Fourth Amendment Pros And Cons

“The Fourth Amendment wasn't written for people with nothing to hide any more than the First Amendment was written for people with nothing to say.” The Fourth Amendment was written to ensure the privacy that U.S. citizens are entitled to. Without this amendment, the government would have too much power over people’s personal belongings and information. This protects the right to people’s privacy; and it prevents unreasonable search and seizures. When this country first formed, the Constitution was made as something to follow throughout time, and this makes the Constitution the United States governing law. While there can be some benefits to this amendment, it can also prevent law enforcement from receiving evidence that is crucial to cases.

In 2008, President Bush signed into law The FISA Amendment Act, an act which allowed the government to monitor Americans’ electronic devices. Bush claimed that this Act could help save lives, as mentioned before, but what he did not mention is that this allows the government to conduct surveillance without probable cause. (“How the NSA’s Surveillance Procedures Threaten Americans’ Privacy.”) When people heard about this, they became concerned, and many began to question if the NSA would abuse this power. Although there can be benefits to this act, the biggest argument from citizens is that it invades their privacy. This program can collect data from cell phones and other electronic devices unknowingly even if the owner of the information is not under suspicion for anything against the law. This goes against the part of the amendment where it states that a person is protected from unreasonable search and seizures because they are taking information without consent. With attention to these situations, it goes to show how although the Constitution is the United States governing law, it is not always followed correctly as it should

As mentioned before, the FISA Amendment Act has been playing a big part in proving whether or not the Fourth Amendment is being followed. The Patriot Act amended the FISA Amendment Act, which expanded the monitoring of people's metadata such as phone calls; but not in the way most people would expect. President Obama stated, “...if the intelligence community then actually wants to listen to a phone call, they’ve got to go back to a federal judge, just like they would in a criminal investigation.” Obama also mentioned how the actual content of phone calls are not being listened to, but instead the duration of calls and who they are being made to. (“Transcript: Obama’s Remarks on NSA Controversy”, 2013.) The claimed reasoning behind expanding the government's power with this act is to help try to make connections with terrorist cases and other criminal cases in some instances. Due to the fact that this act is being questioned on its validation, this limits what law enforcement is able to do and is not allowing credible and critical evidence to be obtained. The Fourth Amendment benefits some citizens, but the downfall to this is that is can in fact disable the government and officers from doing their