Constituional Originalism

    For those of you don't follow politics, which if you're reading this is probably about 3% of the group, what I term Constitutional Originalism is the idea that we as a nation must "return to the original meaning of the Constitution." Which sounds great as a slogan but what about in practice? As I have thought about it I don't think that it works out quite as well as one could hope. For what does that phrase mean? Should we not allow women to vote, or only property holding men can vote. Does going back to the original Constitution mean the reinstitution slavery. Perhaps what this phrase means is that we should throw out over two hundred years of jurisprudence. As one can see there is an issue.
 
    However what I have found associated with this term is the phrase "liberal judges" or "judicial activists." These two phrases are used to deride judges that supposedly overstep their bounds as judges. So I think that what the Originalists are really trying to say is they do not like judges who interpret the language and meaning of the Constitution to apply those principles to the modern era. The Originalists want to stop this practice because they disagree with the Supreme Courts decisions. Such disagreement is all well and good but I am here to say that their argument fails to hold water. To illustrate this let's go and look at the Fourth Amendment.

    The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America states, "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." Now I ask you to at this time take an Originalists position and use strictly the words found in this amendment and apply this to wire taps. A phone communication is not a paper, nor an effect. Executing a wiretap is also not an invasion of the person's home seeing that such can be executed via other means. So using an Originalist position I ask should the government be able place a wiretap on your home without a search warrant? If you take only the words found in this amendment then the answer has to be yes. Yet I ask why is this not the case. For that we have to turn and thank an activist Supreme Court.

    The Court case that decided this issue was Katz v US (1967). The Supreme Court ruled that a search warrant must be granted where a person should expect a reasonable amount of privacy. Where does this phrase show up in the Constitution? That's right it doesn't. Now I think that we all can agree that a phone conversation should be kept private and therefore subject to a search warrant. So here is a case where we see Originalism fail.

I conclude by saying that we need to remember the principles behind the amendments more so than the actual words. Once we remember those timeless treasures then we can have an opportunity to make correct decisions. I urge all Originalists to study Constitutional case law and discover just how much judges protect your vaunted rights.