BY MICHAEL HAYNE

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

COMMENTARY

A lot of Americans may have thought that Lady Liberty would finally be able to remove herself from the decontamination chamber after George W. Bush, but it seems that a lot of Bush's freedom killing policies have either remained intact or accelerated under President Obama. The only difference is that he can properly pronounce nuclear.

Fighting terrorism and maintaining civil liberties has always been a very slippery path. With each passing day, it seems like our civil liberties are increasingly going up in smoke. Like Bill Maher said, "they're only bipartisan when it comes to violating our privacy."

For example, a new report shows that our government has ostensibly ignored concerns over apparent constitutional infringements of Americans at near international crossings.

A two page executive summary published quietly last month to the official Department of Homeland Security website, explains that a civil rights and civil liberties impact assessment of the office’s little-known power to collect personal electronics near international crossings has passed an auditor’s interpretation of what does and doesn't violate the US Constitution. Although DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano tried famously to allay fears that such a system would violate citizens' rights back in 2009, civil liberties advocates are not exactly ecstatic with the findings.

“The memo highlights the friction between today’s reality that electronic devices have become virtual extensions of ourselves, housing everything from e-mail to instant-message chats to photos and our papers and effects -  juxtaposed against the government’s stated quest for national security," wrote David Kravets of Wired's Danger Room

In response to the article, American Civil Liberties Union staff attorney, Catherine Crump, expressed major concern over how DHS agents can essentially circumscribe the protections of the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable search-and-seizure unless readily apparent. Further, the government is not permitted to search the belongings of a person without a reasonable suspicion of a crime. Near the nation’s borders, though, that requirement is removed entirely.This of course is worrisome,considering that more than two-thirds of the entire US population lives within 100 miles of the country’s border. 200 million Americans to be exact live in places like Buffalo, Boston, Los Angeles and Seattle can now be subject to warrantless and suspicionless searches.

“There should be a reasonable, articulate reason why the search of our electronic devices could lead to evidence of a crime,” Crump tells Wired. “That’s a low threshold.”

And Katie Haas of the ACLU’s Human Rights Program seems to agree, stating in a blog, “the reality is that allowing government agents to search through all of a traveler’s data without reasonable suspicion is completely incompatible with our fundamental rights. Those rights, she says, are “implicated when the government can rummage through our computers and cell phones for no reason other than that we happen to have traveled abroad.”

“Suspicionless searches also open the door to profiling based on perceived or actual race, ethnicity, or religion," Adding, "And our First Amendment rights to free speech and free association are inhibited when agents at the border can target us for searches based on our exercise of those rights.”

DHS Secretary Napolitano has already been sued in the past for unlawfully seizing electronics belonging to David House, a founding member of the Bradley Manning Network It seems House was questioned for his association with the accused Army whistleblower arrested six months prior to House, and WikiLeaks, the website Manning is alleged to have supplied with hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables. So it's safe to assume that the law, in its present fashion, is opening up many possibilities for gross 4th amendment violations.