Fourth Amendment Dbq Essay

Can you imagine being pressured by your boss to find a way to arrest a suspect before the only evidence you had disappeared? That is exactly what happened to the police officers who scanned a suspect's home using a thermal imager. This suspect, who will further be referred to by his initials DLK, was suspected of growing marijuana plants in his home. When the police used this new form of technology to scan the suspect’s house, they found abnormal heat signatures coming from his windows and doors, so they entered DLK’s house and seized around one hundred illegal plants in addition to the arrest that was made on DLK. While some may disagree, the government certainly did not violate DLK’s rights when they performed the scan of his home using a thermal imager.

And if those considered free of criminal involvement may nevertheless be searched or inspected under civil statutes, it is difficult to understand why the Fourth Amendment would prevent entry onto their property to recover evidence of a crime not committed by them but by others. As we understand the structure and language of the Fourth Amendment and our cases expounding it, valid warrants to search property may be issued when it is satisfactorily demonstrated to the magistrate that fruits, instrumentalities, or evidence of crime is located on the premises. The Fourth Amendment has itself struck the balance between privacy and public need, and there is no occasion or justification for a court to revise the Amendment and strike a new balance by denying the search warrant in the circumstances present here and by insisting that the investigation proceed by subpoena duces tecum, whether on the theory that the latter is a less intrusive alternative or

By law the constitution states that the fourth amendment is 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

To obtain a search warrant law enforcement personnel would have to persuade a judge that they have a probable matter. (Source 1.2) For example, citizens have all right there privacy until they have done something to potentially harm someone. Next, the government takes professional matters to make certain that citizens’ information is private. (Source 4.3) For every case that needs a warrant, law enforcement has to give the judge a plausible case giving the details of what happened. Moreover, if the government or even law enforcement wants to go deeper into an investigation, they have to go to a federal judge and indicate why they want to do that task.

In 2008, President Bush signed into law The FISA Amendment Act, an act which allowed the government to monitor Americans’ electronic devices. Bush claimed that this Act could help save lives, as mentioned before, but what he did not mention is that this allows the government to conduct surveillance without probable cause. (“How the NSA’s Surveillance Procedures Threaten Americans’ Privacy.”) When people heard about this, they became concerned, and many began to question if the NSA would abuse this power.

To begin, we need to understand the fourth amendment. The fourth amendment was created to prevent the government from breaching into our homes and convicting us of crimes based on evidence they discover within our homes. It was vital to state unreasonable searches in the constitution, and an unreasonable search is a search done without

Personal records given to the NSA or government without a probable cause or reasoning for a search warrant repels everything the Fourth Amendment represents. As said by Samuel Warren and Louis Brandeis “Now the right to life has come to the right to be let alone” with the government and other associations receiving the right to track records at any moment takes away from the feeling of security the Fourth Amendment is supposed to give citizens. The confidentiality of individual’s personal belongings, feeling of security, and freedom from governmental obstruction is what makes the Fourth Amendment important to society, although search-warrants can be issued with causes that seem reasonable.

The Fourth Amendment: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers,

The whole point of the Fourth Amendment is not to completely stop the police, because the amendment can be waived if an officer has a warrant, or a person’s consent. The Fourth Amendment states that generally a search or seizure is illegal unless there is a warrant, or special circumstances. Technically stating that a citizen is protected by the Fourth Amendment, until a government employee gets a warrant, and then they can invade a citizen’s privacy. Also people state that the FISA Court’s warrants are constitutional, but the NSA’s surveillance is unconstitutional. Even though people do not like the NSA’s surveillance, the NSA is legal because the FISA Court that the people did not mind makes it legal.

The fourth amendment can be beneficial but, it can also to some U.S. citizens be invasion of privacy. The fourth amendment states “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated,” some U.S. citizens believe that Law Enforcement, the Government and the NSA are violating the required guidelines of the Fourth Amendment. The NSA is conducted a mass U.S. surveillance not to believe specific individuals may be engaging in terrorist activity, but instead to believe all of us may be engaging in such activity. The government mass surveillance proves that U.S. citizens are considered suspects at all times. With the Patriot Act the NSA has access to

The Fourth Amendment states, "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses papers, and effects..." this in the minds of the people alludes to the right of privacy. However, society misses the other half of this Amendment, which is, "...against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause..." In the case of the Government having moderation over the internet, people use the Fourth Amendment on their side. Yet, the Amendment supports the side of the Government. When the Government moderates the internet, they are doing it for the safety of the nation.

This quote explains how the NSA gains information from innocent people who have no intent on sharing their personal information with anybody. The NSA is taking unnecessary measures such as hacking phone calls and satellite transmissions to get information from people who have not done anything wrong and are not suspects in criminal activity. In her article “I Have Nothing to Hide: Government Surveillance Does Not Concern Me”, Irasema Garza states, “The survey respondents also reasoned that, unlike private companies who track Internet users for profit, the government’s motivation is to protect the country from terrorists and criminals” (Paragraph 2). Irasema Garza is an attorney and public servant who deals with government surveillance cases on a daily basis whether it is against it or for it. The quote shows that Garza took a survey in which most of the people surveyed had nothing to hide from the government and probably never

The NSA’s surveillance of American citizens caused a debate over whether or not the Fourth Amendment of the constitution was being violated. The NSA, and the Fourth Amendment have been a touchy subject for some American citizens. The NSA, or National Surveillance Agency, is being closely watched by American citizens since a debate has formed as to whether or not the actions of the NSA regarding the surveillance of American

The Fourth Amendment states, "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" (Administrative Office, n.d.) The key to this is unreasonable searches and seizures. I am using a government-owned device and if my employer believes I have something to hide that could be hurtful or harmful, he should be allowed to search my device without waiting for a warrant. The only time it would be infringing on my rights protected by the Fourth Amendment is if he is being unreasonable and only checking whenever he felt like being nosey.

Lastly the fourth amendment gives protection to the person during a search and it prevents unlawful items taken or seized to be used evidence in a case. (Searches and Seizers and the Fourth Amendment) The fourth amendment also doesn’t protect everything. One of the only time that a person is not protected under the fourth amendment is when that person consents to the search. Under the law that person who consented, so the people in authority didn’t need to get a search warrant and anything that the person authority finds can be used against them in court.