Fourth Amendment: Unreasonable Search and Seizure

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

http://news.yahoo.com/fourth-amendme...100212533.html

Fourth Amendment: Unreasonable Search and Seizure As part of the National Constitution Center’s 27 Amendments (In 27 Days) project, each day we will look at a constitutional amendment. Through partnerships with leading scholars and universities, government agencies, media outlets, and more, the National Constitution Center will profile one amendment each day throughout the month of February.


Photo via Bruce Bortin/Flickr

Photo via Bruce Bortin/Flickr

Today, we look at an amendment that is seemingly in the news daily: the Fourth Amendment, which protects people from unreasonable searches and seizures.

Full Text of the Fourth Amendment

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.

Synopsis:

Applying to arrests and to searches of persons, homes, and other private places, this amendment requires a warrant, thereby placing a neutral magistrate between the police and the citizen. Source: U.S. Senate

Explanation:

This amendment protects the people’s right to be secure in our “persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures” by the government. The Framers of the Constitution were especially concerned about “general warrants” which authorized broad searches of innocent citizens private papers without “particularly describing the place to be searched, and the person or things to be seized.”

Today, an unreasonable search or seizure can involve a clear violation of private property rights, like the police entering someone’s home without a warrant supported by probable cause of wrongdoing, or can be subtler, like a police officer using a thermal imaging device to reveal excessive amounts of heat being generated inside a house.

Resources:

1. The Library of Congress Constitution Annotated. Contains a detailed history of the amendment, along with past and recent court cases.

2. Cornell Legal Information Institute. Includes information from Wex, a free legal dictionary and encyclopedia sponsored and hosted by the Legal Information Institute at the Cornell Law School. Wex entries are collaboratively created and edited by legal experts.

3. U.S. Courts website. This resource allows you to understand what Supreme Court decisions clarify reasonable search and seizure, apply the precedents, and see examples

Presented for those that fail to see how our Federal government and Obama are on a runaway train and attempting to disarm, illegally search citizens and take away our basic rights and freedoms. --Tyr

[fj1200]

Examples?

[jimnyc]

Examples?

I would think the NSA spying on citizens alone would technically be an unreasonable search and seizure. It's kind of a search, invasion of privacy, no warrants involved. And of course the buck stops at the CiC's desk. I can see it as debatable of course - but imagine what you would be charged with if YOU spied on a politician, for example, and were caught. What applies to us should apply to them.

[fj1200]

I'm sure that there are plenty of examples but one can't present something without attempting to prove their posit.

[tailfins]

I'm sure that there are plenty of examples but one can't present something without attempting to prove their posit.

Sure they can; the OP just did. Now shut up and go do your assigned homework which is for YOU to find those examples. Tedious work gets farmed out to the little people; you should know that by now, so get busy!

[jafar00]

Examples?

NSA, TSA. I love your 3 letter acronyms. Much less typing

[logroller]

Sure they can; the OP just did. Now shut up and go do your assigned homework which is for YOU to find those examples. Tedious work gets farmed out to the little people; you should know that by now, so get busy!

How about examples that disprove it? For example, digital info isn't on paper and often isn't kept in one's home nor on their person. Ergo, the fourth amendment doesn't apply. Send a letter by mail: covered; send an email: not covered.

[aboutime]

NSA, TSA. I love your 3 letter acronyms. Much less typing

Yeah jafar. We love the 3 letter acronyms that also apply to you, like "ASS".

[jimnyc]

How about examples that disprove it? For example, digital info isn't on paper and often isn't kept in one's home nor on their person. Ergo, the fourth amendment doesn't apply. Send a letter by mail: covered; send an email: not covered.

What about the stored communications act, which I believe shows that a warrant would be required:

