The Constitution Today: Fourth Amendment

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The Bill of Rights

The National Archives

The Constitution Today: Fourth Amendment

The Constitution Today: The 4th Amendment protects Americans against unreasonable searches and seizures. How modern technology is testing its boundaries.

The 4th Amendment was added to the United States Constitution in 1791 as part of the Bill of Rights. It protects American citizens from unreasonable searches and seizures by the government. In recent years, law enforcement is using new technologies like global positioning systems and video surveillance to fight crime. Critics say 4th Amendment protections are eroding in the process. They believe Americans have a fundamental right to privacy-- even in public places. Today, as part of our ongoing “Constitution Today” series, we examine the origins of the 4th Amendment and how digital technology is testing its boundaries like never before.

Guests

Jeffrey Rosen

professor of law at The George Washington University; legal affairs editor at The New Republic.

Michael Quinn

president and executive director of James Madison's Montpelier

Scott Fredericksen

managing partner, Foley & Lardner, LLP; former federal prosecutor and Independent Counsel

Comments

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Grady, the fact that you as a black man and all black people are not a zealous supporters of the second amendment makes no sense considering black history. The political party you support that used to hang people who looked just like you also had and have no problem denying you the right of gun ownership to protect yourself.

November 2, 2011 - 6:42 pm

Did I actually hear former federal prosecutor, Scott Fredericksen, disparage the right side of the brain? His off the cuff remark, "This is not some wild-eyed, right-brained approach," is not only sad but woefully misguided. As a body-mind therapist and educator, I deal every day with the damaging effects of naive aggrandizement of brain functions that are popularly considered to be the domain of the "left brain," namely, logic, reason, and direct fact retrieval. Mr. Fredericksen displayed a regrettable lack of understanding of brain lateralization. Worse, though, his flippant denigration of popularized "right brain" functions, such as creativity, emotional processing and global thinking was thoughtless, at best and damaging, in the long run. In general, it can be said that the framers of the Constitution of the United States enjoyed a healthy integration of right and left sides of their brains, evidenced in their abilities to process novel ideas, argue their ideals, formulate and express solutions to imagined future problems using spoken and written language, all the while imagining a positive outcome, bringing meaning to their efforts. I believe our culture would benefit from a renewed appreciation of those aspects of our intellectual functioning that served our founding fathers so well.

November 2, 2011 - 6:47 pm

Monte,
Regarding Black History.....I can't let you off the hook on this one.

I hear this charge leveled all the time about how the Democrat(ic).. (( I know how much you right wingers hate the "ic" a the end of the name)).. party was the one that lynched, abused and persecuted black people.

While historically correct....the Republican Party was the party of Lincoln and after the Civil War you could not get elected dog catcher in the deep south as a Republican.

Not until after Lyndon Johnson and the Civil Rights movement of the 1960's. As soon as the Democratic Party began supporting blacks the white population deserted it in droves.

Now, I am not a Democrat, not even close, but the south is solidly Republican now (and I'm sure as hell not one of them)....where do you suppose all those White Democrats went? Strom Thurmond ring a bell?

They just didn't disappear....they became Republicans!

"Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it".

November 2, 2011 - 7:16 pm

Democrats fought to expand slavery while Republicans fought to end it.
Democrats passed those discriminatory Black Codes and Jim Crow laws.
Democrats supported and passed the Missouri Compromise to protect slavery.
Democrats supported and passed the Kansas Nebraska Act to expand slavery.
Democrats supported and backed the Dred Scott Decision.
Democrats opposed educating blacks and murdered our teachers.
Democrats fought against anti-lynching laws.
Democrat Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia, is well known for having been a “Kleagle” in the Ku Klux Klan.
Democrat Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia, personally filibustered the Civil Rights Act of 1964 for 14 straight hours to keep it from passage.
Democrats passed the Repeal Act of 1894 that overturned civil right laws enacted by Republicans.
Democrats declared that they would rather vote for a “yellow dog” than vote for a Republican, because the Republican Party was known as the party for blacks.
Democrat President Woodrow Wilson, reintroduced segregation throughout the federal government immediately upon taking office in 1913.
Democrat President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first appointment to the Supreme Court was a life member of the Ku Klux Klan, Sen. Hugo Black, Democrat of Alabama.
Democrat President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s choice for vice president in 1944 was Harry Truman, who had joined the Ku Klux Klan in Kansas City in 1922.
Democrat President Franklin D. Roosevelt resisted Republican efforts to pass a federal law against lynching.
Democrat President Franklin D. Roosevelt opposed integration of the armed forces.
Democrat Senators Sam Ervin, Albert Gore, Sr. and Robert Byrd were the chief opponents of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

