"Third Amendment Rights Group Celebrates Another Successful Year":
From The Onion, via How Appealing.
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"Third Amendment Rights Group Celebrates Another Successful Year":
From The Onion, via How Appealing.
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Do I read that correctly as being incorporated also?
The reason goverment would put soldiers in homes wasn't because it's too cheap to buy barracks; it's because, in the days before a national police force and modern telecommunications, putting a soldier in someone's home is a great way for the government to monitor what that person is up to. Indeed, this is why the British put soldiers in homes during the revolutionary war.
I'd argue the third ammendment is more rightfully seen as a ban on government surrveilance of it's citizens. And in that light it is violated constantly in the form of wiretapping and electronic monitoring. Is their really a difference between a private siting in the living room listening to your calls and an FBI agent doing it remotely.
That's an interesting theory, but doesn't the Fourth Amendment address that kind of situation much more explicitly? And in light of that, is it really plausible to suppose that the Third Amendment was intended to address government surveillance?
there, "Should The U.S. Impose Limits On Incredibly Stupid Shit?" for any light it might shed on any number of issues.
The private would behave properly and politely. The FBI agent is probably an arrogant prick who derives perverted pleasure from listening to your calls. I would much rather deal with the private than the FBI.
Why name this organization after Andrew Jackson? Well apparently he has something to do with the $20 bill.
So what if they can't quarter a redcoat in your guest bedroom if they can bull doze your house to put up a condo building.
Can we repeal it?
You are right that the enforced presence of the private is an intrusion on privacy of conduct and privacy in speech. But at least you know the private sitting in your living room is there listening to your calls. You don't usually know the FBI agent is doing it remotely. The difference is that you are able to take precautions in the one situation, but likely will not in the other. It's a huge difference. It's the difference between what you would say with a cop there and what you would say with no cop around or when the cop's presence is surreptitious.
Or something like that.
Now it is an issue. Had the telephone existed at the time the BOR was written, I have no doubt that a prohibition on the government monitoring telephone calls (at least without a warrant supported by probable cause) would be amongst our most cherished protections from the government. I agree that the spirit of the 3rd Amendment supports the notion that the founders wanted to protect us from having our government intrude on our homes and spy on us. Extending that to modern electronic surveillance is not a big step, nor out of touch with the purpose of the 3rd Amendment.
No doubt we would have better scholarship about the Third Amendment if there were more (or any, really) government officials who wanted to violate it.
What's particularly odd about this exercise in attempted judicial activism is that the 4th amendment is actually about searches. Why wouldn't you locate your "extension" of a right to be free of searches there than in the 3rd amendment?
Eminent. Em. Totally different. Eminent, not imminent. (weakly) please... em...
The FBI agent's more likely someone bored to tears that they got stuck on the wire when they could be doing more interesting and satisfying work. I know that answer's a lot less fun than blind prejudice, but sometimes reality has to intrude on a fever dream.
Like sitting on a public toilet with his pants down waiting for someone to tap his foot.
There is not probable cause exception in the Third Amendment. The only exception is in times of war. Furthermore, the Third Amendment only refers to soldiers. If this was a general statement about monitoring, wouldn't they refer to other government agents as well?
Finally, why would the Founding Father's concern about privacy in telephone calls be any greater than their concern about the mail? Since letters were the mode of communication at the time, they were all acutely aware of the risks of their mail being monitored. Yet, they didn't make any special discussion of mail monitoring in the Bill of Rights.
Yes.
Simple Federal legislation could easily be enacted now that requires all private citizens to house soldiers at the government's discretion.
The obscure 3rd Amendment 'right' offers no protection at all -- it did not anticipate that the term "war" would become so legally flexible in America.
But, not to worry.... Federal politicians & professional lawyers would never play word-games with the Bill-of-Rights -- all the other of these 10 Amendments provide ironclad protections of fundamental citizen rights (??)
Also, although I don't know what the practical implications are, I notice that the Third Amendment doesn't specify the nationality of the soldiers in question. Or of the house or the owner.
Also I am curious if the government needs my permission to put George Washington, who was a soldier, on all of the quarters in my house.
Your comment is the most brilliant I have ever read on volokh.com. It's probably one of the greatest blog comments ever made to date.
>judicial activism is that the 4th amendment is actually
>about searches. Why wouldn't you locate your "extension"
>of a right to be free of searches there than in the 3rd
>amendment?
The distinction is between search and siezure (going through someone's possessions and potentially taking some of them) and surrveilance (watching what someone is doing, who he meets with, etc.). The fourth covers the former; the third covers the latter (in my mind anyways).
Woopsie. That is what I get for posting with little sleep this weekend. Much time spent at the Gun Rights Policy Conference.