It seems you're missing that the Constitution often is construed as placing restrictions on the states, to be enforced by the federal government. It's not purel

It seems you're missing that the Constitution often is construed as placing restrictions on the states, to be enforced by the federal government. It's not purely just restriction on what the federal government can do, rather that is an argument often trotted out by other entities justifying their infringement of rights. Sometimes this argument works, but just as often it does not. Hence this case continuing on first/fourth amendment grounds despite it being about local law enforcement. Totally agreed on feedback and correction mechanisms, and applying systems thinking in general. I'd say the US Constitution was a good first attempt but by no means a robust system, but yet we're now stuck appealing to it or judges inventing principles out of whole cloth (aka common law) as the main check against sprawling federal power. Not that we aren't also taking that federal power for granted as it's keeping other sprawling power structures in check.