4th

A Deconstruction of the 4th (and why its meaning has changed)

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The writs of assistance were search warrants issued to British law enforcement officers to search ships and homes for smuggled goods to upkeep smuggling laws. These writs of assistance and general warrants that England was imposing on the colonial homes and businesses, specifically to enforce trade and navigation laws, must have concerned the authors of the Bill of Rights. Limiting the power the government has on searching and seizing the peoples’ property would especially be an anti-federalist goal since they advocated for individual liberties.   

The common interpretation of the fourth amendment centers around safeguarding the security of individuals, ensuring that neither they nor their belongings can be encroached upon or violated without a reasonable warrant. Warrants are typically awarded to enforcement officers by a judge or a magistrate and must be produced based on probable cause, or be reasonable enough to confiscate or enter your property. Additionally, warrants must be clear about what they will allow authorities to collect or search. The goal of the fourth amendment is that of maintaining citizens’ privacy and security so that you and your property cannot be intruded on or violated without a warrant.   

The exclusionary evidence rule makes all evidence that has been collected illegally, void. The Fourth Amendment has sparked debate over whether the methods of search for the collection of evidence are legal or not. Recently, the controversy has centered due to a shift of applications from physical property, such as the search of your house or your belongings, to informational or intellectual property, such as the mass collection of your internet metadata. Specifically, digital privacy, or the safeguarding of logs that internet providers or telecommunications companies store on servers has been at issue, since the information citizens feel violated by the collection and search of their personal, otherwise private data. On the other hand, the search and collection of evidence helps catch serious criminals who wouldn’t have been otherwise caught. This complicates matters because who decides when the collection is necessary and when it is intrusive?   

Locke considered the right to private property a natural right. Locke’s enlightenment ideals align with the fourth amendment right to no seizure without a proper warrant because he believed the property was private.  I find the interpretation times have changed argument more effective because it points out the similarities between physical and non-physical property. The conflict I come to with the argument that informational property should be treated the same as physical is that times have changed, and oftentimes, there is more information about us online than in our own homes. We should have the right to keep that information private. Although the data is available to internet companies, internet companies do not have the power to arrest you on your own, but the government does. The collection of data can fall under the Fourth Amendment depending on who is collecting it. If I could amend the Fourth Amendment, I would make a point to differentiate what rights people have regarding the security of their physical property versus their digital property.

The 4th Amendment – Quinn Lester

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During the period before the constitution was created and America was still a part of Great Britain the British soldiers, by decree of the king, were given the right to not only arrest anybody for being suspected of a crime, but to seize their items as well if they were suspected of being used in a crime. Before life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness John Locke said that property was one of the inalienable rights, and the seizure of a citizen’s property without cause would be breaking that right.

This also plays an important role in keeping prejudice out of law to the further extent possible. The fourth amendment states that a governmental organization may not seize your property without probable cause, which is defined as reasonable evidence that you may have committed a crime and that whatever they seize would help them prove that crime.

Even after having this proof a judge must deem it reasonable and give them a warrant. This keeps officers and governmental agencies in check, which adds to the checks and balances that are already in place in the government. Many of the modern debates come from online interactions, and if what is written or said online is sufficient evidence to receive a warrant.

There have also been debates about what is considered probable cause when it comes to cars and vehicle searches. This is because it is very hard to get a warrant on a car, so the officers are expected to find reasonable evidence before searching the car. A case that represents this is Byrd v. United States, a case in which Bryd was in a rental car that he was not the renter of. Police searched the car, claiming that they did not need consent or probable cause because he was not the owner of the car, however when taken to the supreme court they ruled unanimously in favor of Bryd.

This amendment protects citizens from unreasonable searches, which allows them further rights to their property. This amendment also makes it harder to make assumptions or act on assumptions based on characteristics of people instead of their guilt, as officers and governmental agencies need to get permission from a court before they take action.

The amendment, as it was written in 1791, cannot mention things like the technology that we have now, making it hard to make assumptions on how it would have been enacted in the modern era. There should also be a more set definition of what can be considered probable cause, as well as that information being public to citizens. Although this amendment seems as if it helps people get away with crimes, it also ensures that, as citizens, people will not be harassed without cause, especially based on race and gender.

