Lederman and Kerr on the 4th amendment

Martin Lederman of Georgetown Law and Orin Kerr of George Washington University Law discusses amendments on the FISA law in this video.

Orin Kerr is a leading scholar on Fourth Amendment jurisprudence in electronic communications and surveillance. Orin Kerr has argued that the NSA surveillance program acting without court warrants probably was constituational but in violation with FISA. In a European context it is difficult to understand how a law on surveillance can be in violation with a law, but still constitutional. Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights requires, inter alia, that restrictions in privacy have to be in accordance with law. The 4th amendment has a different standard, in Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347 (1967), the Supreme Court ruled that the amendment covered a person's "reasonable expectation of privacy".

Martin Lederman argues that the american legislation is obscure, and makes the joke that only 40-50 persons in the U.S. understands the legislation and at least 99 % of them work for the executive branch of Government. Reminds me of the situation in Sweden. Martin Lederman makes the assumption at 44.50 that the NSA computers records and retains the content of all conversations, which in my view, is a wrong assumption of how signal intelligence actually works.

Since the discussion was recorded, Martin Lederman left Georgetown Law and is working in the Obama administration.