Fourth Amendment Closets

The fourth amendment protects us from many things, including the seizure of our property and possessions and unnecessary frisking. It was created to prevent the government and its branches from unlawfully violating privacy, and that’s how it should work, theoretically. Traditionally, a violation of our Fourth Amendment rights involved a physical invasion, like the seizure of papers or personal items, without a warrant. However, in this day and age, officers rarely need to physically violate this right to gain incriminating evidence. Many government agencies have a few skeletons in their closets when it comes to this. With the introduction of new technology in recent years, the government can discreetly capture evidence from electronic files,

United States, tells a tale very similar to the one of Fremont Weeks. Dennys Rodriguez was pulled over at a traffic stop and held for an excessive amount of time. When the police pulled him over, he checked Weeks’ license and issued a warning for the fitful driving and requested to walk his drug-sniffing dog around the car. Rodriguez, refused. Nevertheless, the officer continued to detain him until a backup officer appeared. With the arrival of the second officer, the original officer went to retrieve his dog. While sniffing, the dog detected drugs of some sort. Rodriguez took this to court, and while his claim that the K-9 search was an unreasonable seizure was denied, it is still an impacting case. Edward Snowden is a world renowned whistle blower. He worked with the NSA, doing IT work. During this time, he noticed the depth of the NSA’s constant surveillance. During his time working for Booz Allen, Mr. Snowden started to make copies of classified documents and files, all of which he found disturbing and invasive. These documents were full of the information behind the NSA’s national surveillance, and the amount of files he had extracted was outstanding. He told his supervisor he was taking a leave of absence for medicinal reasons, and took the smuggled information with him. Snowden scheduled to meet with journalists from The Guardian after traveling to China. A few weeks later, these documents were released by The Guardian, and Edward Snowden was the reliable source. Now, people all over knew that the United States Government was spying on its own people through messages, internet searches, browser history, smart T.V’s and many many more. This case is ongoing, as he seeks asylum in other countries. This newfound information raises the question, is Mr. Snowden a traitor, or did he save us all by “blowing the whistle” to warn us about the unconstitutional collection of our private possessions protected by