HT
Amendment IV
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 Fourth Amendment guarantees citizens in the United
States protection against unreasonable and searches and
seizures. The Fourth Amendment became a necessity because
of the British use of writs of assistance during the 1760s to
conduct searches with no speci”c warrant to prevent
smuggling of untaxed goods. The British used their writs of
assistance to enforce British tax and revenue law against the
then colonies. The writs of assistance were easy to obtain
because one only needed suspicion of crime and did not expire
making them very dangerous and easily abused.
The founding Father’s and their congress produced the
Fourth Amendment out of necessity of protection and lack of
scope and limitations of writs of assistance. Citizen’s rights,
property and privacy are to be protected under the Fourth
Amendment unless there is probable cause that a crime has
been committed requiring search and seizure. The Fourth
1
HT
Amendment also limits the scope of the search and seizure to
further protect privacy and limit witch hunts where prosecutors
or law enforcement seek unrelated information in hopes of
“nding unsuspected criminal action or additional crimes. The
searches must be ‘reasonable’ in scope, as the privacy of an
individual has been deemed of greater importance than the
government’s intrusion into such privacy.
Interestingly, many people when confronted by law
enforcement and asked to be searched or have their property
searched waive their rights to the Fourth Amendment and
2
