Our Fourth Amendment Rights Are Endangered Like Never Before

By Mitchell Zimmerman |

( Otherwords.org ) – Suppose the police want to get illegal drugs off the streets.

So they begin stopping pedestrians at gunpoint, shoving them against walls, frisking them, and searching their belongings. They also force their way into random houses — including yours, maybe — to search for drugs.

The police would likely seize some drugs and arrest some dealers this way. But the great majority of people frightened, humiliated, and invaded would be entirely innocent.

Can the police do that? The Constitution provides a clear answer: No.

The Fourth Amendment is 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.” It allows only searches with a warrant issued “upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

In short, it means you’ve got a right to be left alone by the police unless they present evidence to a judge showing there’s a strong chance you’ve committed a crime, and the judge issues a warrant.

This was no small matter for the founding fathers. Indeed, the King of England’s defilement of such rights was “one of the driving forces behind the American Revolution itself,” as Chief Justice John Roberts explained in a 2014 ruling. “The Fourth Amendment was the founding generation’s response,” Roberts wrote, to laws “which allowed British officers to rummage through homes in an unrestrained search for evidence of criminal activity.”

Such abuses are no longer ancient history. In the name of fighting “chaos” and an imaginary crime wave, Trump has launched a broad assault on our Fourth Amendment rights — especially by an increasingly militarized ICE.

Take Chicago, for example, where Trump openly proclaimed that the city was “about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR.”

Among other recent abuses, ICE commandos there conducted a military assault on a five-story apartment building. There was no attempt to persuade a judge that anyone in the building — let alone everyone — was likely a criminal.

Without a warrant, TIME reported, ICE agents dropped from Black Hawk helicopters onto the roof and “worked their way through the building, kicking down doors and throwing flash bang grenades, rounding up adults and screaming children alike, detaining them in zip-ties.”

ICE seized everyone in the apartment building. Agents pointed guns in the faces of terrified citizens, handcuffed them, and held them for hours. “Photos of the aftermath,” reported TIME, “show toys and shoes littering the apartment hallways that were left in the chaos as people were pulled from their beds.”

Photo by Richard Iwaki on Unsplash

Trump has told military leaders of his intent to use our “cities as training grounds for our military.” The Chicago apartment building action occurred the same day. Is that what they’re training for?

In recent months, a series of national demonstrations have embodied the theme “No Kings!” Aptly so. One of the complaints listed against King George III in the Declaration of Independence was: “He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.”

The assault in Chicago was what the framers of our Constitution feared — and what they hoped our Bill of Rights could thwart. But a Constitution is not self-defending.

As Trump muses over an unconstitutional third term, summarily executes alleged drug smugglers without a trial or even an arrest, and invokes pretend uprisings to justify federalizing the National Guard, the danger is real and imminent.

But we defeated a King once. And if we all recognize the danger and are prepared to stand up for our democracy, we can do it again.