The New York Times weighs in with an anti-Ashcroft/anti-Patriot Act editorial this morning. The Times hyperventilates about "[o]ne section that has produced particular outrage is the authorization of "sneak and peak" searches, in which the government secretly searches people homes and delays telling them about the search."

This ties into Tom's earlier post about the blaming the Patriot Act for everything. Sneak and peak searches were already legal before the Patriot Act. I even saw a sneak and peak search figure prominently in a Sapranos episode from 2000. One would think that the scholars at the times editorial page, if they aren't keeping track of search procedures, at least watch the Sapranos.

I am not sure to what extent the Patriot Act changed the procedures for sneak and peak searches, but it did not invent the use of them as the Times implies.

- posted by Anonymous @ 11:07 AM