The rights of the people : how our search for safety invades our liberties / David K. Shipler.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

The Bill of Rights -- Saving the Constitution. The state religion ; Deviations ; Secret suppression ; Criminal acts ; Lawyers versus the rule of law ; Taking changes -- Another country. Frisking pedestrians ; Profiling cars and drivers ; Obtaining consent -- Defending the system. An indifference to perjury ; Discrediting the police ; Sowing reasonable doubt ; The airtight arrest ; Subtle shortcuts -- With warrants and without. Home invasion ; Deterring the police ; Undoing the exclusionary rule ; Suspicionless searches -- Patriotic acts. Sneak and peek ; Junk forensics ; Secret surveillance and self-deception ; The investigator's toolbox -- The law falls silent. The continuum of intrusion ; Data : destroy or disseminate ; Mission creep ; A bigger haystack ; Contempt of court -- The right to be let alone. the poetry of privacy ; The tyranny of technology ; The surveillance-industrial complex ; The privatization of searches -- Life, liberty, and the pursuit of terrorists. Rorschach tests ; Terrorism and the Bill of rights ; Conspirators and wannabes -- The High Court of history.