| abstract | - The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides that: "The . . . constitutional prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures, has its source in that principle of the common law which finds expression in the maxim that 'every man's house is his castle.' English history discloses [that the] . . . constitutional provisions . . . had their origin 'in the . . . unwarrantable intrusion of executive agents into the houses . . . of individuals . . . .'" This right had a long history in English common law. Sometimes colloquially expressed as “a man’s house is his castle,” it meant that one had a right to expect that one’s home, possessions, and person were safe against arbitrary and forceful intrusion by the King’s agents. At the same time, it recognized that the lawful agents of the state can intrude on private property to execute or enforce the law, so long as they obey certain procedural rules that protect the subject of the search. This protection was understood in 1787 to limit and regulate physical trespass, and the seizing of papers, effects, or "things." However, it gradually came to be seen as a protection of something more. "[T]he principal object of the Fourth Amendment," the U.S. Supreme Court has explained, "is the protection of privacy rather than property.” In addition, "the Fourth Amendment protects people — and not simply 'areas' — against unreasonable searches and seizures." Thus, in its seminal decision in Katz v. United States, the Court held that police officers violated the Fourth Amendment when they conducted a warrantless search using a listening and recording device placed on the outside of a public phone booth to eavesdrop on the conversation of a suspect who had "'justifiably relied' upon . . . [the privacy of the] telephone booth." The Court concluded that the Fourth Amendment protects both a person and that person’s expectation of privacy from warrantless searches or seizures in places which are justifiably believed to be private. The Amendment's operative text can be divided into two clauses. The first clause forbids the government from conducting any search or seizure that is "unreasonable." The second clause prohibits the government from issuing a warrant unless it is obtained based "upon probable cause," is "supported by Oath," and contains particularized descriptions of the "place to be searched" and what is "to be seized." Although "[t]here is nothing in the amendment’s text to suggest that a warrant is required to make a search or seizure reasonable," the U.S. Supreme Court has long since read these two clauses together, generally holding that a warrantless search or seizure is presumptively (if not per se) unreasonable.
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