It cannot be too often stated that the greatest threats to our constitutional freedoms come in times of crisis. But we must also stay mindful that not all government responses to such times are hysterical overreactions; some crises are quite real, and when they are, they serve precisely as the compelling state interest that we have said may justify a measured intrusion on constitutional rights. The only way for judges to mediate these conflicting impulses is to do what they should do anyway: stay close to the record in each case that appears before them, and make their judgments based on that alone. Having reviewed the record here, I cannot avoid the conclusion that the District's suspicionless policy of testing all student athletes sweeps too broadly, and too imprecisely, to be reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.
-- Justice O'Connor
Good general principle. For instance, take this account by a NY Daily News reporter:
As many as a dozen people who lost loved ones in the Sept. 11 attacks will ask a jury today not to put Zacarias Moussaoui to death, a legal source said yesterday. The defense also will read statements by shoe bomber Richard Reid and Mohammad Al-Qahtani, the real "20th hijacker" supposed to be on United Airlines Flight 93, who may contradict Moussaoui's claim he was part of 9/11, the Daily News has learned. ...
Moussaoui first claimed last month that Reid was the one confirmed member of his crew to hijack a fifth plane on 9/11 and fly it into the White House. All the evidence presented in court suggests Moussaoui was eyed by Al Qaeda only for a post-9/11 attack on buildings in California or Chicago but was scratched because of his incompetence. Still, jurors found him eligible for the death penalty.
The fact that the times are tough does not mean basic rules should not apply. Yet again, we hazily recall that 9/11 really did not change everything.