The Supreme Court continues to chip away at American freedoms, says Fox News senior judicial analyst Andrew Napolitano. In April, the retired New Jersey Superior Court judge detailed three blows to freedom under the John Roberts Court:
1 Clapper v. Amnesty International: By a 5-4 margin, the Court overturned a lower court decision that plaintiffs who subjectively feared being surveilled had standing to sue. Unless a person can prove his or her phone calls were being listened to, or could physically get to court-unlikely for someone arrested but not charged-the case won't be heard. The decision lets government use standing to shield nefarious and unconstitutional behavior from judicial review.
2 NFIB v. Sebelius: Supreme Court jurisprudence traditionally bars the court from characterizing something as a tax if none of the litigants do, yet the Chief Justice came up with the idea of calling the IRS' financial extraction in the ObamaÂCare legislation a tax.
3 Florida v. Harris: This bizarre unanimous decision said the constitutional requirement for probable cause can be met by the movement of an animal. Like Clapper, it's egregious because there's no way to test the probable cause, which requires a neutral magistrate to agree it's more likely than not that a search is warranted. There's no way a dog could provide that answer.
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