4th Amendment
The 4th Amendment to the United States Constitution protects citizens from unreasonable searches and seizures by the government. It requires that search warrants be issued only upon probable cause and that they specifically describe the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized. The amendment is a crucial component of the constitutional protection of individual privacy and civil liberties.
7 Key excerpts on "4th Amendment"
eBook - ePubSurveillance and the Law
Language, Power and Privacy
- Maria Helen Murphy(Author)
- 2018(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...2 Evolving technological standards, same basic rights The case of the Fourth Amendment The power-limiting purpose of the Fourth Amendment A rich source of interpretive debate in the surveillance context has been the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution and the associated ‘third-party doctrine’. The Fourth Amendment affirms: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. The Fourth Amendment limits executive power by requiring the following of ‘certain “judicial processes” to curb executive overreach’. 1 According to the US Supreme Court, two basic guideposts are that the Fourth Amendment seeks to secure ‘the privacies of life’ against ‘arbitrary power’ and ‘to place obstacles in the way of a too permeating police surveillance’. 2 The Fourth Amendment is traditionally read to require the obtaining of a warrant on the basis of probable cause from a neutral and detached person before a search can take place...
eBook - ePub- Maryam Ahranjani, Andrew G. Ferguson, Jamin B. Raskin(Authors)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- CQ Press(Publisher)
...Private property is the stuff in your home, apartment, car, or backpack. As U.S. Supreme Court justice Louis Brandeis wrote in Olmstead v. United States: The makers of our Constitution. . . sought to protect Americans in their beliefs, their thoughts, their emotions and their sensations. They conferred, as against the Government, the right to be let alone—the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men. To protect that right, every unjustifiable intrusion by the Government upon the privacy of the individual, whatever the means employed, must be deemed a violation of the Fourth Amendment. 1 The Fourth Amendment has two parts. First, it protects people from unreasonable searches and seizures of their persons, houses, papers, effects. Second, it requires search or arrest warrants be supported by particular facts and enough evidence to constitute probable cause. What is meant by “unreasonable searches and seizures”? The principle underlying the Fourth Amendment is that all people should be able to live their lives free from unreasonable interference, surveillance, or oversight. Friction arises when police and other law enforcement personnel need to investigate crimes and prevent unlawful behavior in society. So, on one hand, people want to have the liberty to do what they want, and, on the other hand, we all want to live in a safe society without criminal danger threatening us. To resolve this tension, courts have interpreted the Fourth Amendment to protect you against some searches and seizures but not others. The test is one of reasonableness. Reasonableness often requires the police to have a search warrant, though not always. There are times when the character of the situation renders a search reasonable even without a warrant. The Exclusionary Rule Suppose you are prosecuted for the crime of threats for the comments in your journal. You now know that the Fourth Amendment gives you the right to be left alone in ordinary circumstances...
eBook - ePub- Cliff Roberson(Author)
- 2021(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...CHAPTER 3 Fourth Amendment DOI: 10.4324/9781003179375-3 LEARNING OBJECTIVES After studying this chapter, you should understand the following principles, issues, and concepts: The areas that are protected by the Fourth Amendment. The two parts of the Fourth Amendment. What makes a search unreasonable? What is needed before a search warrant may issue? When is a warrantless search reasonable? The issues involved with an arrest warrant. HISTORY The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. —US Constitution, Amendment IV The use of the phrase “of the people” in the amendment is interesting because when the same phrase is used in the First, Second, Ninth, and Tenth Amendments, it refers to the collective people, same as in the Preamble’s phrase “We the people of the United States.” At the time the amendment was drafted, the Virginia prototype of the protection against unreasonable searches and seizures provided that “every freeman has a right to be secure from all unreasonable searches and seizures of his person.” New Hampshire had a similar provision in its state constitution. Only the Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776 used the phrase “of the people.” There is a conflict among scholars as to whether James Madison’s use of the phrase was simply sloppy wording or a way of reminding us that we must be especially watchful of government efforts to use its search and seizure powers to interfere with the people’s political activities (Amar, 1998, p. 65)...
eBook - ePub- Ronald F. Becker, Stuart H. Nordby, Jon J.(Authors)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- CRC Press(Publisher)
...The Law of Search and Seizure 5 New Words and Concepts arm’s reach curtilage due process clause equal protection clause exigent circumstances good faith inadvertent discovery legitimately on the premises privileges and immunities clause search incident to an arrest vehicle inventory warrant procedure consent search derivative evidence emergency exception exclusionary rule fruit of the poisonous tree immediately apparent inevitable discovery doctrine open field reasonableness stop and frisk warrant affidavit Learning Outcomes On completion of this chapter, students will be able to Discuss the Fourth Amendment as it applies to searches Discuss the Fourth Amendment as it applies to seizures Explain the Fourth Amendment as it applies to public safety dive teams The U.S. Constitution and Due Process This chapter deals with general principles pertaining to searches and seizures. There are some fundamental issues that must be addressed prior to specifically discussing those situations in which search warrants might be required in underwater operations. Through an understanding of some of these general principles, application for underwater investigations will become more apparent. The U.S. Constitution is a blueprint for the building of a democratic government. It outlines the structure of our government and the powers granted to the three branches. It was an oversight of the original drafters of the Constitution that they did not include guarantees of individual freedom, especially since the violation of the colonists’ inalienable individual rights had laid the foundation for the American Revolution. The founders had to amend the Constitution to include a list of 10 guarantees that addressed the original grievances that the English crown chose to ignore. The Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments to the Constitution form the groundwork of “due process.” The Bill of Rights was never intended to apply to the states...