With respect to the government’s ability to compel disclosure, the most significant distinction made by the SCA is between communications held in electronic communications services, which require a search warrant and probable cause, and those in remote computing services, which require only a subpoena or court order, with prior notice. This lower level of protection is essentially the same as would be provided by the Fourth Amendment—or potentially less, since notice can be delayed indefinitely in 90-day increments. Orin Kerr argues that, "the SCA was passed to bolster the weak Fourth Amendment privacy protections that applied to the Internet. Incorporating those weak Fourth Amendment principles into statutory law makes little sense."^[2] In Warshak v U.S. (2007)^[7] this point of view found fleeting support from a panel of the Sixth Circuit, which ruled that a reasonable expectation of privacy extends to emails that would otherwise fall under the SCA’s lower level of protection: "Where the third party is not expected to access the e-mails in the normal course of business, however, the party maintains a reasonable expectation of privacy, and subpoenaing the entity with mere custody over the documents is insufficient to trump the Fourth Amendment warrant requirement." Subsequently, the Sixth Circuit en banc vacated the panel's ruling and remanded for dismissal of the constitutional claim, reasoning that, because the Court had "no idea whether the government will conduct an ex parte search of Warshak’s e-mail account in the future and plenty of reason to doubt that it will," the matter was not ripe for adjudication.^[8] Zerwillinger and Sommer^[9] observed that this decision erected a barrier to "prospective" challenges by individuals with reason to believe they will be targets of surveillance. While Warshak's civil case ended without a resolution to this issue, his criminal case provided another opportunity. In United States v. Warshak (2010)^[10] the Sixth Circuit found that email users have a Fourth Amendment-protected reasonable expectation of privacy in the contents of their email accounts and that "to the extent that the SCA purports to permit the government to obtain such emails warrantlessly, the SCA is unconstitutional."^[10][11]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stored_Communications_Act

[Voted4Reagan]

NSA, TSA. I love your 3 letter acronyms. Much less typing

Better than your 3-letter acronyms

PLO... PLA

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Examples?

I post-- water is wet. You reply--Examples. As if you haven't a clue what our government is doing. I see many examples have been given by others in their replies so I will say read their replies. No need for me to repeat them. They didn't list them all even. -Tyr

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Sure they can; the OP just did. Now shut up and go do your assigned homework which is for YOU to find those examples. Tedious work gets farmed out to the little people; you should know that by now, so get busy!

[logroller]

What about the stored communications act, which I believe shows that a warrant would be required:

With respect to the government’s ability to compel disclosure, the most significant distinction made by the SCA is between communications held in electronic communications services, which require a search warrant and probable cause, and those in remote computing services, which require only a subpoena or court order, with prior notice. This lower level of protection is essentially the same as would be provided by the Fourth Amendment—or potentially less, since notice can be delayed indefinitely in 90-day increments. Orin Kerr argues that, "the SCA was passed to bolster the weak Fourth Amendment privacy protections that applied to the Internet. Incorporating those weak Fourth Amendment principles into statutory law makes little sense."^[2] In Warshak v U.S. (2007)^[7] this point of view found fleeting support from a panel of the Sixth Circuit, which ruled that a reasonable expectation of privacy extends to emails that would otherwise fall under the SCA’s lower level of protection: "Where the third party is not expected to access the e-mails in the normal course of business, however, the party maintains a reasonable expectation of privacy, and subpoenaing the entity with mere custody over the documents is insufficient to trump the Fourth Amendment warrant requirement." Subsequently, the Sixth Circuit en banc vacated the panel's ruling and remanded for dismissal of the constitutional claim, reasoning that, because the Court had "no idea whether the government will conduct an ex parte search of Warshak’s e-mail account in the future and plenty of reason to doubt that it will," the matter was not ripe for adjudication.^[8] Zerwillinger and Sommer^[9] observed that this decision erected a barrier to "prospective" challenges by individuals with reason to believe they will be targets of surveillance. While Warshak's civil case ended without a resolution to this issue, his criminal case provided another opportunity. In United States v. Warshak (2010)^[10] the Sixth Circuit found that email users have a Fourth Amendment-protected reasonable expectation of privacy in the contents of their email accounts and that "to the extent that the SCA purports to permit the government to obtain such emails warrantlessly, the SCA is unconstitutional."^[10][11]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stored_Communications_Act

Good job on the homework Jim. According to tailfins, you're one of the little people for positing evidence. Tyr and the like are above such tedious tasks.

[logroller]

I post-- water is wet. You reply--Examples. As if you haven't a clue what our government is doing. I see many examples have been given by others in their replies so I will say read their replies. No need for me to repeat them. They didn't list them all even. -Tyr

I've seen one posted thus far; hardly a 'runaway train'. Clearly you have more a liking to rhetoric and evasion than argument.

[jafar00]

Better than your 3-letter acronyms

PLO... PLA

I think you are confusing me for someone else.

We have have ASIO.