Two Provisions Of The "USA Patriot Act" Declared Unconstitutional

A judge of a US District Court ruled that two provisions of the USA Patriot Act are unconstitutional because they allow search warrants to be issued without probable cause. She found that the electronic surveillance and physical searches provisions under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), as amended by the Patriot Act, violated the Fourth Amendment's guarantee against unreasonable search and seizure.

As a result of the Patriot Act amendments, FISA had permitted the Executive Branch to conduct searches and surveillance without first having to demonstrate to a court the existence of probable cause that the person had committed a crime. The Executive Branch simply needed to represent that the targeted individual may be an agent of a foreign power and certify that a significant purpose of the surveillance and searches is the gathering of foreign intelligence.