- Fergal Davis, Nicola McGarrity, George Williams, Fergal Davis, Nicola McGarrity, George Williams(Authors)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...But common law necessarily also looks backward, because of the need to follow precedent. Because of its foundation in a constitution, constitutional common law always looks back ultimately to the constitution from which its authority arises. An equally conventional approach to the Fourth Amendment describes it as balancing the rights to privacy and liberty against law enforcement prerogatives. The more robust the safeguards for privacy, the more difficult it is for the police to investigate crime. A traditional balancing approach to the Fourth Amendment would predict, like Kerr, that where police investigative tools become more invasive of privacy, the USSCt should strike a balance that favors privacy; when law enforcement interests are challenged by developments that make criminal activity more difficult to uncover, the USSCt might relax constitutional constraints to preserve law enforcement interests. Thus, it is not clear what Kerr’s approach adds to the traditional conception of Fourth Amendment balancing. Kerr’s characterization of the Fourth Amendment as preserving a certain balance between law enforcement and criminals seems oddly out of step with the amendment’s underlying purposes. In Kerr’s formulation, the Fourth Amendment appears to be a kind of umpire in a game between cops and robbers. But the Fourth Amendment is generally understood to protect the privacy of the citizenry at large against all unreasonable government intrusions. One by-product of doing so is that its rules sometimes frustrate law enforcement, but its purpose is to protect the privacy of all, not to ensure some concept of a “fair fight” between the police and criminals. While both balancing and common law methodology are accurate descriptions of what the USSCt generally does in constitutional adjudication, at least at a sufficiently high level of generality, they do not provide much guidance as to how the balance should be struck, or the common law adjusted, in particular circumstances...
eBook - ePubPrivacy in a Cyber Age
Policy and Practice
- Amitai Etzioni, Kenneth A. Loparo(Authors)
- 2015(Publication Date)
- Palgrave Macmillan(Publisher)
...United States, 14 the Court held that “the right of officers to thrust themselves into a home is also a grave concern.” 15 In Silverman v. United States, 16 the Court observed that, “At the very core [of the Fourth Amendment] stands the right of a man to retreat into his own home and there be free from unreasonable governmental intrusion.” 17 And in Payton v. New York, 18 the Supreme Court wrote that “physical entry of the home is the chief evil against which the wording of the Fourth Amendment is directed” 19 and “freedom from intrusion into the home or dwelling is the archetype of the privacy protection secured by the Fourth Amendment.” 20 In Payton, the Court found that the home’s “unambiguous physical dimensions” facilitated the drawing of a bright line to secure against even the smallest government intrusion. 21 One scholar points out that the Supreme Court has suggested in its rulings that the security of the house is central to the exercise of First Amendment rights as well as the liberty associated with exercising control over decisions not specifically regulated by the Constitution. 22 The Supreme Court held, for instance in Smith v. Maryland, 23 that a Fourth Amendment search was defined by a physical government intrusion into one or more constitutionally protected interests—that is, persons, houses, papers, and effects. 24 One may hence argue that the Constitution refers to “houses” as merely one of four protected interests, the privacy of which is entitled to special protection. However, considerable evidence supports the thesis that the courts and others have viewed houses as entitled to exceptional protection. (Indeed, legal scholars see a direct line connecting the normative idea that the house was sovereign and inviolate to the writers of the Bill of Rights...
eBook - ePubCivil Rights in America
A Handbook of Legal History
- Daniel H McLinden(Author)
- 2021(Publication Date)
- Universal-Publishers(Publisher)
...They conferred, as against the Government, the right to be let alone—the most comprehensive of rights, and the right most valued by civilized men. To protect that right, every unjustifiable intrusion by the Government upon the privacy of the individual, whatever the means employed, must be deemed a violation of the Fourth Amendment.” [Context: The majority was willing to ignore an individual’s right to privacy rather than overturn a conviction. The majority used the artifice of no-physical-intrusion to allow an even greater kind of non-physical intrusion. The minority ignored the character (physical or non-physical) of the intrusion, finding any governmental intrusion an unauthorized invasion of privacy. For the minority, absent exigent circumstances the government has to get a search warrant to avoid the Fourth Amendment prohibition against illegal search and seizure.] Katz v. United States (1967) In this case the Court redefined what constitutes “searches” and “seizures” with regard to the protections of the Fourth Amendment. It extended Fourth Amendment protection beyond the traditional confines of citizens’ homes and property to anywhere a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy. Katz overturned Olmstead v. United States (1928). It also examined the notion of unreasonable intrusion by government or law enforcement. The Katz test of an actual expectation of privacy and one that society would find reasonable has been used in thousands of cases, particularly with the advancement of technology that pose new questions on expectations of privacy. The case involved Charles Katz, a handicapper specializing in betting on college basketball...
