I think the Founding Fathers would approve of this. Despite their being the elite in society they identified that there must be a a design for a government that discretely limited its ability to screw the people at will. The Bill Of Rights was their way to make it obvious that government must be limited and that its existence is dependent on the people's will, not the other way around.
Most of Founding Fathers were also slave owners. Could we stop bringing people of the past with their dubious morale into the modern times when we all are more educated? Otherwise, we could equally use What Would Jesus Do principle.
Because people in history were different from us, we can learn nothing from them? This is one of the most anti-intellectual non-sequiturs I regularly see, and it makes me sad and fearful for our democracy.
How can people not see the parallels between the anti Snowden crowd and Nazis who were "just following orders" when they took part in the pogroms?
Everyone who takes part in this latest abrogation of the US Bill of Rights is no better than the Nazi exterminators.
Some will say that the authors of the US Constitution had no concept of electronic communications ergo we should not expect the 4th Amendment to extend to electronic communications, yet the wording of the 4th Amendment includes the communications methods of their day, which would be "papers and effects," and that the lawful search thereof must be accompanied by "Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
Others will say that the authors of the US Constitution had no concept of "terrorism," yet England viewed the revolutionaries as such.
Perhaps if our government weren't meddling in the affairs of foreign nations, those foreign nationals would not feel a need to engage in "terrorist" acts?
So, instead of using some fictitious son-of-the-invisible-sky-person principle, we could apply the "What would a Nazi do" principle.
