Is There a Need to Change the Fourth Amendment?

NB: We do not resell your papers. Upon ordering, we do an original paper exclusively for you.

NB: All your data is kept safe from the public.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Mobile Phones and Cameras
Surveillance Cameras
No Need to Change
Conclusion
References

Introduction

The Fourth Amendment was created to protect individuals from illegal searches and to feel secure against the abuse of the police, the army and other authority figures who may barge into homes, offices and schools without a warrant. It is not only the person who is protected against illegal apprehension but it also covers individual rights against the illegal seizures of property, papers, and effects (Smith, ). For centuries this law has provided protection from tyranny and the need of some law enforcers to go beyond the boundaries given by law.

Moreover, the Fourth Amendment also includes the right to privacy. After the September 11 terrorist attack as well as the proliferation of mobile technology and the notoriety of Youtube there are fresh challenges to the Fourth Amendment. This paper will show that the Fourth Amendment does not need a major overhaul to increase surveillance and intelligence gathering activities.

When the United States was established more than two hundred years ago, it was the result of a mighty struggle. Patriots and freedom fighters laid their lives on the line to secure American independence and when they decided to draft a Constitution to govern the Union, the memory of oppression and tyranny was still fresh in their minds and so the Fourth Amendment declares:

The right of the people to 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 (Smith, )

This law is easy to apply when it is limited to illegal search and seizures particularly in the context of a policeman apprehending a person without probable cause. But when it comes to privacy rights the use of technology to capture the person’s face on camera and digitally record a person’s voice and then upload to Youtube, the interpretation of this particular law becomes troublesome. There is a need to understand how to balance privacy rights and the need to secure this country from terrorist attacks.

Mobile Phones and Cameras

The first argument is with regards to capturing images and videos from a mobile phone and then turning around to upload it to Youtube. According to legal experts, there is no violation of the Fourth Amendment and asserted that “The Fourth Amendment provides no protection for what a person knowingly exposes to the public.

Like a man’s facial characteristics, or handwriting, his voice is repeatedly produced for others to hear” (Lectric Law, ). As long as the images were captured in public there is no violation of the law. Even if the images were captured inside the home or office and yet there is consent there is nothing wrong with this action.

The legal system will be bogged down if these types of activities will be considered illegal. It would also be difficult to deal with legal problems that arise from taking photos of celebrities and other public personalities. The right to privacy does not include the things that are made public by the individual. It is only when information is extracted that cannot be normally acquired publicly is the time when the Fourth Amendment can be used as a basis for an invasion of a privacy complaint.

Surveillance Cameras

Aside from mobile phones, another ubiquitous gadget is the surveillance camera or what is also known as CCTV. It is a known fact that privacy is the main issue every time a CCTV camera is installed in public places; however, privacy is difficult to define. Nevertheless, one can have a general understanding of what it means by reading the following:

Fondling someone’s buttocks without their consent, crossing the threshold of another’s home without permission, and peeping through a mostly closed window all impinge on privacy. The excessive use of force by the police … invades bodily privacy. Privacy also implies some measure of secrecy about one’s affairs (Taslitz, )

Based on this understanding of privacy it is difficult to prove that surveillance cameras invades privacy because what the cameras capture are already made public by the person when he or she decided to leave his house and move through a public area where a camera was installed for security purposes. A surveillance camera inside the bedroom of a person is an entirely different matter.

No Need to Change

There is no reason to change the Fourth Amendment. As long as law enforcers will not conduct any search without a warrant and as long as they will not search a person without probable cause then the Fourth Amendment must stay the same. The law even allows for a warrantless search as long as it can be established that there is a probable cause. The Fourth Amendment stays because it does not prevent the government to catch the terrorists it simply limits the power of the state to perform unauthorized search and seizure.

There is no need to modify the Fourth Amendment because it guarantees our freedom and yet at the same time it is not blind to the fact that surveillance and intelligence work is a deterrent to terrorism. There is no need to modify the Fourth Amendment because law enforcement people as well as security personnel can still continue doing their work without violating any part of it.

Conclusion

There is a need to understand the balance between the need to gather intelligence to thwart another 9/11 and the tension that occurs when a police officer or even a security guard will search into personal things. But this does not require modifying the U.S. Constitution particularly the Fourth Amendment. The law is very clear there should be no warrantless arrests and there should be no illegal seizures of property etc. As it is, the law is effective in preventing abuse of power by authority figures and yet provides a way for them to search if there is probable cause.

References

Lectric Law Library. (2010). “Fourth Amendment.” Web.

Smith, R. (2008). Fourth Amendment: The Right to Privacy. MN: ABDO Publishing.

Taslitz, A. (2006). Reconstructing the Fourth Amendment. New York: New York University Press.

Click Here To Order Now!