Essay On The Fourth Amendment

Words: 696
Pages: 3

Technology has significantly changed the way people identify with each other and with their governments. While technology has eased the life of people in their day-to-day endeavors, in the same measure, it has also eased the spread of tourist activities. As a result, governments have found it beneficial to set up agencies to monitor communication over social networks to identify and curtail possible cases of terrorist activities. Despite the positivity attached to this undertaking, it has been criticized because such surveillance breaches the privacy of citizens. Specifically, opponents of the undertaking argue surveillance breaches the fourth amendment as entrenched in the bill of rights. Notwithstanding, a keen inquiry into the motives of …show more content…
Every year, millions of phone numbers are used to make billions of calls to different people all over the world. NSA violating the fourth amendment is not statutory because the amendment is not meant to protect vague and any undefined right to privacy (Shane). Currently, once an American avails information to a third party, privacy ceases. Notably, it is only content of information which is usually protected by the fourth amendment as opposed to the metadata. Instead, the fourth amendment asserts that individuals have the justification to be safe in their populaces only. Additionally, individuals are protected against unreasonable searches and seizures and in case of a search; a warrant must be produced under clear reasons. The constitution is limited to protecting a person within one's premises, one's home and the persons within that area. The amendment does not extend to any information that one avails to the government and third parties such as emails and phone calls made outside one’s home (Herman and Yoo). Therefore, the Fourth Amendment does have loopholes and cannot be used to make verifiable accusations against NSA’s access to the metadata, and information for citizens especially phone calls, messages and the initiation of