Readers of this column are familiar with the purpose of that Amendment and the requirements it imposes on the government. The framers intended it to prevent the new government in America from doing to Americans what the British government had done to the colonists under the king. The British government had used general warrants – which are not based on individualized probable cause and do not name the place to be searched or the person or thing to be seized – to authorize British soldiers to search the colonists wherever they pleased for whatever they wished to seize. The reason for the Fourth Amendment requirement of individualized probable cause and specificity in the warrant is to prevent...
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