Essay On The Fourth Amendment

The Fourth Amendment in Modern Culture

The Fourth Amendment, as most Americans know, is in place for the protection of the people from unreasonable and unlawful searches and seizures; however, in the age of social revolution and advanced technology, just how safe are the people of America from this threat? This is a question many people have asked, and yet a clear answer has not established during the last 240 years of this great social experiment that is the United States of America. In order to fully understand what the Fourth Amendment was put in place for, one first has to understand the time in which the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were written. With an understanding of the unbiased and uncensored knowledge of the past, and with

The time of the Founding Fathers was monopolized by the rule of the tyrannical British Crown. It was this experience that inspired the Founding Fathers to establish the Bill of Rights, including the Fourth Amendment. During the time of British occupation of the thirteen original colonies the colonists were under strict rule by the Crown, which was led by General Thomas Gage. General Gage is well known for his leadership of the British in many battles, including the battles of Lexington and Concord, the battle for Bunker Hill, and the Siege of Boston. The American Revolution took place while the colonies were under his rule. This all began after many disputes between British troops and colonists about the ownership of firearms and their rebellion over paying the outrageous tea

Although this seems like a good step the process is still corrupted and fails to truly and fully protect citizens. As stated above, in order to obtain a search warrant authorities must have a strong probable cause to believe that a person has committed an actual crime. In normal criminal investigations, such as robberies and murders, obtaining a search warrant requires the local authorities to show substantial evidence to a judge that a person has committed a crime. The judge will then choose to sign a warrant for the searches of particular things within the suspect’s home or possessions based on the evidence he or she is presented with. These warrants are traditionally served directly to a person and are also available to be reviewed with the subjects legal counsel. This rule has been circumvented on a national scale in regards to digital communications with the creating of the “Patriot Act”