Fourth Amendment Dbq Essay

In our world there are many crimes and cases where the government must search a home to find evidence or seize items. But, what happens when the government begins to ignore an amendment and break the trust of people. “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 warrant shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to searched, and the persons or things to be seized” (Fourth amendment). The fourth amendment was created to protect the people from the government incase they wanted to invade people’s privacy and so the government doesn’t go too far in their searches for

“The Fourth Amendment says that you have an expectation of privacy in your home and person (body). The government cannot search you, your home, or belongings without a good reason.” (Background Essay). But, through the years the government has invaded the protection the Fourth Amendment has given to society. For example, “Federal agents put a bug- a device that allowed them to listen to the conversations” (Doc A). This quote from document A helps show that the government had invaded the privacy of someone’s conversation and the person nor public knew about this. The call the person made was recorded and violated the person’s privacy as they spoke to someone. The government has also disrupted people’s privacy by scanning homes. “Society regards as reasonable the expectations of privacy from such intrusive scanning of the home” (Doc D). They’ve used various materials to search a home which violates the privacy of people. But, this isn’t the only way the government has gone too far in search and

“...To explore details of the home that would previously have been unknowable without [going in], the surveillance is a search and is...unreasonable without a warrant” (Doc F). As the government searches homes they begin to forget about warrants and why they are needed. They also forget that there are only four reasons when they can search or seize in a situation. The four reasons are “ hot pursuit, public safety, danger of loss of evidence, permission of suspect” (Background Essay). These are some of the only reasons why law enforcements can search or seize without a warrant. For example, in the DLK case law enforcements used a thermal scanner which counts as a search because they still searched the home, but only searched it with a thermal scanner. They argued that a warrant wasn’t needed. (Doc E). This fact from Document E helps show that the government believes that a scan isn’t a search but in the end it is and they are searching a home without permission. Although, the last way the government has gone too far by using technology to search for evidence or