Let's start with the lawyers. In today's NY Times, Adam Liptak writes in Experts Fault Reasoning in Surveillance Decision:

Even legal experts who agreed with a federal judge's conclusion on Thursday that a National Security Agency surveillance program is unlawful were distancing themselves from the decision's reasoning and rhetoric yesterday.

They said the opinion overlooked important precedents, failed to engage the government's major arguments, used circular reasoning, substituted passion for analysis and did not even offer the best reasons for its own conclusions.

Discomfort with the quality of the decision is almost universal, said Howard J. Bashman, a Pennsylvania lawyer whose Web log [How Appealing] provides comprehensive and nonpartisan reports on legal developments.

"It does appear," Mr. Bashman said, "that folks on all sides of the spectrum, both those who support it and those who oppose it, say the decision is not strongly grounded in legal authority."

Neither was Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965), the case that talked about a "penumbra" of rights and a general right of privacy, but it remains the law. A right of privacy in the home is a given, "natural right."

Worse yet: how about the Supreme Court gutting the Fourth Amendment's exclusionary rule this past term in Hudson v. Michigan, turning back the clock to 1910. The almost surreal logic of Hudson sounds like it was ghostwritten by the Department of Justice as a way to destroy the Fourth Amendment in the name of effective law enforcement. Bashman is right that ACLU v. NSA is not perfect (and it even might be said to strike a low blow in the reference to the "King"), but Hudson is appallingly badly reasoned, even contrary to common sense and experience (something Scalia has been accused of lacking), relying on the bona fides of the police and government. Relying on the good faith of the government to determine when a search can occur without a warrant was warned against 58 years ago in Johnson v. United States, 333 U.S. 10, 13-14 (1948):

The point of the Fourth Amendment, which often is not grasped by zealous officers, is not that it denies law enforcement the support of the usual inferences which reasonable men draw from evidence. Its protection consists in requiring that those inferences be drawn by a neutral and detached magistrate instead of being judged by the officer engaged in the often competitive enterprise of ferreting out crime.

This is just the beginning of the legal commentary.

But, what about the political side of the question? What is the view from there?

As with any issue, where one stands alters the view. In Bushspeak, it is whether siding with the Constitution is perceived instead to be siding with the terrorists.

United States v. Rabinowitz, 339 U.S. 56, 69 (1950) (Frankfurter, J., dissenting):

It is true also of journeys in the law that the place you reach depends on the direction you are taking. And so, where one comes out on a case depends on where one goes in. It makes all the difference in the world whether one approaches the Fourth Amendment as the Court approached it in Boyd v. United States, 116 U.S. 616, in Weeks v. United States, 232 U.S. 383, in Silverthorne Lumber Co. v. United States, 251 U.S. 385, in Gouled v. United States, 255 U.S. 298, or one approaches it as a provision dealing with a formality. It makes all the difference in the world whether one recognizes the central fact about the Fourth Amendment, namely, that it was a safeguard against recurrence of abuses so deeply felt by the Colonies as to be one of the potent causes of the Revolution, or one thinks of it as merely a requirement for a piece or paper.

The President and Republicans think of the Fourth Amendment as a piece of paper or an impediment, and not as a guardian of civil liberties. See CNN.com today:

President Bush said Friday he expects his administration will win its appeal of a judicial ruling finding the National Security Agency's warrantless domestic surveillance program unconstitutional.

"Those who herald this decision simply do not understand the nature of the world in which we live," Bush said at Camp David, where he has been meeting with his top economic advisers.

...

"I strongly disagree with that decision, strongly disagree," Bush said of Taylor's ruling, "and I believe our appeals will be upheld."

Of course he believes that. His advisors only tell him what he wants to hear or what they want him to hear. Does he get the whole truth? Unlikely. And, of course, every losing litigant promises to win the appeal. But, there are cues in the Bushspeak: "the nature of the world in which we live" is code for "it is time to repeal the Fourth Amendment if we can't ignore it anymore."

In the Washington Post today is this: Ruling Against Wiretaps Further Sharpens Partisan Divide by Jonathan Weisman. It seems that the Republican Party will seize on anything that it can spin the other way, and this is no exception:

Minutes later, under the headline "Dems Rejoice," the Republican National Committee illuminated those reactions, releasing the statements of eight Democrats -- including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) and Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), the 2004 presidential nominee -- all heralding the decision as a rebuke to the president.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee challenged Democratic candidates to "stand up in opposition to a liberal judge," while the RNC released an Internet advertisement painting the Democrats as soft on defense. The ad shows prominent Democrats decrying warrantless wiretapping, abusive interrogations, ballistic missile defense and the war in Iraq through the opening of a cave, meant to represent the vantage point of terrorists monitoring the opposition party.

"Democrats say they want to talk about national security and the war on terror . . . while terrorists are watching," the narrator intones.

With that burst of activity, Republicans appeared ready to make Taylor's decision on wiretapping the 2006 equivalent of a Massachusetts judge's legalization of same-sex marriage in 2004: a rallying cry for the Republican base.

"They never miss an opportunity to play divisive politics on national security," said Rep. Rahm Emanuel (Ill.), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. "The one casualty Americans would accept in the war on terror is partisanship, and that's the one thing George Bush won't give up."

Today's LA Times has this interesting article by Maura Reynolds: GOP Sees Strategic Advantage in Court Loss on Wiretapping:

This week's federal court ruling that declared the president's warrantless wiretapping program unconstitutional was a blow to the Bush administration and a victory for its critics. But in a reversal, it is Republicans who are highlighting the decision and Democrats who are sidestepping it. A day after a Detroit judge said the president "blatantly disregarded" the Constitution when he authorized the domestic surveillance program, top Republicans issued a stream of memos discussing her ruling and released a new Web ad accusing Democrats of being against terrorist surveillance.

Let the Swiftboating of the Fourth Amendment begin.