The 3rd and 4th Amendments of the Bill of Rights

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The motivation for the Third Amendment being included in the Bill of Rights came from the Quartering Act. The Quartering Act was a law that allowed British soldiers to be sheltered in the private homes of colonists.(1) The amendment makes it unconstitutional for the government to house soldiers in the private residences of citizens of the United States without the owners’ express permission in times of peace, but during war the process of quartering soldiers must be prescribed for by law. Some scholars interpret the Third Amendment as applying to increasingly militarized police forces in addition to the military. However, this understanding of the amendment was defeated in the 2015 case Mitchell v. City of Henderson where the plaintiffs were forced out of their home by police in preparation for a nearby operation. Mitchell sued the city on the grounds that his Third Amendment rights had been violated, but a Federal Court decided that the police are not soldiers so the amendment did not apply.(2) The Third Amendment, like checks and balances on power in other parts of the constitution, is a roadblock to government overreach. The policing interpretation of the Third amendment is persuasive to me because it controls the interactions between citizens and the police. In my opinion the amendment should be altered to protect against quartering from both military and law enforcement personnel. 

General warrants in Britain and writs of association in the colonies were some of the major pressures that led to the inclusion of the Fourth Amendment in the Bill of Rights. General warrants and writs of association allowed law enforcement to search a person’s property without any suspicion of a crime. The Fourth Amendment protects people from unreasonable searches and seizures. It requires that a warrant only be issued with a reasonable level of suspicion for a crime, and with specific objectives. What constitutes probable cause or a search in the Fourth Amendment has been debated by many legal scholars. A Supreme Court decision in 1985 over the case Dow Chemical Company vs. The United States partially answered the question of what constitutes a search. Dow Chemicals sued the US on the basis that its Fourth amendment rights had been violated after the EPA observed their factory grounds without a warrant. The Court decided in the favor of the United States, because the factory’s grounds were an open area and the Fourth amendment only deals with “the invasion of areas where intimate activities occur.” The Fourth amendment is another amendment like the Third that deals with the specter of an authoritarian government overpowering the people. I agree with the interpretation that mass government surveillance is unconstitutional because it searches the personal data of people unsuspected of a crime. I also agree with the interpretation that security checks are constitutional, because people are making a decision to agree to the security check when they enter the area. I would not advocate any changes to the Fourth amendment because it protects the people from unreasonable law enforcement activity.

 

1 – American Battlefield Trust, “The Quartering Act,” American Battlefield Trust, accessed June 1, 2023, https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/quartering-act#:~:text=The%20last%20act%20passed%20was,quarter%20or%20house%20British%20soldiers.

2 – Leonard Niehoff, “What Is the Third Amendment, and Will the Supreme Court Ever Examine It Again?,” interview by Andrew Cohen, Brennan Center for Justice, last modified August 3, 2022, https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/what-third-amendment-and-will-supreme-court-ever-examine-it-again#:~:text=Into%20this%20category%20goes%20the,up%20to%20the%20Revolutionary%20War.

 

The Fourth Ammendment

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In Britain, general warrants allowed the Crown’s messengers to search without cause any person suspected of committing an offense; while in the colonies, the Crown used “writs of assistance” as general warrants, but without time restraints.  Both controversies have led to the inclusion of the Fourth Amendment in the Constitution. The Fourth Amendment speaks to the idea that it is illegal for the government or government authority, such as a  Police officer or Military Personnel, to search or claim your person, property, whether that is your house, car, dog or any other sort of property, without a search Warrant.

 

The 21st century and the advent of modern technology has led scholars to debate whether The Fourth Amendment is applicable to the Internet Age where digital information can be readily accessed via the cloud or third parties “tracking” data. According to Orin Kerr a legal scholar, taking online data should be reasonable search and seizure, because if a burglar had just robbed a store and posted a picture of them with the money, it would only make sense for the court to constitutionally “seize” that photo, and use it in the Court of Law. Carpenter vs. United States was a U.S. Supreme Court case that took place in April 2011. Police detained 4 men who had committed armed robbery and the FBI used the cell phone numbers of these 4 men to determine additional charges. This Amendment connects to Thomas Paine’s Common Sense as they both share themes of independence and inalienable rights.

 

I agree with the view saying that certain data sent to a third party/cell companies should remain private. ‘Public’ information should only be information that you choose to publicize, for if you do not know what is public or not, it violates your rights because it is publicizing data without your consent, and the government should not be able to use that information. Public information should only be info you choose to disclose. If for example you choose to have a private account for example, that information (posts, tweets, etc.) should remain as private information. On social media accounts, there should be options to allow the website to disclose your information to the government/make it public. The user should know whether or not information is public. If they say no, the government will not have access to this information.