Obama Admin Asks Supremes To Reverse 1st Circuit, Allow Warrantless Cell Phone Searches — UPDATED

Jonathan Turley has the basics.

I feel no real need to comment on this; what Obama is asking for is so clearly a Fourth Amendment violation that any court... well, any court not having Roberts and Scalia as members... should promptly reject the request. That means we do indeed have cause for concern. 'Nuff said.

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AFTERTHOUGHT: Fifty years after the March on Washington, fifty years after the Rev. King's most famous speech, another powerful, well‑spoken African American man, a man twice elected President of the United States, exhorted his Justice Department to approach the Supreme Court, seeking... no, not jobs, though God knows we need jobs, and no, not freedom, indeed quite the opposite... but, rather, permission to spy on every American who uses a cell phone, without obtaining even a simple warrant beforehand, because he knows that "no Warrants shall issue" in the absence of probable cause to believe those millions of individuals have committed even the most minimal crime. To this height has our African American population ascended... and to this depth has President Obama dragged them down again. Shame on you, Mr. President... shame!

UPDATE: thanks to L'Enfant de la Haute Mer, in comments to this post, please read Sarah Lazare's article on Juan Cole's Informed Comment, "Obama wants all the info in your Smart Phone without a Warrant (Lazare)." This 2007 case truly makes a mockery of the Fourth Amendment. Here's what D. S. Wright of Firedoglake says, quoted in that post (link found and added manually, because Wright's article is also worth reading):

“We know the Obama Administration is spying on the American people’s phone calls and emails. Now they want some of their activity legalized,” declared D.S. Wright on FiredogLake. “It seems to be a two tracked system—if it’s illegal the government will do it in secret and if its legal they will do it openly.”

It's like the old coin-flip joke: Heads, they win; tails, you lose.

UPDATE 2, 8/24/2013: Amazing... as reported by D.S. Wright again yesterday, quoted from Bloomberg, now the NSA itself is admitting that some analysts intentionally abused their spying powers multiple times. NOW will there be better oversight? Probably not. Heads, they win; tails, we lose...