November 2, 2011 - 7:19 pm

Democrats supported and backed Judge John Ferguson in the case of Plessy v Ferguson.
Democrats supported the School Board of Topeka Kansas in the case of Brown v The Board of Education of Topeka Kansas.
Democrat public safety commissioner Eugene “Bull” Connor, in Birmingham, Ala., unleashed vicious dogs and turned fire hoses on black civil rights demonstrators.
Democrats were who Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the other protesters were fighting.
Democrat Georgia Governor Lester Maddox “brandished an ax hammer to prevent blacks from patronizing his restaurant.
Democrat Governor George Wallace stood in front of the Alabama schoolhouse in 1963, declaring there would be segregation forever.
Democrat Arkansas Governor Faubus tried to prevent desegregation of Little Rock public schools.
Democrat Senator John F. Kennedy voted against the 1957 Civil rights Act.
Democrat President John F. Kennedy opposed the 1963 March on Washington by Dr. King.
Democrat President John F. Kennedy, had Dr. King wiretapped and investigated by the FBI.
Democrat President Bill Clinton’s mentor was U.S. Senator J. William Fulbright, an Arkansas Democrat and a supporter of racial segregation.
Democrat President Bill Clinton interned for J. William Fulbright in 1966-67.
Democrat Senator J. William Fulbright signed the Southern Manifesto opposing the Supreme Court’s

November 2, 2011 - 7:20 pm

Senator J. William Fulbright joined with the Dixiecrats in filibustering the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1964.
Democrat Senator J. William Fulbright voted against the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
Southern Democrats opposed desegregation and integration.
Democrats opposed:
The Emancipation Proclamation
The 13th Amendment
The 14th Amendment
The 15th Amendment
The Reconstruction Act of 1867
The Civil Rights of 1866
The Enforcement Act of 1870
The Forced Act of 1871
The Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871
The Civil Rights Act of 1875
The Freeman Bureau
The Civil Rights Act of 1957
The Civil Rights Act of 1960
The United State Civil Rights Commission

November 2, 2011 - 7:21 pm

And where are the southern Democrats now Monte.....they've become Republicans.

Everything you site here is historic.

I rest my case.

November 2, 2011 - 11:22 pm

I'm not sure who said it, but one of your guests commented that those objecting to warrantless searches have not worked in law enforcement and that probable cause does not come with a case, it is developed. He reasoned that since probable did not exist ab initio, instead of waiting until the investigation had developed more so that probable cause existed, the warrant requirement was inapplicable. In other words, the syllogism goes like this:
1. the Constitution requires a warrant based upon probable cause before a search may be conducted;
2. no probable cause exists;
3. therefore, eliminate the warrant requirement to justify the search.

To me, this is a "butt-backwards" interpretation of the Fourth Amendment.

November 3, 2011 - 10:46 am

I thought this segment was very interesting and very relevant. I wonder however what the guests on the show think about how the 4th amendment applies to the Occupy Wall Street rallies and police conduct. The police have been taking drums and equipment away from protestors at will. Why is this not considered a 4th amendment violation?

November 3, 2011 - 2:11 pm

I served in the US Army, standing up for our American way of life, only to come home and have the 61st District Court in Grand Rapids not let me see a magistrate over a contestable ticket (constitutional right to due process of law). When I questioned the system, they perjured and fixed my trial (constitutional right to a fair trial). Then the same corrupt judge in a small claims case failed to call my case that was on the docket, costing me another $500 (theft with a pen).

The Grand Rapids City Commission, the ACLU, and the Grand Rapids Press looked the other way.

People need to start standing up for their rights and getting websites to expose corruption. 61st district court corruption.com has the facts- you can vote, comment, and check out the "Modern Perspective Theory".

November 26, 2011 - 10:53 am

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