Persuasive Essay On The Fourth Amendment

The development of technology was an unforeseen source of dispute in interpreting and applying the Constitution. Technologic aid in investigating crime and gathering evidence is often up for debate, particularly in the context of the Fourth Amendment. In the case at hand, petitioner Chester Comerford seeks to suppress evidence of his involvement in drug manufacture and distribution on the basis of a violation of his Fourth Amendment rights when the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) made use of warrantless IMSI tracking to establish probable cause for a later warrant. For a number of reasons to be addressed, the FBI did not need a warrant to obtain this information, and thus the evidence shall not be suppressed. The court should uphold Comerford’s conviction on the basis of the following discussion. In analyzing whether or not a Fourth Amendment violation has occurred, it is necessary to determine if a search has occurred in the first place. Within the scope of the Fourth Amendment, a search constitutes an officer examining someone’s person, home, papers, or effects to find evidence of a crime. In other terms, a search occurs when the government violates a subjective expectation of privacy that society readily recognizes as reasonable, as defined in Kyllo v. United States. Additionally, as further discussed in Kyllo v. United States, “obtaining by sense-enhancing technology any information regarding the interior of a home that could not otherwise have been obtained