USA Patriot Act Violates the 4th Amendment

I recently learned of the Ephemeral Law blog written by William Morriss and his colleagues. In prior posts, I've written about privacy issues for consumers. This post by the Ephemeral Law blog provides a good summary for non-lawyers about the Mayfield v. US case:

"In Mayfield v. U.S., a federal district judge ruled that the two provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act violate the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution because they allow surveillance without probable cause. This decision shows that six year after the Patriot Act passed, privacy concerns still exist regarding its use and scope. Indeed, privacy concerns were raised within a week of the act passing in 2001."

The debate will surely continue about whether consumers' personal data is private or not, and under what specific conditions.