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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.
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2 Responses to “The 3rd and 4th Amendments of the Bill of Rights”
c26ln
Shiv, I loved how you talked about how the amendment has been adapted for more modern times. Does this beg the bigger question of how some clauses may be outdated?
Liam Gaspar
I love the specific commentary on the need for the 3rd amendment to be changed to include law enforcement and the examples used to illustrate this needed change.