the-fourth-amendment

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.

Oliver – The Fourth Amendment

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In Britain, a common practice was to put out “general warrants” that allowed law officials to search anyone’s house regardless of if there was cause. In the colonies, instruments similar to “general warrants” were used to ensure that the taxes placed on the colonies were enforced. Thus, when the bill of rights was drafted, the fourth amendment was made to address search and seizure by the government.

The commonly understood meaning of the fourth amendment is that it prohibits the government from apprehending or searching a person or their property without a warrant that is granted due to probable cause. There are many cases of dispute over the fourth amendment. However, the majority involve the idea of how technologies having been invented since this amendment was originally penned, factor into government monitoring of those technologies.

In 1967 the supreme court did rule that, in the Katz vs. The United States case, wiretapping of even public phones violated the fourth amendment. This is a direct example of a moral interpretation of the 4th amendment as the wiretapping of phones is not directly covered in the fourth amendment. While this may just be one case being referenced here, it does point to the idea that the fourth amendment is largely understood through moral interpretations instead of textual interpretations. However, while the debates about if wiretapping of phone calls violates the 4th amendment have died down, new debates regarding how the 4th amendment applies to the internet.

Legal scholar Orin Kerr makes the claim that only public internet activity (such as social media posts) should be able to be used without the warrant that would need to be required by the fourth amendment if it were to apply. He suggests that a balance must be obtained that mirrors that of the physical world where some data, which would already be apparent to all, can be obtained without a warrant but data that is not distributed by the investigated person should require one (similar to one’s private property). In opposition, Barry Friedman argues that, since, in searching for digital evidence, every action by the government must be targeted at a specific person, warrants should be required in all cases.

I personally agree with Orin Kerr because, since the information being put intentionally on the internet was deliberately put there for anyone to see, warrants should only be required for monitoring data not released to the public. Despite the disputes that can arise over it, I would not want to amend the fourth amendment as it lays the groundwork for ideas that can be applied in many different times. Finally, an area of study this year that is in stark contrast to this is the ideals of Tokugawa Japan. In Tokugawa Japan, not only were citizens encouraged to report on any changes discussed by people in their area but, also, in direct opposition with the idea of probable cause, citizens were told that logic could be violated to uphold the broader law.