“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 4th Amendment means that government agenst cannot make a search and/or seizure without probable cause. A government agent cannot just show up for a search and seizure without first obtaining a valid search warrant from the judiciary. Furthermore, the search must stick to the scope of the search warrant.
Katz v. the United States (1967) ruled that a person has a reasonable expectation to privacy.
The government has disregarded this amendment in several ways such as the usage of “red light cameras.” If a person has a reasonable expectation to privacy, the usage of government cameras without probable cause would violate this.
Another example is the Patriot Act. The Patriot Act was done, in no doubt, with good intentions. We were attacked by international terrorists and the fear of more attacks allowed us to ‘reasonably’ give up a little liberty for a little security. This was a major blow to that expectation of privacy and our security in our property and person. We did not heed to the advice of our great American statesman, Benjamin Franklin. It was Franklin who said, “Those who give up a little liberty for a little security deserve neither and will lose both.” That was the beginning of this round of losing our rights as we have over the past few years. Now is the time to rise up and say enough is enough. Legislators, government executives, and judicial officers, please listen. Enough is enough.
The Patriot Act has damaged this Amendment in several ways. The Patriot Act allows for searches and seizures without probable cause or what are the traditional search warrants. Furthemore, a person’s property is not valued as notification of a search does not happen either. There have even been government admissions to abuse of powers of the Patriot Act. We want to be safe, but do we want to be slaves instead? Many of us conservatives were silent about abuse of our rights under Bush because we trusted him. Now that a leftist is in charge, we fear what might happen. Hopefully we will never allow this to happen again, regardless of who is in charge.