Shows like 24 epitomize this, that police are hindered by laws and the "bad guys" get away the more we enforce the constitution.
Mm. I think that may be too simple a view?
I always saw the cops in 24 as more incompetent than anything. It wasn't that they were enforcing the constitution, the average cop knows very little of the constitution. It was that they were following rules. They couldn't think for themselves. They couldn't make the tough ethical decisions on their own. They always had for their authority a set of rules, not a set of principles. Jack Bauer, on the other hand, was a man driven by principles. And that's why he was the hero in the show. Not because he caught bad guys by any means possible, but that he caught bad guys because they were bad.
I think the calling that a show like 24 demands is one towards being able to think about tough moral questions on your own. If you've ever seen the show Justice on PBS, this is the sort of tackling of questions that the show attempts to inspire. But the creators of 24 choose not to confront these tough questions in mere stories or words, but to try to connect with their viewers on a more emotional, personally invested level.