Applicability
The Fourth Amendment, and the personal rights which it secures, have a long history. The Bill of Rights originally restricted only the federal government, and went through a long initial phase of "judicial dormancy;" in the words of historian Gordon S Wood, "After ratification, most Americans promptly forgot about the first ten amendments to the Constitution." Federal jurisdiction regarding criminal law was narrow until the late 19th century when the Interstate Commerce Act and Sherman Antitrust Act were passed. As federal criminal jurisdiction expanded to include other areas such as narcotics, more questions about the Fourth Amendment came to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Supreme Court responded to these questions by stating on the one hand that the government powers to search and seizure are limited by the Fourth Amendment so that arbitrary and oppressive interference by enforcement officials with the privacy and personal security of individuals are prevented and by outlining on the other hand the fundamental purpose of the amendment as guaranteeing "the privacy, dignity and security of persons against certain arbitrary and invasive acts by officers of the Government, without regard to whether the government actor is investigating crime or performing another function". To protect personal privacy and dignity against unwarranted intrusion by the State is the overriding function of the Fourth Amendment according to the Court in Schmerber v California (1966), because "he security of one's privacy against arbitrary intrusion by the police" is "at the core of the Fourth Amendment" and "basic to a free society." Pointing to historic precedents like Entick v Carrington (1765) and Boyd v United States (1886), the Supreme Court held in Silverman v United States (1961) that the Fourth Amendments core is the right to retreat into his own home and there be free from unreasonable governmental intrusion. With a view to Camara v Municipal Court (1967) the Supreme Court observed in Torres v Madrid (2021) that the focus of the Fourth Amendment is the privacy and security of individuals, not the particular manner of arbitrary invasion by governmental officials. In Mapp v Ohio (1961), the Supreme Court ruled that the Fourth Amendment applies to the states by way of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The effect of the Fourth Amendment is to put the courts of the United States and Federal officials, in the exercise of their power and authority, under limitations and restraints as to the exercise of such power and authority, and to forever secure the people, their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against all unreasonable searches and seizures under the guise of law. This protection reaches all alike, whether accused of crime or not, and the duty of giving to it force and effect is obligatory upon all intrusted under our Federal system with the enforcement of the laws. The tendency of those who execute the criminal laws of the country to obtain conviction by means of unlawful seizures and enforced confessions, the latter often obtained after subjecting accused persons to unwarranted practices destructive of rights secured by the Federal Constitution, should find no sanction in the judgments of the courts, which are charged at all times with the support of the Constitution, and to which people of all conditions have a right to appeal for the maintenance of such fundamental rights.
--Justice William R Day in the Opinion of the Court in Weeks v United States (1914).
