Privacy rights? What privacy rights?

Gotta love the Oklahoma State Senate. Always looking out for the folks. For instance, I see in The Oklahoman today that the Senate passed a bill, SB 390, on Tuesday that would "allow state authorities to give confidential juvenile justice records to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and federal probation officers," writes Capitol reporter John Greiner.

And all of this without a court order.

So, you may be asking, who was behind this brilliant piece of 4th amendment-trashing legislation?

None other than Lawton Republican Don Barrington.

There was some sanity in the room. For instance, Tulsa Democrat Tom Adelson opposed the bill, as noted in The Oklahoman story, saying: "This is a wholesale loss of our privacy. I don't want any federal agency to have wholesale access to my children's records."

Alas, Adelson's sane comments were overwhelmed by the likes of blowhard Jonathan Nichols, a Republican Senator from Norman. What did Nichols say? Check it out:
"Surely we can trust ... Homeland Security."

Ha!!! Nichols sounds like a tried-and-true neocon. Nichols probably doesn't get the joke when someone wisecracks: 'We're the government, we've come to help you!' We know what they did at Ruby Ridge, Waco and, dare I say it, Lower Manhattan and suburban D.C. on 9/11/01.

... but I digress ...

Sen. Tom Ivester, D-Sayre, stood up to the bill, "saying he's concerned about attempts to shoot holes in privacy rights guaranteed in the Bill of Rights." The Fourth Amendment, Ivester noted gives people the right to "be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures."

Ivester, the story noted, has no problem with the feds or others obtaining a court order to get this information, but, "Because you are alleged to have committed an offense does not mean you lose your Fourth Amendment right."

Good point, Senator. We do have a Constitution and Bill of Rights, something many Republicans have conveniently forgotten about.