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When asked about polarization between justices, Ginsburg said that liberals who criticize the conservative Scalia forget that he "is one of the most pro-Fourth Amendment judges on the court." The Fourth Amendment protects U.S. citizens from unreasonable searches and seizures. Here is an excerpt from that interview:

WSJ: How deeply polarized is the court?

GINSBURG: [Justice Antonin] Scalia is often criticized by people who would not be labeled conservative. Liberals dont count his Fourth Amendment cases or the confrontation clause cases. He is one of the most pro-Fourth Amendment judges on the court.

WSJ: Not more pro-Fourth Amendment than you.

GINSBURG: No. But weve been together in all the confrontation cases and many of the Fourth Amendment cases. For example, that wonderful, wonderful one with the GPS, and the dog sniff cases.

The "GPS case" was United States v. Jones, in which both justices sided with the courts 2012 ruling that police violated the Fourth Amendment when they attached a GPS device to track a vehicle. In the Florida v. Jardines case, Ginsburg and Scalia both sided with the courts 2013 ruling that police officers use of a drug-sniffing dog at a persons front porch constituted a search under the Fourth Amendment.

In both of those cases, it was Scalia who delivered the Supreme Courts opinion.

There are other recent examples where Scalia has demonstrated pro-Fourth Amendment opinions, as the Los Angeles Times has reported. That includes Scalias opposition to the Supreme Courts majority opinion that permits police to use anonymous tips to stop cars on highways. And in 2013, he fiercely dissented to the Courts ruling that police can routinely swab for DNA from arrested people.

Recently, the Supreme Court has considered whether police can search the digital contents of cellphones without warrants. In reporting on this case, a number of news outlets noted that Scalia has become a champion of the Fourth Amendment.

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Liberal Supreme Court Justice Comes To The Defense Of Scalia

Pennsylvania drivers once had a choice when faced with a police request to search their cars: Consent or make officers get a warrant.

But the state Supreme Court has ruled police in Pennsylvania no longer need warrants to search private vehicles if they suspect evidence of a crime inside.

The decision broadens the power of police to search cars without a judge first deciding whether they have a valid reason to do so. The practice was previously allowed only when officers could show the evidence might be destroyed or moved if they waited.

It also brings Pennsylvania into line with a majority of states that have adopted a federal exception to the Fourth Amendment's protection against warrantless searches when it comes to vehicles a legal doctrine that grew out of the Prohibition-era war on bootleggers.

Justice Seamus P. McCaffery, who wrote Tuesday's 4-2 majority opinion, said the change is needed to remedy decades of "fractured jurisprudence" that have left police and prosecutors with little guidance.

Pennsylvania courts had largely followed federal courts, allowing warrantless vehicle searches until 1995. That year the state Supreme Court reversed itself in a series of decisions that warrantless searches of cars were illegal if the officers had time to get a judge's approval.

"Accordingly, it remains difficult, if not impossible, for police officers in the field to determine how [the state Supreme Court] would rule in motor vehicle search-and-seizure cases, the circumstances of which are almost endlessly variable," wrote McCaffery, a former Philadelphia police officer.

Chief Justice Ronald D. Castile and Justice J. Michael Eakin joined McCaffery's opinion. Justice Thomas G. Saylor filed his own opinion, saying that although he had reservations, he joined McCaffery "for the sake of certainty and consistency."

In a strongly worded dissent joined by Justice Max Baer, Justice Debra McCloskey Todd said the majority "eviscerated the strong privacy protections" the state Constitution provides motorists and "heedlessly contravenes over 225 years of unyielding protection against unreasonable search and seizure which our people have enjoyed as their birthright."

The decision stems from a Philadelphia drug case in which Sheim Gary was stopped Jan. 15, 2010, by police who believed the tint of his sport utility vehicle's windows was too dark. The officers smelled marijuana coming from the vehicle and when the police asked, Gary admitted he had some weed.

Originally posted here:
Pennsylvania Supreme Court rules police don't need warrants to search cars

What the final clause of the Fourth Amendment means in interpreting the government's rights

An NSA facility in Utah (Reuters)

A secret opinion of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court recently released to the public is a reminder that the NSA is still conducting mass surveillance on millions of Americans, even if that fact has faded from the headlines. This would seem to violate the Fourth Amendment if you read its plain text. So how is it that FISA-court judges keep signing off on these sweeping orders?

They base their rulings on Smith v. Maryland, a case the Supreme Court decided decades ago. Before we examine the glaring flaw in the jurisprudence of the FISA-court judges applying it to mass surveillance, here's a brief refresher on that case.

Smith began with a 1976 house robbery. After the break-in, the victim started getting obscene phone calls from a man identifying himself as the robber.

On one occasion, the caller asked that she step out on her front porch; she did so, and saw the 1975 Monte Carlo she had earlier described to police moving slowly past her home. On March 16, police spotted a man who met McDonoughs description driving a 1975 Monte Carlo in her neighborhood. By tracing the license plate number, police learned that the car was registered in the name of petitioner, Michael Lee Smith. The next day, the telephone company, at police request, installed a pen register at its central offices to record the numbers dialed from the telephone at petitioners home. The police did not get a warrant or court order before having the pen register installed. The register revealed that on March 17 a call was placed from petitioners home to McDonoughs phone. On the basis of this and other evidence, the police obtained a warrant to search petitioners residence.

The Supreme Court ruled that the defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy for numbers dialed from his house because a third party, the telephone company, kept a record of all calls dialed, as is commonly understood by phone users. The NSA argues that, per this precedent, they can obtain the call records of every American, even if the vast majority of us are suspected of no wrongdoing.

Georgetown Professor Randy Barnett explains why judges relying on Smith to legitimize mass surveillance are actually going far beyond the precedent that the Supreme Court established. A key difference between what the Court allowed in Smith and what the NSA is doing: Particularity.

Recall the text of the Fourth Amendment, and especially the part that I've rendered in bold:

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.

Read this article:
The Shaky Legal Foundation of NSA Surveillance on Americans

Rand Paul On The Issues Government Surveillance The Fourth Amendment
watch latest news daily update new update galobal ecnomic 2014.

By: saba aslam

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Rand Paul On The Issues Government Surveillance & The Fourth Amendment - Video

Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution
This is a synthesized speech reading of the Wikipedia article "Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution" and is intended primarily for blind and vi...

By: Frank Eckstein

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Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution - Video