By Michael Page

Like the universe, the U.S. Constitution gets a bit wacky on the margins. Just last week, for example, the Second Circuit (our local federal appeals court) upheld the constitutionality of U.S. officials’ warrantless search of the home of a U.S. citizen living in Kenya by finding that the second half of the Fourth Amendment — the part that requires warrants — simply did not apply. Had the same search occurred in New York, all parties agree, it would have been unconstitutional. The decision itself seems quite reasonable; what authority does a U.S. judge have to issue a warrant for a search in Kenya? Surely Alexander Hamilton was not anticipating such an application of the Fourth Amendment, but neither was he anticipating criminal investigations in Africa.