The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was written in order to keep the government from invading the right to be left alone--today known as the right to privacy. The Framers who wrote the Constitution, and Jefferson and his colleagues who insisted on the Fourth amendment among others, had suffered grievously at the hands of the British king and his soldiers.
When King George III and Parliament were looking for new ways to extract revenue from the colonists, they devised the Stamp Act. This legislation required that on every piece of paper in the homes of every colonist there must appear a stamp issued by and purchased from the British government. This applied to all books, letters, financial and legal documents, even to pamphlets to be distributed and posters to be nailed to trees.
Question: How did the king and the Parliament who were 3,000 miles away and across the sea, know if colonists had the stamps on the papers in their homes?
Answer: Parliament enacted the Writs of Assistance Act. This legislation permitted British soldiers to write their own search warrants in which they authorized themselves to enter the homes of the colonists ostensibly to look for the stamps.
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5 comments:
Well, at least they used warrants, bogus or not. Today, they can't bother with worrisome details like the law....the FBI, Homeland Security (when they aren't busy confiscating fossils), NSA, Treasury agents, and the CIA break into homes EVERY DAY without warrants. And THAT is perfectly legal, thanks to the Patriot Act. The NDAA then says if they find something (or not) they can "detain" you, not tell anyone they have done that (including your family), "evaluate" you and imprison you in a secret prison. Thats the facts, jack. Still cheering because YOU aren't doing anything wrong? Problem is, YOU don't get to define what is "wrong" -- they do. You'll see. Just keep cheering. Or voting. End result is the same.
Hate to agree with you on this one, Imclain, but you really nailed it here. And the sheeple move along with the herd...
...wish somebody would leave me a loan!
For the record, there is no right to privacy. It's not in the Constitution and that is not at all what the 4th amendment is about.
i personally think we ought to add a privacy amendment so that it's clear.
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
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