FISA “revisions,” Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter

I hate to sound melodramatic about it, but while everyone was at the beach or "The Simpsons Movie" on the first weekend in August, the U.S. government shredded the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, the one requiring court-approved "probable cause" before Americans can be searched or spied upon. This is not the feverish imagination of left-wing bloggers and the ACLU. It's the plain truth of where we've come as a country, at the behest of a president who has betrayed his oath to defend the Constitution and with the acquiescence of Democratic congressional headers and leaders who know better. Historians will likely see this episode as a classic case of fear — both physical and political — trumping principle amid the ancient tension between personal freedom and national security.