Likely successor to Porter Goss has dangerous view of Fourth Amendment

Michael Hayden, who will likely take over the top job at the CIA, replacing outgoing director Porter Goss, is a polarizing figure when it comes to the President's warrantless wiretap program.  The New York Times hinted on Saturday morning that the Hayden confirmation hearings could be quite confrontational:

As N.S.A.director until last year, General Hayden oversaw the program tointercept international phone calls and e-mail messages of Americansand others in the United States believed to have links to Al Qaeda .

GeneralHayden, 61, has been the program's most public defender, repeatedlyasserting that it is legal and constitutional even though theeavesdropping is done without warrants from a special court set up in1978 to authorize such surveillance.

Civil libertarians should have every reason to be worried.  Hayden has a very radical interpretation of the fourth amendment.  He believes that authorities do not need probable cause before conducting a search.  Read this exchange that Hayden had with a Knight Ridder reporter at the National Press Club in January of this year regarding the 4th Amendment:

QUESTION: Jonathan Landay with Knight Ridder. I'd like to stay onthe same issue, and that had to do with the standard by which you useto target your wiretaps. I'm no lawyer, but my understanding is thatthe Fourth Amendment of the Constitution specifies that you must haveprobable cause to be able to do a search that does not violate anAmerican's right against unlawful searches and seizures. Do you use --

GEN. HAYDEN: No, actually -- the Fourth Amendment actually protects all of us against unreasonable search and seizure.

QUESTION: But the --

GEN. HAYDEN: That's what it says.

QUESTION: But the measure is probable cause, I believe.

GEN. HAYDEN: The amendment says unreasonable search and seizure.

QUESTION: But does it not say probable --

GEN. HAYDEN: No. The amendment says --

QUESTION: The court standard, the legal standard --

GEN. HAYDEN: -- unreasonable search and seizure.

What Hayden said about "probable cause" not being in the 4th Amendment is completely false.  The 4th Amendment does indeed say that authorities do need probable cause before conducting searches.  Read it here:

"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."

All of us ought to fully expect that our elected Senators will show some backbone during the confirmation hearings and ask Mr. Hayden to correct his own scholar-less understanding about our constitution.  Until he truly understands the 4th Amendment, he should not be confirmed.