There is one thing called the law and another called enforcement...

There is one thing called the law and another called enforcement or adherence to the law. In the United states by law the police were duty bound to obtain a warrant which they would obtain by producnig a cogent argument before a Judge or other official to justify the search. This typically like in Australia included reasons like preventing the destruction of vital evidence in the commission of an offence or the prevention of one.

However the reality has been different. For ages they Americans have by convention allowed the Police the 'right' to exercise their 'discretion' being trusted officers of the law and of the courts to do the right thing when the occassion called for it and the matter of obtaining a warrant would have been an impediment to the prevention of an offence.

Such offenes included being Black i the South, being Jewish before and immediately after WW II and perhaps till such time as the Jewish community got their act together there and became part of the machinery of oppression in the USA.

If for instane you backed the right of the Viet Namese people to determine their own future without American interference, or if you opposed Galtieri and Pinochett or any of the other muderous butchers in that part of the world who were openly supported by the US government , then the cops had a right which is well documented to the Supreme Court in the USA to exercise their excessive powers providing someone at the level of a Judge could say yes.

So this change is now only cosmetic and purely perfunctory. it provides legislative effect to whats been a convention for so long. You have it here too. Now Howard wants it to be law.