete. Second, common citizens should go out and snoop for law enforcement. That will solve the problem of government spying without warrants. Private citizens don’t need warrants to walk around with geiger counters or point parabolic microphones at mosques. Think of it as an urban version of the Minutemen on the Mexican border. As long as citizens just call the police when they find something and don’t get involved then it isn’t vigilantism. The greatest benefit is that the news headlines will be about crazy citizens rather than crazy FBI agents. Change is good.