Sunday on This Week with George Stephanopoulos, the Powerhouse Roundtable met to discuss the NSA spying program. A showdown between The Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol and Fox News host Greta Van Susteren centered around the constitutional protection of privacy. Kristol likened the NSA's collection of phone data to police cars cruising the streets, looking for troublemakers. Van Susteren countered that the Fourth Amendment is not optional.

Here is a slightly redacted transcript of their discussion:

Kristol: I think a lot of this is people, you know, we need to be serious about the national security side of this, obviously serious about the constitutional side of it as well. But I think there is an awful lot of glib talk about abuses of privacy without any evidence of abuses of privacy.

Stephanopoulos: You're shaking your head, Greta.

Van Susteren: I'm shaking my head because I think Bill, you're dead wrong… All you have to do is one thing, go back to the Fourth Amendment; it's not an option. The Constitution is right that says, "right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects shall not be violated." If the government thinks this information is so important, it can get it. It just has to use a warrant. There is no 'fear' exception because everyone is terrified about terrorism. There's no fear exception to the Constitution. If you don't like this, change the Constitution. But we don't want just a bunch of people in a back room doing their own modification.

Kristol: Police can cruise up and down streets looking for problems. If they want to go into a house, they have to get a warrant. This is the equivalent of police cars cruising up and down streets looking for problems and guess what, putting more police cars in dangerous neighborhoods.

[Crosstalk]

Van Susteren: Bill, this is bulk collection of American… the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses and papers.

Perhaps good arguments from both sides, but a federal judge last week said the NSA collection of phone 'meta-data' violates the Fourth Amendment. Most likely, before the judge's stayed decision takes effect, President Obama will announce sudden changes to the way the spy agency collect personal data from Americans. He was, after all, a constitutional law professor.