4th Amendment? We don't need no stinking 4th Amendment!

The headline is a rift on a famous line from "Treasure of Sierra Madre," of course, discussing the need of badges by outlaws pretending to be police, which is actually applicable to the situation we have today.

When you ignore the 4th Amendment against illegal search and seizure without warrant, trial, conviction, or anything else, why indeed to you need badges?

I am thinking of this on this bright snowy Monday because of an article in the New York Times written (OK, dictated) by a prisoner of the US (badges!) in Guantanamo, Cuba, where, apparently, it is perfectly legal for the United States (badges!) to hold unconvicted people without warrant, charge, conviction or anything else, going simply on the word of -- who? No clue, someone with a badge, I guess -- that this person needs to be held.

You can read the article here -- click --- and when you do, ponder that the government that feels it can hold someone like this, for this long, simply because that same government says this person needs to be held like this for this long is the same government you expect to respect your rights under the 4th Amendment to the Constitution.

Me, I just really love it when I hear the Tea Party types, and others, going on about how sacred the Constitution is, their love of the 2nd Amendment and on and on -- they have no idea, or refuse to see, that the whole thing has long ago been rendered a sham. If not by Guantanamo, then by the quaintly-named "Patriot Act" or by the way Congress, and the rest of government, ignores the real needs of the residents of this country.

Don't think you are immune. If their lawyers have told them they can do it to this guy in Gitmo, they've got lawyers who will figure out a way so they can do it to you. Bet on it.