> does the US Bill of Rights only apply to US citizens in the US?
There's some conflict on that, but there's precedent that the fourth applies to all citizens and whomever happens to be on US Soil, whether they're a citizen or not.
Technically, much of the Bill of Rights applies to the federal government and all subordinate governments. If they are not allowed to do something, period, it hardly matters if the person they are doing it to is in a particular place or has a particular attribute.
Politicians, realizing that only the citizens may vote, may exempt those folks from their otherwise unconstitutional activities, because others have no effective means to seek redress. My reading of the 4th is that it is a restriction on the conduct of the government, such that it applies to every natural person on Earth.
It may well be that the Supreme Court has not ruled this way because it is overwhelmingly staffed by politically-connected lawyers, rather than linguists and logicians.
The government is not allowed to search anyone, anywhere, without a specific purpose. Drawing a dividing line between foreign and domestic spying is a distraction from the notion that Uncle Sam is breaking the law when he listens in to Joe Terrorist's phone calls from halfway across the world to about 45% of the way around via dragnets and data mining.
We are willing to tolerate some degree of law-breaking when it is clearly in our own interest to do so, but it has gone well beyond that by now. Someone's wrist out there is just aching for a good, light slap.
Completely agreed. The fourth has the more clear-cut 'bright-line' demarcation point, as you said, "the government may not randomly search people", whomever those persons are.
Clearly though, not all rights in the bill of rights can be held to the same standard... for instance, voting rights should not as clearly be extended to non-citizens who just happen to be on American soil, but one's right to life had very well ought to be.
